It’s all the rage right now and for very good reason. Customer engagement is no longer an obscure strategy formed by a marketing or sales department somewhere; with the seemingly never-ending rise of the online retail and commercial services market, more companies than ever before are getting in on the game.
Intense competition between online retailers and traditional retailers alike has increased focus on customer experience, pre, and after-sales service, and additional pursuits like enhancement and loyalty programs.
All of these additions to the existing customer service strategies have tightened the lanes of competition, even more, so now the next step in this constant evolution to be sighted for improvement is customer engagement.
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The umbrella term of customer engagement brings together various business environment elements to achieve a particular end. So if we look at it from this angle, we’ll understand that there isn’t one specific function that heightens your customer’s experience with you, but rather a collective of experiences that enhances it.
From the time they see an advert for your business, to the time they make a payment and then onwards to receiving the product or service and then to the assessment of the quality of their experience, you can further break down all these elements to understand the holistic nature of the concept even more.
But for the sake of time and understanding, let’s look at this example:
You run a company that supplies stationery and have a medium-sized but busy store in town. You also have a website with an online ordering and delivery service. In light of recent global developments, you also ship to countries outside of the United States; this means that ideally, you also have a customer service team that works according to different time zones. After all, if you want to be a business that exports, you need to be available to all of your clients all the time, no matter where they are located.
But, who has the resources to man a customer service team virtually around the clock? A solution to this problem is to find out how you can add live chat to your website. This nifty tool allows you to have one member of staff on a rotation basis that monitors sales queries, service issues, or complaints when everyone else is sleeping on your end of the world but wide awake on the other.
The amount of staff you’ll need for this service will depend on the number of queries you’re getting from abroad and if it warrants the cost of having someone working odd hours to provide that service. If it doesn’t, you’ll be looking at “chatbots” to do it for you.
With every link on the chain of your client’s journey with your business, you need to have an engagement policy that lets your customers know you’re serious about their custom and that they’re supported every step of the way. This builds credibility and allows you to monitor your processes for faultlines and potential pitfalls.
Don’t wait until your business is on the brink to take customer engagement seriously, be proactive, and you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches later.
Remember that if you’re not taking care of your clients - someone else is already waiting to do so, but a solid customer engagement program will ensure that you’re best placed to identify issues before they become problems and keep your customer right where they belong - with you.
