In the connected world, customer engagement can make or break your business.

• 86% of customers are willing to pay a premium for a superior customer experience.
• 83% of customers expect immediate responsiveness once they contact a company.
• 66% of customers want companies to understand their unique pains and needs.

All this shows that online customers expect a lot from their digital interactions with brands. Developing a solid customer engagement strategy that delivers on these expectations is essential to ensuring long-term growth for your brand. This is because happy customers equal referrals, and nothing beats word-of-mouth when it comes to great marketing. Research shows that customers who heard about a brand from a friend are 5x more profitable than those who arrived via paid ads. What’s more, customers are 90% more likely to engage and buy from a brand that’s been recommended by someone they trust.

There is no one best approach to developing a solid customer engagement strategy. It’s molded through each and every interaction that you have with your customer. From email communication, to phone calls, live video chats and customer support, customer engagement happens across every touchpoint. Investing the time, effort and resources required to deliver a consistent experience that keeps customers engaged and feeling positive about your brand is crucial to your success.

You can gauge your current and future levels of customer engagement by looking at:

• Social media. If you see a spike in positive engagement across your social media channels -- meaning more likes and comments  -- then you’re definitely doing something right. Most social media platforms provide businesses with some level of dashboard analytics that can be used to monitor and track engagement over time. 
• User generated content. When you see increasing amounts of positive reviews of your products and services you can be sure that your customers are happy with the level of service you provide. 
• Sources of new customers. Another great way to gauge engagement is by checking whether new business is coming from referrals. Happy customers will tell their friends and family about your business, and when you start seeing new business arriving from referrals it’s probably because engagement levels are high.
• Customer surveys. Short, infrequent customers surveys are an effective way of gauging engagement without being over intrusive. Set up a periodical customer survey that you can send out over social media or email marketing. Try to keep the survey short and to the point, no more than 3 or 4 multiple choice questions that can be finished in just a minute. Make sure that you use the same questions each time you send out the survey so that you can track improvement over time. 

We’ve put together a list of actions you can take to improve your customer engagement levels:

• Develop customer personas. Understand who your customers are, why they’re buying from you and how they find you.
• Map out touchpoints. Identify the channels through which your customers interact with you.
• Leverage data. Make sure you’ve got your analytics up and running across every touchpoint so that you can get a better understanding of customer needs.
• Personalize. Leverage the latest technologies to deliver a highly personalized service so that your customers understand that you know and value them.
• Embrace feedback. Do everything you can to get your customers to give you feedback regarding their levels of satisfaction and steps that you can take to improve your offering and experience.

Consolto Helps You Increase Customer Engagement

Consolto’s live video chat platform was built to help online businesses develop better relationships with their customers. Live chat is a powerful mechanism to ensure that you meet customer expectations regarding responsiveness, availability and transparency. It connects your brand to a real, human face and ensures that questions and objections are handled promptly and by the right experts. 

The platform includes a suite of complementary features that helps you craft a more welcoming, positive experience for your customers when they interact with your brand. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Your online customers won’t give your brand another thought if you don’t manage to deliver a great first impression. Use Consolto’s customizable welcome messages to ensure that you’re greeting your customers in a warm, welcoming manner.

Get as much info as you can before you start chatting. Knowing who your customers are and how your services and products can solve their pains is key. Consolto gives you the ability to ask your customers screening questions before they begin chatting with you. That way, you can ask all the right questions and come prepared to each and every engagement.  

Learn your customer behavior. Consolto provides real-time, in-depth analytics regarding how your customers engage with your website -- page views, time on page and more. This data offers powerful insights that you can use to deliver more engaging, personalized interactions that focus on the needs of the customer from the get-go.

Know your customers. Take notes, record interactions and easily access critical information gleaned from previous interactions in Consolto’s cloud-based mini-CRM. Make sure you never miss a follow-up and save important information so that you can review it before your next interaction and delight your customers by showing them how well you know them.