×

Posted on

Top Tips to keep your Customers Engaged

Tag: Social Media

Top Tips to keep your Customers Engaged
Mohab Customer Experience 0

Top Tips to keep your Customers Engaged

Customer engagement is a critical function for any enterprise and is required for taking the business to a new level. It defines the relationship between your clients and your company. With increasing consumer awareness, the businesses are now required to be more proactive in engaging their customers. A successful business needs to anticipate its customers’ requirement and provide them with an appropriate experience. However, it is important to not only engage customers once, but also to keep them engaged for long, so as to build a loyal client base. Here are the top tips to help you achieve this target.

  • Know your Market: In order to create a memorable experience for your clients, it is vital that you know your target market inside out. You need to identify the defining features of your clients, so as to design customer oriented engagement strategy. You can use analytics for this purpose as the thorough analysis of traffic to your website may provide deep insights. The key is to know the factors which motivate your target market to make a purchase decision. Once you have identified your desired client segment and their features, you can modify your existing strategies or design new ones to attract these clients. It also helps to personalize the experience for clients so as to give them a sense of exclusivity.

 

  • Use Social Media: The advent of social media has been both a blessing and a challenge for businesses. But with just a little attention and careful administration, you can use social media to create meaningful experience for your clients. Social media is one of the best channels to share your story with your target market. This strategy comes with an added human touch and thus is able to have a deeper impact. Make sure you are using relevant images and videos to further reinforce your message. Social media websites and apps may also act as a platform for your clients to interact with each other. As word of mouth is one of the best kinds of promotional strategies, do not overlook this opportunity.

 

  • Personalize the Experience: Personalized interactions help businesses build more a sustainable relationship with their clients. While it is vital to understand the entire market, it is equally important to strive and provide a unique experience to individual customers as well. You can do this by adding more dynamic content to your messages. For example, the messages may be coded in such a way that they are addressed to individual clients by their names. Businesses may also approach their clients at a more personal level by sending them auto generated birthday or other relevant anniversary mails. Such interactions may also provide you with valuable data which may be mined for providing better products and services to your clients.

 

  • Make the Entire Team Work: Customer engagement is not a task that can be solely entrusted to your marketing team. In fact, for providing a holistic experience to your customers, it is advisable to engage your entire team. The team may include people from diverse departments including customer care section. The strategy for engaging customers should move beyond mere selling or marketing of goods and services. The businesses need to adopt customer centric approach so that they are in tune with ever changing customer preferences. Once you have your finger on your customers’ pulse, you can design an immersive experience for them.

 

  • Use Analytics: While businesses should aim to create a human bond with their customers, the use of new technologies may also enhance the overall performance of strategies. Analytics will help you mine the data in a more structured manner and may provide you with information which may otherwise not be collected. There is a wide range of analytics tools available these days, which can meet all your budget constraints. These tools can help you in building dashboards and generating reports. You should also note that analytic tools are not only quantitative in nature but may also be qualitative.

Customer engagement is all about creating new ways to remain in touch with your client base. This may require creative thinking and substantial investment in resources. However, properly designed customer engagement strategies can provide a substantial boost to your top line growth.

5 years ago
4 Secret Ingredients of a Successful Online Business
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

4 Secret Ingredients of a Successful Online Business

An online business today definitely has a clear edge over the pure brick and mortar models of yesterday. These benefits are evident by its wider customer reach, savings in overhead costs, 24*7 customer availability and efficient inventory management. Now there are certain measures that can help an online business become successful. Experts list out the following ones:

  1. Website: This is given in today’s digital age. A website symbolizes an online, professional presence of the business. Lack of a virtual presence translates into a huge revenue loss. An online platform helps customers connect better with the product brand and make an informed purchase decision. Further, it also reinforces customers’ trust in the brand because as the proverb goes ‘Seeing is believing’. An updated website with detailed information about the product categories, pricing and promotional offers would help achieve higher return sales. The customer would be able to compare with other online portals and zero in on the best deal.Some important components of a website are:
  • Separate pages: A well-categorized website with a landing page or home page, headings like contact us, about us, features and benefits, customer testimonials, etc. would be more appealing
  • Design: Attractive images, logos and tickers would help increase web traffic
  • Security aspects: The webpage should be enabled with highest security frameworks and encryption standards
  1. Knowledge centre or blog: This section has undergone a dramatic transformation in today’s information age. A blog should not be mistaken as trivia. The blog contains educational and informative pointers to help educate the reader about the latest trends in product categories, the unique selling proposition of the product offering, details of product launches, interviews by subject matter experts and any other topic of interest to a potential or existing customer to make an informed choice. Blogs are a very effective way to communicate with the customers and showcase the online business in a positive light. It also contributes towards enhanced website search-ability and piques the interest of readers on search engines. A very powerful tool in this regard is search engine optimization (SEO) which helps push websites with relevant content to the top as per the search request.
  1. Social media: Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter help bring together a community of people with similar interests. It serves as a useful marketing channel. Thus, one can attract potential customers by uploading informative posts, videos, polls and other relevant material to engage readers and attract their attention to the business’s products and services. Besides providing good networking opportunities, this medium can be leveraged for business promotion. Some common details comprise:
  • Company logo, description, navigation to the address via maps
  • Description of products
  • Link to website
  • Hashtags and tags
  • Eye-catching content, images, videos, and gifs
  1. Link to the payment gateway: This is an obvious inclusion as the business is mainly interested in the sales conversion ratio. Integration of a payment gateway process to enhance the buyers’ experience will go a long way in higher sales realisation. A customer can conveniently pay for the products anywhere and anytime. This reduces chances of cart abandonment or rethinking a potential purchase. However, the most critical aspect of this feature is the security aspect. The payment gateway should be a widely accepted, secure mode of payment and should have varied options like credit cards, debit cards, internet banking, and wallets. Further, in case of a failed transaction, debit of money from the customer account without acknowledgement, or network error, there must be provision for immediate customer support. Some customers also prefer to save their card details on secure websites to enable recurring transactions with the same vendor.

A frog in the well approach would not work in today’s highly interconnected, digital age. Business enterprises would do well to adopt the above digital marketing tools to effectively and efficiently grow their online business.

5 years ago
Importance of Customer Reviews and How to Generate Them
Mohab Customer Experience 0

Importance of Customer Reviews and How to Generate Them

Word of mouth is the most vital medium for popularizing any business. Positive reviews are not the only kind that may be beneficial to a business, even though they are preferred. And establishing a positive image of your business isn’t the only benefit of online reviews.

Online reviews by the customers can also optimize search engine rankings. Popular review sites such as Yelp and Trip Advisor have been around for a long time and have an extensive database of information about businesses available.

Customer reviews also help by making it easy for buyers to choose what they desire. According to Bright Local’s consumer survey, 86% of the consumers read online reviews for local businesses, with 12% of consumers looking for a local business online every day. Surprisingly, 89% of the global customers read the responses to reviews.

Why Do Customer Reviews Matter?

According to Bright Local’s survey of local consumer reviews, consumers go through an average of seven reviews before trusting a business. These statistics were six in 2016. Also since the spread of the review culture, these businesses have seen the most growth and expansion. Other forms of businesses are also reviewed and referred to by consumers all around the world.

Online reviews not only influence consumers but also affect the visibility of these businesses in search engines. With regard to retail, the most influential factor for Google’s local search ranking is based largely on significance, location, and presence.

Out of these, location and significance are not affected by reviews. However, reviews have a major impact on the online presence of a business. Search engines like Google favor reputable review sites such as Yelp, so it is not uncommon for a small business’s Yelp or even Facebook page to rank higher in search results than its actual website.

Reviews can also be used as customer testimonials for the business website. Highlighting good reviews in social media posts and marketing campaigns may also result in further generation of reviews. Social media influencers can be vitally important while working toward growing your business presence online.

How to Collect Customer Reviews? 

Increasing positive customer reviews means growing consumer base. To get reviews from customers is not an easy task for an ordinary or new business. A great deal of effort has to be put in to generate reviews. Certain practices may be helpful in the generation of reviews. Some of these are:

  • Providing exceptional consumer service

Customers, when provided with good service are satisfied and would readily leave a review when asked for. The services include everything from providing online payment platforms to guiding the consumers in the best possible manner.

  • High-quality product or service

The product or service that a company provides is the main reason behind the customer’s satisfaction.

  • Requesting feedback/advice/suggestions regarding personal interests of the consumers

Attending to the customer and asking for their views on improving the business help to instill a friendly/family-like atmosphere for the customer, making them feel more involved and important.

  • Making it easy to receive feedback

Engaging the customers, even after the product has been sold is essential. This can be achieved by reviewing their purchase history and making recommendations regarding products that they might like.

  • Engaging customers online

Using the information about the customer collected from their purchase and sending emails regarding the product and its feedback, is a good way to make the customer feel engaged.

  • Active and logical responses to reviews

Actively responding to customers in a logical and compassionate way is vital for success in business. There can be positive reviews and negative reviews. Responding to both is equally essential.

Regular interaction with the consumer helps in maintaining a check on the quality of services, whether it’s about the best mode of delivery, online payment gateway, or cancellations & refunds. Regularly tracking reviews by making it a habit to check out various review platforms and social media outlets will help in the growth of the business. In this age of social media, online reviews are just the tool you need to make your business known.

5 years ago
Using Your Social Media Channels for Customer Service
Mohab Customer Experience 0

Using Your Social Media Channels for Customer Service

When social media platforms first came into being, they were perceived as a unique way to connect with friends, families and acquaintances. Over time, e-commerce stores or online businesses began to make their presence felt through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Why? Because they quickly realized that social media is an intelligent way to enhance brand awareness. It is also a rising trend to market products and services through social media channels and gauge customer reactions.

Nearly every website today has a social media page and a social media strategy in place, to listen to customers, receive feedback and resolve queries or complaints. Hence, keeping the social media connection with your target audience is essential to expand client base, improve brand value and retain existing customers. Here are the top things to remember if you wish to use social media for customer service effectively:

  • Fast response is a must – Most online stores don’t offer round the clock phone or email service. But customers expect prompt response on social media channels, whether they have a query or a complaint. Responding late can cause customers to escalate the issue through other channels, tell friends about the bad experience, and buy less from you. They might also choose not to recommend your brand. This can hamper your brand image in more ways than one. So, timely responses are always a wise idea.

For instance, on Twitter, customers expect you to reply within an hour. And if you cannot resolve the issue in 280 characters, you can lead them to direct messages. On Facebook, response time rates are always shown clearly. And you must reply within 5 minutes if you want Facebook to consider your business very responsive or fast.

  • Understand public and private resolutions – No matter what you sell online, you should be prepared for negative comments or complaints. So decide which kind of comments you wish to resolve publicly and which ones you want to keep private. As comments impact your brand image, think carefully. Consider what kind of comments you usually get, who handles them, and how you want to redirect negative comments. Decide if they should be moved to direct messaging, phone or email.

For example, if a customer makes a negative comment on Twitter, or something that requires the exchange of sensitive information, you can reply to them cordially and send an automatically embedded link to direct messages. Your reply should clearly show what to do next or where to click for further conversation.

  • Don’t ignore even a single comment – Always remember to acknowledge every review or post on social media and answer every query without fail. If you don’t “hear” a customer, he or she is most likely to leave you! Ignoring a comment would mean you are ignoring the customer and it’s not desirable.
  • Fight negative comments positively – If a customer posts a complaint or negative feedback, don’t start defending your business. Address them politely by their names or initials, acknowledge the issue, show empathy and offer a phone number or email ID to continue the discussion and take it offline. Remember that the customer is always right and a thousand other customers are reading the complaint too. So, if you show a positive attitude, you will gain everyone’s trust and support. You can collate negative comments from your past experience and make a list of positive replies which you can use later in similar situations.
  • Use tools to monitor social media customer service – Tools like Buffer, Hootsuite and Mention can help you monitor customer service activities on social media channels. Through these, you can handle customer comments and queries on different platforms, simultaneously. These tools also let you tackle issues or queries in posts where your name has been mentioned but you have not been tagged or mentioned with @. You will get notifications even when you are away.

To conclude, being positive, responsive, understanding how to deal with negative comments and using the right monitoring tools can take you a long way when it comes to offering customer service through social media. As long as you are prepared, you can offer customers a supportive environment where they will engage with your brand more and trust you enough to stay loyal.

6 years ago
Your brand’s online reputation is at jeopardy! Here are 5 tips on how to safeguard it
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

Your brand’s online reputation is at jeopardy! Here are 5 tips on how to safeguard it

Reputation is a major component that can drive companies into major profitability or irrecoverable loss. It is highly important your company’s image meets the ideal expectations of the public and the consumers to avoid putting the brand in a vulnerable and controversial position that can put all of your hard work to waste. Not to also mention, retrieving information or opinions about any company is very simple since all it requires is a quick search on Google. Therefore, maintaining a powerful online presence for the brand is essential. Negative reviews or comments can be easily tackled by including content that is easy to share, search and is highly reliable, and that content will have a higher chance of appearing in the first page of the results. Here are 5 essential tips to keep your brand’s online reputation in-check:

  1. Create a company blog

Blogs are good with building relationships with customers instead of just increasing visibility via search engines and driving traffic to the website. It can also give you the opportunity to be placed as an industry leader with quality content.

  1. Keep your company’s website up to date

Having an up-to-date website, and a professionally written bio page not only helps legitimacy and credibility. It creates a strong impression because the company website is the first place people will visit when they research about your business.

  1. Take advantage of online reviews

Consumers find reviews highly reliable, therefore displaying recommendations and opinions on your website is a good method to create a positive expectation for the consumer. It’s important to also make sure you treat customers well online and offline. It will be reflected in the reviews.

  1. Never forget your personal brand:

Personal brand is important to in line with the company brand. This brings more influence and visibility over the search results of the business. There might be cases where your name might be more Googled than your company if it just started. So it’s important to keep in mind you have a positive image and reputation online.

  1. Utilize social media

Social media platforms rank highly in search results, and make great places to push out latest news and content. If your company is doing something interesting, use social media to let customers know about it by sharing recent press releases, or upcoming events and important announcements. It shows that your company is active and relevant.

As important as it is to focus on maintaining a reputable brand reputation online, it is also recommended to maintain certain mannerisms away from the internet such as premium customer treatment, maintaining high-quality standards with merchandise, staff behavior, and contributions to society can help boost your brand’s reputation as a whole. Companies allocate high budgets just for brand reputation and representation, and you can maintain yours without breaking the bank by following these tips! Do you think there are more ideas on how to maintain a positive brand image online? Let us know in the comments below!

6 years ago