Overview

Customer Engagement is the emotional connection between a customer and a brand. 

Providing an excellent customer experience is key in driving customer engagement and this goes beyond offering customers good prices and standard customer service. 

Engaged customers are a valuable asset to a business. 

It is a key driver for sales, customer advocacy and customer retention – i.e. those customers who are highly engaged with your brand will buy more, promote you and demonstrate greater loyalty. 

Community

Think of the opportunities you have to support your communities and grow your brand value in an entirely different way.

Consumers will remember brands who have done good, those looking after their staff and the community will come out on top.

Think about what you can do, however small, to support your community. If you have production capacity could this be used to support any national efforts?

If you’re a consumer facing business could you support local charities, good causes or hospitals with a donation of product or reward a local hero with a voucher or treat via an online competition?

If you operate a service, do you and your teams have expertise and skills which could help others?

Kindness is king and even the smallest good deeds can make a difference.

Developing a Customer Engagement Strategy

A customer engagement strategy enables a business to maximise the opportunities to interact with customers (beyond transactions) and build lasting relationships with them. 

Key questions to ask when setting your customer engagement strategy include:

• Why would a customer choose to shop with you over a competitor, especially if price or product was removed from the equation?
• How does your brand make your customers feel? 
• When customers have interacted with your business, how have you made them feel? 

 Planning your Customer Engagement Strategy 

• Define your customer journey map – know who your customers are and where they come from in terms of what is driving them to your brand (advertising, word of mouth, social media).
• Identify all touchpoints and how each performs – How your customers interact with you helps identify customer engagement platforms and potential opportunities.
• Offer a personalised service – This demonstrates that you put each customer and their personal needs first, enabling you to build individual relationships with them. 
• Observe their behaviour – Analytics from your website and online marketing help better understand and fulfil your customers’ requirements. Look at the bounce rate on your website to identify improvements and review the experience of customers who do not make repeat purchases.
• Take regular customer feedback. Regular customer satisfaction surveys help you understand customers’ expectations. Send a short inquiry to churned customers. Find out what went wrong and seek to fix it.

A positive customer journey map could look like this:

1. E-Shot to Customer
2. Clicks to social media page
3. Follows your social media page (perhaps likes photos)
4. Visits website – Makes purchase (may not be immediate)
5. Gives positive feedback
6. Purchases again (where relevant)
7. Recommends to friends 

It’s therefore important to review each touchpoint and identify and improve any areas where customer may be ‘dropping off’. E.g. if your website order process is too complex this may deter customers, resulting in them dropping out. Even if most of your touchpoints deliver excellent service, it could only take one to turn off a customer.