What are effective tools for great customer engagements?

With so many customers to keep happy, often with only a couple of seconds of their attention, the customer experience has never been more important. Customer engagements are an important part of customer experience, may it be a startup or an MNC. Customer Engagement can be defined as the process of building an emotional connection with customers. 

To learn more about customer engagements, click here.

The objective of any customer engagement is to attract customers by building meaningful relationships. If you want to build an emotional connection with anyone, you have to make them feel special. From a business’s perspective, nothing says that we care for more than a personalised message.

For personalised engagements, it is essential to ensure the right message at the right time through the right channel. Following are some of the key tools you need for exceptional customer engagements:

• Precise segmentation
• Insightful Analytics
• Omnichannel Approach
• Personalised Recommendations
• Engagement throughout the customer journey
• Exceptional Conversational Support

Segmentation

Precise segmentation is the most important strategy for great customer engagement. Segmentation is the process of dividing a market or group up into smaller, more manageable groupings, with each group having a specific characteristic. Customer segmentation is imperative in understanding the customer and identifying their needs. The aim is to engage with each segment differently to maximise customer value.

Segmentation can be done based on traditional methods like geography or demography. It can also be done according to behavioural aspects of customers as below:

• Segmenting by customer lifetime value: To engage with a customer segment, you need to know their LTV. Low LTV customers are not worth the same time to manage as high LTV customers.
• Segmenting by third-party data Interests: Customers have certain interests and hobbies which will drive their purchases. If the company knows what these interests are, then the company can engage with the customer better.
• Segmenting by customer type: There are many different customer types. Some are more valuable than others.

Analytics

Data analysis is imperative in achieving a great customer experience. Data is an invaluable tool that can help businesses achieve success. When paired with the right tools and analysis, it enables businesses to increase sales and satisfy customers. Done right, it can help businesses identify and understand not just broad trends, but also individual customer wants, needs and desires. Analytics allows businesses to create targeted campaigns, deliver personalized messages, reduce bounce and churn rates, improve customer retention, and much more — making it a vital part of the customer experience.   

Omnichannel approach

It is essential to have an omnichannel approach for every department to engage with customers. A typical customer approaches you through various channels over the period. It’s imperative that you not only provide him exceptional experience on the channels that he approaches you but also create a seamless experience across all channels even when he switches. Channels are growing by the day and the most popular among them are:

• Emails
• WhatsApp
• SMS
• Push Notifications
• Popups
• In-app messages

Personalised Recommendations

Be aware of the different needs of your customers. It is essential to have a data-driven customer workflow to improve service and support. Customers need to feel special and know that you care about them and their interests. Personalised recommendations will help the customer know what is best for them and how to make the most of their form.

Engagement throughout the customer journey

Engaging the customer throughout the journey is essential to making the customer feel valued. It helps you establish contact and build a connection, which is good for building trust and understanding a customer’s needs.

From instant messaging to live chat, companies can reach out to shoppers at their convenience and solve their problems, smooth over any hiccups along the way, and ultimately make companies feel valued. Instant messaging enables customers to receive answers in real-time and can significantly reduce cart abandonment.

Conversational Support

A single mistake can have serious repercussions. In the age of social media, any complaint about a product or service can be spread like wildfire, doing irreparable damage to a brand’s reputation.

You must be able to respond quickly to customer enquiries and complaints. Customers want to know that they are being heard and understood. Providing a resolution to any customer service issues is crucial in retaining both the customer that experienced the problem and the prospect who was considering the product or service when they were searching. 

Conversational support can be provided by various methods. The right one for any conversation is the one that suits the customer.

• Chatbot
• Live-chat
• WhatsApp chat
• Phone call
• Audio/video call

Investing in customer support will make all the difference in attracting, engaging, and retaining customers. Conversational tools like online chat allow businesses to convert browsers into buyers and better understand customer needs — crucial to building relationships that grow brand loyalty.

To learn more about conversational support, click here.

Conclusion

The human factor should never be overlooked. People are the key and the ultimate differentiator. Customer engagements are more than just promoting sales, it’s about building and maintaining an emotional connection whereby the customer has a view of the brand and is committed to the relationship. This entails understanding the customer and what their needs are and adjusting the communications accordingly.

Hippo is the one-stop solution for your customer engagements as it provides all the above-mentioned tools to you in one dashboard. Moreover, it can automate your whole strategy so that you can focus on creativity and not the processes. You can sign up for Hippo’s free demo and avail a 14-days free trial without any credit card.