Tips for staying engaged with your customers

Customers are the lifeblood of your business. That’s why it’s crucial to form authentic relationships with them. Instead of bombarding your customers with sales pitches, why not enhance your engagement with a few simple strategies?

This means interacting with them in a meaningful way, a way that makes a memorable impact. A way that makes them feel supported, valued, and significant in the running of your business. Customer engagement is not something that happens by chance, it’s the outcome of a well thought out plan. This blog provides you with six easy ways to help you stay engaged with your customers.

Use Social Media to your advantage

Social media is a fast, inexpensive and effective way to reach almost half the world’s population. Social media channels, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Google+, are a great way to create communities and drive engagement. 

We’ve listed a few tips below on how you can really drive customer engagement using social media:

Write blog posts and share these on your social platforms

Create content your customers didn’t know they wanted. Simple ‘how to’ guides, or even industry trends could make all the difference when it comes to customer engagement. Blogs help you attract more online visibility, and they don’t have to be long. They just need to be relevant to your customer base.

Host contests on social media

Contests are a successful yet inexpensive tactic when engaging with your customers. They all involve prizes, and who doesn’t enjoy having the chance to win a prize? You could run a competition asking customers to share their favourite holiday photo to be in the draw to win a weekend getaway. It’s an easy way to grab your customers’ attention and get them talking, while rewarding them for their participation. 

Offer special discounts

An exclusive discount for your product or service can really drive customer engagement, especially when it’s only for a ‘limited time’. Post these special discounts on your social channels – you’ll be surprised at how much traction this can achieve. 

Have a dedicated customer care page

Having a dedicated customer care page allows you to stay active by responding to comments, questions and feedback that your customers have. By answering customer questions and providing customer support, you can build trust in your customers’ eyes. Customers feel valued knowing they can come to your support page for a quick and helpful answer, if needed.

Promote your business

Whether you’re running an event, have video tutorials or offering a product. You can use Facebook or LinkedIn to promote these to a wider audience. This drives engagement with your products and services, while also raising brand awareness.

Share customer success on your website

Carry out the simple act of sharing customers success stories and shouting out loyal customers each month on your website. This makes customers feel special, appreciated and valued. Other customers are more likely to engage with positive content involving real life customers, just like them, rather than constant posts around brand messaging. Who doesn’t love a good news story to kick start their day? 

Welcome notes

Do you love those hand-written welcome notes in your room when you check-in at a hotel? Especially when the notes are customised specifically for you. Bring that joy to your customers by sending them a personalised note with their order. Welcome notes are a good way to introduce yourself to new customers and ensure that they come back. Skip technology for this one to make it feel special.

Send out monthly newsletters

Newsletters are an effective way to increase the longevity of your customer relationships. This is how you say “Remember me?” to your customers. They are a great tool to keep your customers in the loop. It pays to keep your newsletters interesting, visual and short so your customers don’t lose attention.

For the sake of staying fresh in your customers’ minds, you should always have something in your back pocket to give them, such as news about a future product update or changes to your business.

Find a cadence that works for your business, but be consistent. Monthly is a good start because it’s not overpowering for your customers or overwhelming for you. However, if you’re struggling for content each month, try pushing it to every two or three months.

Occasional phone calls

Customer emails can be great. And every customer loves to get offers and discounts that apply to them. But what about taking the extra step? Phone calls are a powerful form of customer engagement. So, why not reach out to your valued customers to simply check in and see how they’re doing? You’ll be surprised by the valuable insights you can get all while making your customers feel valued that you care.

Feedback survey

This is an easy and efficient way to ask for feedback from your customers shortly after you’ve provided a product or service. Feedback surveys provide valuable information about a customer’s experience with your business. Whether they’re satisfied, dissatisfied or have any ideas for future improvement. Surveys also help you better understand your customers desires, and guides which direction to take the business in your roadmap for success.

Surveys can be done in a few simple ways. If you are providing an in-person service, you can give your customers a short paper form to fill out, or a tablet to complete the survey electronically. Alternatively, you could send an online survey. This provides you with the opportunity to reach your customers in a multitude of ways – such as weblinks, emails, social media and SMS, to name a few. The shorter you keep your survey, the higher your response rate will be.

Remaining engaged with your customers can be one of the biggest differentiators for your business. You will have competition everywhere, but having a personal touch and prioritising connections before products can keep customers feeling valued and coming back. The value of customer engagement should never be underestimated or overlooked. It plays a pivotal role in your businesses success. 

Our mission at Xero is to make life easier for small businesses, to help them learn, grow and thrive. For more free resources on how to promote your business online, use cloud based tools to drive efficiency and productivity as well as how to maintain connections with your staff in a virtual environment, take a look at our ‘Move your business to the cloud’ learning journey.

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Source: Xero Blog