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Learning how to improve customer engagement and loyalty is an essential component of every business’s success.
Customer engagement covers all interactions between a business and consumers both through online and offline channels, while customer loyalty refers to the likelihood of a customer to do business with a company again.
Nowadays, in the increasingly competitive world of business, it can be difficult to find new ways to engage customers and keep them hooked so that they always come back for more. Keep reading to find out more about various strategies that can help with customer engagement and loyalty.
Great value proposition
Consider a good value proposition as the cornerstone of your loyalty boosting efforts. Try to create a compelling value proposition to explain in detail what your organization stands for.
It would be best to avoid writing general propositions. Instead, focus your efforts on targeting specific buyer personas.
It is helpful to do thorough research of the industry rivals to confirm the authenticity of your business’s value proposition. Additionally, conduct A/B testing of your proposition to ensure that it strikes the chord with the target audience.
The goal is to make prospects want to purchase your products just by reading the textual content. Once they read it, it should inspire them enough to make them want to become a part of something bigger.
Knowledge management
Knowledge management and customer experience may seem like two terms that are not necessarily related. However, knowledge management can serve as a tool to engage customers better and, in a way, create better experiences.
This can be done through the development of data-driven systems that improve customer service efficiency and enable automation.
Many entrepreneurs claim that the beauty of knowledge management is that it helps with both automated and human-attended customer service. It contributes to improving customer experiences by collecting and organizing relevant information.
The information then becomes easily accessible to both customers and employees, and it can improve the way customers engage with a business.
One of the knowledge management tools you can use is a WordPress document library, which can serve as an excellent method to improve customer engagement. This is a digital document library that can sort all documents in a meaningful way so that users can find whatever they might need on your website easily.
Engaged community boosts both loyalty and engagement
Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay
Building and engaging a community can work wonders both for a business’s customer engagement and customer loyalty efforts.
Take full advantage of every social media platform that may be useful to your business and the industry your business is in. Utilize the most popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to cultivate a loyal community around your brand.
For example, share a story about your business on Facebook, post interesting office insights on Twitter, talk to the fans, reply to the comments, and create memes if your target audience belongs to the demographic group that likes memes.
The goal, in this case, is to show everyone that your business is not just another organization that is only in it for the profits. By proving that your business is ready to prove its mission through regular interactions with the community, you will boost both engagement and loyalty.
Also, it would be wise to hold social media contests to attract users to create content about your business. Then gather the best content pieces and reward the authors.
In turn, your brand will get interesting content pieces that can be shared on social media channels and on the official blog, while the winner can enjoy a free product from your business.
Last but not least, make sure that every voice is heard. Listen to the audience carefully and take part in conversations that happen on your business’s social media pages.
When the community becomes huge, feel free to seek help in the form of social media monitoring tools to easily spot brand mentions and react promptly.
Create a valuable loyalty program
Having a customer loyalty program is still one of the best ways to create loyal customers that always come back to do business with your company.
After all, almost 70% of consumers state that they often choose a retailer based on whether they can earn customer loyalty points or not. Obviously, a loyalty program can push a customer in the right direction.
To reap maximum rewards with loyalty programs, think about introducing a customer loyalty app. A business mobile app that makes joining a loyalty program easy can significantly boost your loyalty program game in 2021.
For instance, Starbucks did great with their mobile app. This is one of the most-used mobile apps among big restaurant chains since its loyalty program is quite engaging.
The app allows users to:
- Pay by phone
- Get in-store refills
- Get customized offers
- Collect points for every dollar spent (exchanged for food and drinks)
On top of that, the app keeps customers engaged without displaying irrelevant content. It is quite intuitive and straightforward, providing only the latest offers and personalized discounts.
Don’t forget social proof
Image by Niek Verlaan from Pixabay
Reinforce the brand credibility through social proof, and both the engagement and loyalty will follow.
Social proof is seen as one of the best tools for reinforcing brand authority and credibility. It refers to the positive influence exerted by a business on social media.
For example, a business can share statistics and infographics published by reputable sources and also give an appropriate comment regarding the shared content.
On top of that, some businesses encourage consumers to write reviews and testimonials on review websites (Yelp, for example). Some even reach out to celebrities and influencers for endorsements.
However, a business needs to be careful when reaching out to influencers. First, ensure that these individuals are popular and credible in the business industry, and only then should you go ahead and propose a collaboration.
Ask for feedback and ideas
Customers are great sources of information about the company and the products it offers, since they can give the best feedback about numerous aspects of your company.
These range from the details about what makes your products or services easy or hard to use, what features should be prioritized, and what type of information they lack.
Also, think about what would help consumers use your products more, what may be lacking in terms of support, what difficulties they had implementing your product or getting team members on board, and so on.
Try to develop an effective way to collect customer feedback by using the following methods:
- Surveys
- Polls
- Interviews
- Email communication
Once the feedback has been gathered, show the customers that their voice was heard and acted upon. When a business listens to a customer and implements something new and better on its products, it should let them know.
Customers love it when they can contribute, and this is one way to do precisely that. By embedding your customers in your business’s culture, you make them feel like they belong to a family.
Final words
As time goes by, customer engagement and customer loyalty are becoming higher priorities for businesses that want to ensure success in the long run. Remember that transparent and clear communication is vital if you want to succeed and stand out from other businesses in the industry.
Take whatever you can from the strategies listed above and implement them into your next game plan to boost engagement and build loyalty.
Good luck!