This year, real-time engagement with customers will be as important as ever. With technology becoming more and more advanced, customers will expect companies to be able to provide instant support and solutions to their problems.
If a company is not able to provide this level of customer service, it will probably lose business to its competitors who are taking the initiative to engage with their customers in real time. This makes having a customer retention strategy extremely crucial to the success of your business in 2022.
What Is Real-Time Engagement?
Real-time engagement is the ability to provide customers with an outlet to voice their concerns in the middle of an experience, then providing support and solutions to those problems in real-time. This is most commonly done through channels like chatbots and social media – but in recent years companies are providing new solutions for customers.
Why Are Businesses Spending Millions On Consumer Engagement?
Ensures that your business is customer centric
Real-Time consumer engagement is getting a message to the correct person, at the exact moment they need it most. Whether they are having issues with a particular product or service, being able to offer a solution in crisis is extremely critical. Salesforce reports that 89% of customers want businesses to have communication channels for them to interact with, and another 75% assume enterprises will be able to predict what they need before it happens (which isn’t always true).
This plays an important role when running a nurture-to feedback loop, like marketing automation workflows or social media posts. Having a feel for your ideal consumer / persona can assist with the set up in a big way. The foundation is laid and you are able to focus on different points in the customer journey through re-engagement workflow or social media posts catered to finding out where a particular consumer may be struggling (i.e. A LinkedIn poll post).
Increases Customer Retention and Loyalty
According to a recent survey, 69% of consumers stayed loyal to their brand because of healthy customer service and engagement. Happy customers are more likely to stick around, spend more money, and tell their friends about your company. By simply offering a channel for engagement you can retain current customers and gain new brand advocates. Making a customer feel seen and/or heard, should be a top priority. At the end of the day – they are ultimately what help propel your business the most, enabling different methods of customer communication is a key factor in increasing customer loyalty.
Creates Evangelists for your brand
A Brand evangelist is a person who absolutely loves your brand, and is willing to rave about it to anyone who will listen. An effective consumer engagement strategy allows early adopters to have direct contact with your business to settle negative experiences, and build trust in your brand’s mission. These early adopters can now speak to the care of your brand to new customers, and act as evangelists promoting your brand to new audiences.
Improves the customer experience
Real time customer engagement allows your support team to quickly identify consumers who are having negative experiences, then offer solutions or provide support to change that negative customer experience to a positive one. The goal of customer engagement is to maintain positive experiences and encourage customers to return to your establishment. When customers have a positive experience, they are more likely to recommend your company to their friends and family.
How Can Your Business Achieve Real-Time Engagement?
There are many ways that your business can utilize a customer engagement strategy to achieve real-time engagement with customers. Here are a few methods that businesses are using today:
1. Use chatbots to provide instant support to customers: Chatbots are a great way to provide instant support to customers. They are simple to install and can be used to answer customer questions and solve problems.
2. Use social media to respond to customer complaints: Millions of consumers are active on social media every day, voicing their complaints within the comment section. Having a dedicated Social Media Manager who is equipped with proper Engagement SOPs can help customers feel heard and resolve issues other customers may face.
3. Train employees on how to provide real-time support: Employees need to be trained on how to provide real-time support to customers. This includes responding quickly to customer inquiries and solving problems with genuine concern for a resolution.
4. Use technology to track customer interactions: A Customer Retention Software like Retention 360 offers solutions to help. Using survey tools to gather customer feedback, social media review tools to aggregate feedback online & CRM tools that prioritize negative complaints, allow your team to quickly and easily manage your company’s engagement strategy.
5. Respond to customer inquiries promptly: It is important to respond to customer inquiries as quickly as possible. This will show that you are responsive and give you the ability to resolve issues in the moment – changing your customer’s experience before they run to Yelp or Social Media.
6. Leverage the power of AI: Artificial intelligence can be used to provide real-time support to customers. It can be used to identify sentiment and intent of customer inquiries – equipping your customer support team with vital information to resolve issues. Retention360’s AI tools not only provides sentiment analysis, but also automatically responds to feedback based on the level of concern.
7. Use customer feedback to improve your customer experience: Customer feedback by way of various methods helps improve the customer experience journey. It is a direct line to a person who uses your product/service telling you exactly what they believe needs to be fixed. This includes using feedback to make changes to your products and services and improving the customer support process.
8. Use marketing automation workflows: Marketing automation workflows can be used to send targeted messages to customers based on their interactions with your brand.
9. Use SMS messages: SMS messages can be used to send targeted messages to customers based on their interactions with your brand. However, keep in mind that installing various touch points of communicating with customers will require a strategic engagement process across all marketing channels.
10. Monitor customer behavior: It is important to monitor how customers are interacting with your brand and make changes accordingly.
Final Thoughts
The importance of real-time engagement with customers will only continue to grow in the years ahead. Companies that are able to achieve real-time engagement with their customers will be more successful than those that are not. In a time where all of us have an abundance of choices, you need to be able to make sure you separate yourself from the competition, so it is your company that is chosen. Real-time engagement will not be the only thing to propel you to success, but ultimately will be a big help. There are many ways that your business can achieve real-time engagement with customers, and it is important to use a variety of methods to reach your target audience.
By using the methods listed above, your business can ensure that it’s providing a positive customer experience that will encourage customers to come back and do business with you again.
A Customer retention software like Retention360 can help your business to achieve real-time engagement with customers. It can be used to track customer interactions, identify problem areas and a lot more. Contact Retention360 today for more information.
