Developing A Continuous And Meaningful Customer Engagement Strategy

The quality of customer service is often the primary differentiator between successful and failed companies. If you’re serious about your customers, getting serious about continual and quality engagement with them should be a main priority. The following are a few techniques your business can employ to engage customers and improve your customer service quality.

Tradition vs. Contemporary

Traditional sales and marketing models treated customers like commercial prizes won from competitors. In our current age, customer engagement is a mutual relationship that benefits both parties. Encouraging customer feedback and proactively responding to customer concerns creates a mutually beneficial scenario, where customers are valued and businesses are profitable based on the quality of their services. Bain & Company found in a 2013 study that a customer is far more likely to defect to a competitor because of customer service, not price or product problems. The customer service experience should be convenient, efficient and results driven.

Customer-Driven Marketing

Back in the day, businesses targeted customers through junk mail, cold calls and heavy-handed sales tactics. Nowadays customers are empowered to decide when, where and how to communicate with the business. This means that customers need convenient tools to easily communicate and interact with the business. Social media is leading the way, empowering customers to post online reviews, build up online communities, research and purchase products and participate in business marketing campaigns.

Mobile Technology

Businesses and their customer service representatives can initiate some of the best customer interaction experiences through mobile technology. This is largely due to the nature of mobile technology, which allows the business to offer a customized and accessible customer service experience. A recent Pew Center Research survey found that over 60 percent of adults own smart phones. Over 50 percent of these smart phone owners download apps and over 60 percent access the internet through their smart phone. Consider using an instant messaging software for business and offering a mobile app for your visitors to download so you can connect with your customers anywhere, anytime. Businesses that fail to embrace mobile technology are missing a lucrative opportunity to access these demographics.

Process vs. Results

Many businesses get caught up with internal processes and struggle to keep up with the changing market, increased competition and customer demands. Management often obsesses with following procedures, meeting short term goals and protecting their own departmental interests. Instead, they need to focus on the business as a whole with specific customer driven results. The goal should be to build and nurture long term relationships with customers. It is widely agreed upon that it costs far more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. Customer satisfaction is a mutual business investment.

In conclusion, businesses can successfully engage customers through embracing mobile technology, using contemporary sales and marketing models, encouraging customer driven marketing and being results driven.