What Is Customer Engagement? How Can You Increase It?

Vũ Khôi

Author at Wotech Electronics Blog

Customer engagement is one of the key activities in driving a business's revenue and profit growth. Why does this activity deliver so much value, and what should you do to engage customers as quickly and cost-effectively as possible?

What Is Customer Engagement?

Customer engagement refers to communication activities between a business, its sales staff, and its customer service staff and buyers, aimed at achieving various objectives.

Businesses need to prioritize customer engagement because it is the very tool that helps them understand consumers better, reach them more effectively, and find ways to improve their products and services continuously. Beyond that, engagement helps businesses retain customers, gain more loyal customers, and generate more potential customers through referrals from existing ones. Statistics also show that engaging with current customers not only brings in significant revenue but also costs less than converting new ones. For this activity to deliver strong results, you should use some tools to make managing and engaging with people easier. Below are some ways to use the most popular customer engagement tools.

How to Engage Customers on Facebook

Facebook is a social network familiar to many people, not only in Vietnam but also in many countries around the world. A great number of people treat Facebook as their primary tool for interacting with the world around them, keeping up with the latest news, and talking with family and friends. So it is a useful app if your business wants to communicate more with customers. To engage both potential and loyal customers, staff who manage your Facebook page can consider the following solutions:

Choose the right time slots

You need to pick golden time slots to post so you reach more social media users. According to statistics, posts published on Facebook between 7pm and 9pm on public holidays get more engagement than at other times, because during those hours people want to relax, browse Facebook to chat with friends, and catch up on news. So make sure to prepare your content and images in advance for those time slots so you can post on schedule.

Monitor your competitors' activity

Follow competitors who have succeeded in using Facebook to engage customers, and learn from how they write content, structure their posts, create slogans, and time their publications. Learning tips from competitors in the same industry is a good idea, but you need to apply them selectively. However, learn in a civilized, mutually respectful way to avoid outright idea theft and unnecessary conflicts on social media.

Image quality

In addition, to attract more viewers, businesses need to pay attention to the quality of the images they publish. Blurry, low-resolution images will make customers judge the product's quality poorly and reduce engagement between them and the brand. When taking photos, you need to find the right setting and angle to highlight the beauty and quality of the product. You don't need an expensive camera — a smartphone is enough to create attractive, appealing photos if you put in the effort. At the same time, you can use apps to edit and take better photos, such as B612, Foodie, and so on.

Diversify your post content

More and more businesses are applying the solutions above to engage customers. This makes the competition for viewers' attention increasingly fierce. So how can a business stand out and get customers to pay more attention? By diversifying post topics with useful and interesting content. Let's look at the types of posts below!

Create user-generated content

User Generated Content, or UGC, is content created by customers — people who have used or are using the product/service — rather than by the business. UGC content comes in many forms: it can be reviews, feedback, ratings, images, or video reviews of the business's products and services.

With its ability to drive purchase behavior, build trust with new customers, and make products feel more authentic, UGC content solves the communication challenge businesses face in an era where users are more selective and "picky" when making purchases. Below are some ways to create UGC content that businesses can consider:

• Reviews and feedback from users of the product/service:

This is the most common form of UGC content today. Every business and store wants to collect as many positive reviews as possible, because they validate the product/service quality for potential customers. So to encourage users to leave reviews, businesses should offer incentives such as: a 10%–15% discount on the next purchase; a free gift; or a voucher/gift card when customers leave feedback. This approach is very popular with e-commerce platforms like Shopee and Lazada!

• Run creative minigames and content design contests

Many brands have organized design and content creation contests to attract attention and get customers more connected to the brand. In these contests, customers get to unleash fresh creative ideas and have the chance to win prizes and gain recognition.

So what does this form bring to a business? First, a pool of user-created ideas gives the brand more material for upcoming marketing campaigns. At the same time, through the works users publish, other customers become more aware of the brand. Many famous global brands have used this approach to create viral effects — a notable example is Canon: when launching the LEGRIA mini camera, Canon ran a YouTube campaign inviting users to submit their video ideas. Four lucky participants were given a LEGRIA camera along with guidance on turning their video ideas into reality.

Content that isn't only about products/services

What would happen if a fanpage only published product introductions? Users would inevitably get bored, stop sharing and engaging with the posts. Even worse — they would unfollow the business's fanpage.

Understandably, a fanpage is a channel for promoting products and a funnel for attracting potential customers. But instead of focusing entirely on selling, businesses can develop other content streams as well, such as: industry trend updates, useful product tips, fun interactive posts, or content riding a "trend" — then customer engagement will definitely be higher!

How to Engage Customers via Messages

This is not only an activity to increase customer engagement but also one of the most effective customer service skills.

• Message content

Message content should be appropriate, with concise, specific language that goes straight to the point, so customers never feel it is long-winded or rambling. In addition, be serious and clearly show respect for customers in the message content. Start with a polite greeting and end with a sincere thank-you.

• Engage on special occasions

Beyond content introducing the business's products and services, customer service staff should show care and warmth through congratulatory messages on special holidays — whether major public holidays or days that matter to the customer, such as birthdays or the new year.

• Segment your customers

Businesses need to categorize message content: potential customers and existing customers. Messages to potential customers should focus more on introducing products and services, while messages to existing customers should address their satisfaction with product quality. Be careful when sending messages to each customer type, because even a small mix-up can leave customers unhappy with your service.

>>>> Read more: After-Sales Customer Care: Professional Processes and Scripts

How to Engage Customers via Email

Email marketing is a marketing channel favored by businesses to optimize business processes and reach customers more effectively. So what secrets can help a business attract customer engagement? Let's find out below!

Segment your email marketing by customer group

To personalize and engage deeply with customers, you can't send them one generic email for everyone, right? Instead, businesses need to segment customers — by geography, by demographics (gender, age, occupation, etc.), or by purchase stage (just researching the product, during and after purchase) — to build the most suitable nurturing content. This way, the business can "hit" exactly what customers need, resulting in the highest open and click rates.

Build email marketing content that is relevant and useful to customers

Email content is another key factor in driving customer engagement with a business's emails. Pay attention to the subject line, the email body, the CTA links, and the ratio and layout of images in the email.

Track and measure campaign performance

For an email marketing campaign to be effective and attract customers, you need to regularly track and compile its measurement metrics. Below are the key metrics businesses should watch when running email marketing campaigns:

• Successful send rate (Sends)

• Open rates

• Click rates

• Bounce rates

• Unsubscribe rates

• Spam/abuse report rates

Beyond evaluating campaign performance, these metrics also tell a business what content customers genuinely care about. That lets the business identify weaknesses and mistakes and draw lessons to adjust future campaigns accordingly.

>>>> Read more: Listening to Customers: 10 Reasons and Effective Listening Skills

How to Engage Customers via Your Website

Typically, to learn more details about a product, or to get answers to unresolved questions, customers will visit the business's website. So pay attention to the following points when using your Website.

Website UX/UI

Did you know a business only has about 8 seconds to make an impression on users when they open its app or website? This means a strong initial interface (UI — user interface) makes an impression and draws customers into the site. After that, what keeps users around to explore more deeply is the experience (UX — user experience). So business owners need to design websites with an easy-to-read, easy-to-navigate interface, with colors suited to the product type and the target customers they aim for. In addition, businesses should also focus on the mobile interface alongside the desktop one to deliver the best customer experience!

Optimize your articles

Beyond product introduction posts, businesses can apply the following tips to increase customer engagement with their website:

• Optimize SEO for blog posts

• Create content streams on product usage guides and tips for using products effectively

• Refresh old blog posts with new data, content, or design

• Add images and videos to blog sections to make posts more lively

• Break content into small sections so readers can absorb information faster

Add live chat and comment features

Live chat with customers is another effective approach businesses should consider. This feature enables customer service to talk directly with users to advise, guide, and answer questions during the purchase process.

What's more, while websites used to attract users simply by providing valuable articles, businesses today integrate a Comments section on their site. This feature not only lets customers interact with the brand — it is also an effective way for businesses to better understand users' psychology and needs.

>>>> Read more: Customer Feedback: How to Collect and Handle Feedback from Customers

Integrate your website with social media

With their enormous user bases, social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube are increasingly being integrated into business websites. That way, users can visit and follow the brand's fanpage — and quickly share the business's blog posts to their own profiles too!

Conclusion

As we can see, to attract customer engagement, a business needs to establish a tightly executed strategy as well as clearly understand customer information so it can send the right content. That is why many businesses in Vietnam have adopted CRM customer relationship management software to solve this tricky problem. To learn more details about SimERP's Customer Relationship Management solution, don't forget to leave your details to get advice from our experts and sign up for a free trial!

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