How to engage customers across multiple channels

Irmina started by quoting gallop research which states that the tangible benefits from a fully engaged customer range from increased revenue to wallet share and product penetration. For example, the fully engaged customers contribute 10% greater wallet share and an average of 1.14 additional product categories than actively disengaged.

With this background, Irmina asked the panel how to engage customers across multiple channels?

“The key question that we ask that how do we create the best experience for users when they are both within and outside of your product,” Trang remarked. She explained how they use experiment testing, analytics, and attribution tools to understand behavioral differences between user segments.

Irmina requests Philip and Chris to share their experiences on how they are driving digital user experience. Philip put his perspective on how the fundamental flaws in a website/channel stop people from converting. He suggests owning a single track is better, despite owning multiple flawed channels.

“It’s important you need to understand what the users are doing within your app or your site, so you don’t want to be using just a gut reaction to anything that you are putting out there… you should be gathering data,” remarked Chris.

Both of them agreed that gathering data is essential for whatever you are doing to put forward the best experience, but in practice, it’s tough.

Chris, here, pointed out that tools like google analytics or marketing tools like MoEngage or other automated reporting tools may help get access to the data and make decisions out of it!

Brand strategies that put customers in the first place

Irmina talks about the emerging trend in the post-pandemic world. Brand strategies that keep the customer at the center have worked well for many organizations across different verticals and geographies.

She requested the panel to share the strategies that they explored and implemented to prioritize their customers.

Chris emphasized customer personalization with a beautiful example of the Chewy case study and Chewy’s best practices.

Philip’s take on this was that the companies should stay authentic. He also stressed that “maintaining authenticity, especially with consumer brands is very important.”

Touchpoints to have an excellent multichannel customer engagement strategy

Moving ahead, the host placed a question before the panel on how many touchpoints are needed to have an excellent multichannel customer engagement strategy?

Starting with Chris, he said that the touchpoints defer on varied bases. Any engagement requires multiple touchpoints, and one cannot expect to do only a single task. While Trang’s viewpoint here is that, it’s an ongoing process and something that never gets finished.

Strategies for personalized and targeted communications

Irmina requested the panel to put forward their perspectives on personalized and targeted communications strategies across multiple channels.

Few surveys reported that “2-3rds of customers expect personalization to be a standard practice”, said Trang. She further reiterated how they focused on collecting user preferences right. In addition, their customer support team works closely with their product and growth team to relate to the customers’ feedback.

Importance of rewards, loyalty programs on customer lifetime value

Irmina posed a question before the panel on how important are rewards, exclusive memberships; loyalty programs help build the overall customer lifetime value.

Trang’s guiding principle is “you should define who your most valuable users are, and then you should figure out a way to make them understand that you value them a lot.” Post that, one can decide how they can add more value to their customers. Chris adds that recognition of customers is vital to meet the business objectives. This can be as simple as giving them badges, certificates, free shipping, additional service, etc.

Retargeting strategies

The Panel discussed that implementation of retargeting strategies mandatorily requires segmentation of customers by different attribution models. Data should be used for running segmented tests for every dimension.

A final thought to improve customer engagement strategy

At the end of this valuable conversation, Irmina requested Philip to speak about his take on this. Philip emphasized that start-ups face barriers to conversion, and so, their prerogative should be learning about the customers as easily as possible. E.g., create a landing page essentially that has your value proposition (what you offer), and your CTA should be visible to your customers.

With this, Irmina concluded the conversation and thanked everyone for sharing their ideas.