9 Customer Engagement Strategies to Improve Sales

Nowadays, competition in business isn’t just about who can provide the best product or service. A big factor in the competition is who can provide the best customer engagement plan. With a variety of options in the market, customers won’t hesitate to go somewhere else after a negative interaction with a brand.

Discovering your customers’ needs and building a consistent, positive experience around them builds keeps customers loyal to your brand, encourages positive word-of-mouth, and drives revenue up.

In this blog, we’ll discuss how to increase customer engagement , dive into tips for boosting engagement, and learn how GoTo Connect can help with your customer engagement strategy.

What is a customer engagement strategy?

Customer engagement is the process of fostering long-term relationships with your audience.

A customer engagement strategy is a plan to nurture those relationships by making the customer an active participant in the relationship, not just a passive recipient of marketing messages. It’s important to provide them with purposeful interactions that invite them to immerse themselves in your brand before and after they make a purchase.

Here are nine client engagement strategies you can implement in your business to boost customer engagement.

9 customer engagement ideas to try today

1 - Personalize customer interactions

A personal touch can foster connection to your brand. It can be as simple as addressing them by name in your newsletter, or as sophisticated as sending them personalized product recommendations based on their shopping history.

These personalizations can be achieved by gathering data to get to know your customers better, as we’ll discuss further in #4.

2 - Leverage chatbots and live chat

An AI-powered chatbot can be programmed to field frequently asked questions so customers can get answers quickly. When the queries become more complex, the chatbot can connect them with a live agent.

Before jumping in, the agent can access the customer’s initial interactions with the chatbot so they can come into the conversation with the context of the customer’s issue.

This delivers faster support and reduces the need for the customer to repeat themselves.

3 - Use conversational marketing

Make interactions more meaningful and personable with conversational marketing.

When you speak without jargon or formalities, it helps customers feel more at ease, speed up conversations, and minimize misunderstandings. Aim to be polite and warm, but not overly familiar. Taking a more human approach communicates that there are real people behind the brand and that you see your customers as real people too.

4 - Implement active listening

Active listening means listening to understand, not merely to respond.

Provide ample opportunity for your customers to send feedback via forms on your website, customer satisfaction surveys, third-party review sites, and more. Keep an eye on social media, as this is where most customers air out unvarnished feelings about customer experiences.

Go through the feedback with an open mind. See it as data about what’s working and not working. Use it to guide how you improve your services.

Finally, follow up on customers’ concerns. This shows them that you’ve heard their sentiments and you’re taking action.

5 - Engage on social media

Social media isn’t just for addressing customer complaints. A consistent presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms can help you engage positively with customers and remain top-of-mind for them.

Like, respond to, and reshare content made by customers about your brand. Host giveaways to increase customer engagement. Align yourself with a cause, celebrate holidays, or even post a meme if it fits your brand!

6 - Offer valuable and relevant content

Post tips and resources that provide continuous value to your customers. Even when they’re not buying your product, these posts will nurture a relationship with them, helping to keep you top of mind until they’re ready to purchase.

Experiment with different content types—blogs, infographics, carousels, videos, and more—to see which ones resonate with your audience the most.

7 - Drive improvements with customer feedback

It’s crucial to have a mix of qualitative data (such as sales) and quantitative data (such as customer opinion) so you can get a full picture of customer sentiment and act accordingly.

Even if feedback is negative—as it sometimes will be—it’s just an opportunity to learn how to serve your customers better.

8 - Start a customer loyalty program

A customer loyalty program is an excellent way to reward customers for continuously supporting your brand and incentivizes them to keep engaging with you.

Here are some customer engagement ideas:

• Points system. Every purchase gives customers a certain number of points, which can be traded in for rewards such as exclusive merch or discounts on future purchases
• Membership perks. Club members or newsletter subscribers get first dibs, special offers, and discounts.
• Special occasion rewards. Customers can get freebies or discount codes on holidays or their birthday.

9 - Optimize the customer journey

The ultimate goal of a customer engagement plan is to shorten the customer’s journey through the marketing funnel from awareness to purchase.

Put all the previous steps together to draw up a clear, overarching customer engagement plan that creates a personalized, curated, and streamlined customer experience.

• Get to know your audience through the data you collected. Who are they? What problems need solving in their daily lives? What are their interests and behaviors?
• Reach them where they are. What content are they likely to consume and share, and on which platform?
• Tailor your offerings to their needs. What approach will convince them that your brand is a solution to their problems? What features can you add, remove, or change to address customer needs?
• Reward them for loyalty. How can you encourage customers to come back?

How to increase customer engagement with GoTo Connect CX

GoTo Connect’s customer engagement platform is designed for businesses who want to increase growth and engagement on communication channels such as SMS, web chat, and social media.

This simple, centralized solution makes it easier to meet customers on their preferred channel, gain context quickly, speed up response time, and track customer data for later analysis.

We offer the following features that support your client engagement strategies:

• Multi-channel inbox. Never miss a message again by bringing all interactions from SMS, social media, web chat, and more into a single inbox.
• SMS campaigns. Set up personalized SMS campaigns with our AI-powered messaging assistant.
• WhatsApp integration. Make engagement easy by meeting customers on their favored messaging app.
• Social media. Improve customer service by attending to inquiries on Facebook, Instagram, and more.
• Customer feedback. Collect valuable feedback by creating customizable surveys and tracking insights in one place.
• Unified admin portal. Set it all up in one day and get started ASAP from a central portal.

Boost customer engagement with GoTo Connect

Putting your customers’ needs at the center of your customer engagement strategy is a recipe for success.

GoTo Connect can make customer communication more seamless, allowing you to lean into more creative and exciting ways to engage your customers and strengthen relationships.