Why Is Customer Engagement Important? (And How To Improve It)

Becoming a successful business requires an effective customer engagement strategy. 

Increasing customer engagement is critical for retaining customer attention, building authentic relationships, and gathering customer data.

When consumers have more opportunities to connect with you, they develop brand loyalty and become a valuable resource for feedback.

The information gleaned from engaged customers can be used to improve marketing operations such as retargeting, content creation, and customer communication.

So what steps can businesses take to effectively engage customers and maximize the benefits of customer engagement?

In this article, we’ll explore everything you need to know to answer this question - and more. We’ll cover:

• What is customer engagement?
• The importance of customer engagement
• How to measure customer engagement
• How to improve customer engagement

What is customer engagement?

Engaging a customer is a process that starts far before and continues well after a consumer purchases your product or service. 

Customers that interact with your brand through platforms like social media, online platforms, blog posts, and e-mail marketing are seen as engaged consumers. 

There are a range of definitions for customer engagement out there, but they all have one thing in common: they all center on the interactions between brands and consumers. 

These interactions can happen in several ways, and they all serve to develop your relationship with them.

By providing experiences that span across multiple digital channels, you’ll allow consumers the freedom to interact with you as they see fit.

You can also foster stronger connections with your customers that last a lifetime.

A great example of this is Dress Forms USA.

This brand incorporates a chatbot on its platform to digitally engage customers and provide an excellent user experience. 

This way, they can cater to customer questions 24/7 in real-time without the need to hire more customer advisors. 

This engagement strategy reduces customer churn rate while maintaining a positive brand image.

Why is customer engagement important for businesses?

Successful customer engagement is more than just getting people through the marketing funnel.

It's also about continuing to retain customer attention after they've made a purchase.

Shopify, Woocommerce, and Wix are just a few of the many eCommerce platforms that make it easier for businesses to keep customers engaged via their website.

Let’s take a look at the top reasons why customer engagement is critical for businesses.

Increased brand visibility

Word-of-mouth marketing carried out by a satisfied customer is one of the most powerful ways to increase brand visibility.

Another great way to amplify marketing reach is to use inbound marketing strategies in your campaigns.

Effective customer engagement can greatly increase the likelihood of word-of-mouth marketing.

Customer reviews on your website and social media are another way that customer engagement can increase brand visibility.

Take Scott's Cheap Flights as an example. 

This affordable flight provider displays customer stories on its website to increase brand visibility and show potential customers what they can gain from their business.

Stronger emotional connection between customer and business

It's easy for businesses to lose sight of the bigger picture when they're so focused on acquisition, sales, and transactions.

Engaging with customers in-between and after sales will strengthen their emotional connection with your brand and foster lasting customer relationships.

It’ll also increase the likelihood of future purchases and customer retention.

Ultimately, successful customer engagement lays the foundation for devoted customers and long-term business success.

So, you need to make sure you meet customer expectations successfully with your customer service team. 

For that, effective business meetings with your people will give them a clearer picture of your desired customer journey.

Boosts brand loyalty

There's a strong link between happy, engaged customers and repeat business. 

A loyal consumer will demonstrate their devotion to your brand by purchasing from you again, talking positively about you online, and engaging in brand advocacy. 

If you can successfully engage your customers, they’ll continue to keep your brand at the forefront of your mind.

It will also increase their receptivity to your advertising messages.

Impacts revenue

An effective customer engagement strategy can have a significant impact on revenue.

In fact, a study by Constellation Research found that improved customer engagement increases business' cross-sell profits by 22% and raises up-sell revenue from 13% to 51%.

Customers are more likely to buy from you and keep coming back for more when you provide exceptional engagement and experiences.

‍To drive revenue with customer engagement, you need to go beyond customer expectations and utilize creative strategies.

Take health & fitness product provider Transparent Labs as an example. 

This brand offers a free rep-max calculator as a digital engagement tool that customers can use to get accurate individual strength measurements. 

This provides customers with a personalized experience and service that goes a cut above their competitors.  

Enhances the customer experience

Customer engagement is a critical component of the overall customer experience.

To ensure engagement improves the customer experience, you must put yourself in the customer’s shoes and consider their wants, priorities, and goals.

A great way to identify customer wants and needs is through customer data.

For example, with real-time data solutions, you can utilize customer information to design an engagement strategy that caters to your target audience and keeps them coming back for more. 

How to measure customer engagement

In order to optimize customer engagement, you need to track the success of your strategy and marketing campaigns.

Let’s take a look at three key ways to measure customer engagement.

1. Social media engagement

Your total amount of social media interactions is a good indicator of audience interest and engagement. 

A social media campaign's success can be gauged by the number of responses, likes, shares, retweets, comments, and tags you receive. 

This will also show you what kinds of content your audience values the most.

Customer perceptions and attitudes toward brands are conveyed in comments and reviews so be sure to monitor them carefully. 

You can use this feedback to identify what you should focus on to improve.

2. Website engagement

The length of time a consumer spends on your website, and the number of pages they visit, is a strong indication of the quality and interest of the content you've provided.

Customers that spend more time on engaging with your site are invested in what you have to offer. 

Link-building services are one way you can drive traffic and increase website engagement.

There might be an issue with the usability of your site or the quality of your web animations if your statistics are poor.

You can better plan the future and develop more effective engagement campaigns for customer interaction if you keep tabs on your website engagement data. 

3. Use of engagement channels

Every business should prioritize their usage of customer contact channels.

If you succeed, you'll be able to connect and engage with customers on a deeper, more personal level.

You can use performance metrics such as total number of interactions per channel as another measure of digital customer engagement.

Increasing conversions, fostering customer loyalty, and enhancing customer happiness can all be accomplished by providing better customer conversations. 

Perfecting your usage of engagement channels is the bedrock of effective customer interaction.

How to improve customer engagement

Engaged and active customers are a boon to every brand. 

When customers feel connected to your brand, they are more likely to buy from you, which is good for business.

To that end, how can we begin to improve online customer engagement?

Provide personalized customer experiences

Delivering personalized experiences is essential if you want to  increase engagement and keep customers coming back for more. 

Case in point, research indicates that 71% of customers expect companies to provide personalization, and 76% get frustrated when they don't receive it.

As personalization is clearly a priority for today's consumers, it should be an integral component of your business strategy for attracting and engaging customers.

Customers have come to anticipate this level of service after seeing Amazon's spectacular rise to fame. 

Amazon is just one example of how you can tailor your services to each consumer - the results of just asking customers what they want can be seen immediately. 

Personalized engagement can also help you generate higher quality leads. You can use lead scoring software to identify accurately the potential of each opportunity.

Give your brand personality

Your brand needs a personality that customers will like and want to engage with. 

Personality is essential for brand differentiation and enabling your customers to relate to you. 

When building your brand personality/narrative, ensure that it is authentic and reflects your genuine values.

Establishing and displaying a distinct brand character can be an effective means of attracting new customers and keeping your existing customers engaged.

Create engaging content

Content is king when it comes to marketing and customer engagement so it’s worth dedicating time and resources to its production.

To keep customers engaged, you need to regularly produce a variety of digital content - from blog articles on your website to social media posts and interactions. 

If you want to get the most engagement out of your content, consider the following tips:

• Create interactive content that surprises your audience
• Invite consumers to share their thoughts and opinions
• Always reply/react to customer comments on your content
• Offer rewards for sharing your content
• Use SEO to optimize your website content and attract more traffic
• Utilize multimedia 
• Publish content at peak times for maximum engagement

By crafting optimized content that provides value to your customers, you can significantly increase digital engagement and boost your brand’s online presence.

Prioritize customer retention

It’s a well-known fact that retaining existing consumers is much more cost-efficient than obtaining new ones. 

Existing customers are invaluable since they spend more money, make more purchases, and spread the word to their friends and family.

If a customer is valued, cared for, and intrigued by fresh, novel engagement, they are more likely to keep coming back for more. 

Leverage the power of a digital engagement platform

If you want to deliver truly impactful digital engagement, you need the right platform to power it.

A platform that's dedicated to strengthening customer relationships and delivering exceptional, personalized experiences.

And that's where Talkative comes in.

Our platform was specifically designed to power better engagement by connecting you with the right customers, via the right channel, at the right time.

We provide a complete suite of engagement channels that'll empower your customer advisors to connect instantly, and effortlessly, with your digital customers.

As a result, you'll be fully equipped to engage and convert more customers than ever before.

By getting Talkative, you'll set yourself apart from the competition by providing next-level digital engagement and superior customer service. 

You’ll enjoy the benefits of all the essential engagement channels - including live chat, cobrowsing, video chat, web calling, social media messaging, and an AI-powered chatbot.

The takeaway

You can generate more sales by having an active customer database, but that's not the only reason to keep your customers engaged. 

It's all about giving people the tools they need to have satisfying, one-of-a-kind, and personalized experience with your business - whatever channel they choose.

Customer loyalty to your brand will increase as a result of your consistent efforts here. 

Keeping your brand at the forefront of consumers' thoughts is a challenge, but it can be accomplished by actively engaging customers and providing them with meaningful experiences.

But ultimately, the most important tool in your arsenal is an innovative platform that lays the foundation for successful customer engagement.

Want to see for yourself? Book a demo with Talkative today, and start supercharging digital engagement success.

Guest author Bio

Burkhard Berger is the founder of Novum™. He's sharing everything he learned in his income reports on Novum™ so you can pick up on his mistakes and wins.