5 customer engagement trends your business can’t ignore in 2021
Over the years, customer engagement has adapted and grown, and in many ways has had to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, one thing will always remain the same – businesses must engage with their consumers to help build customer trust and loyalty. What are the customer engagement trends your business can’t ignore on 2021? But first, what is it?
What is customer engagement?
Customer engagement is the monitoring of the relationship between a business and its consumers. It can be monitored through email, online reactions, feedback, re-purchasing, click-through-rate and more.
Looking into your customer engagement is extremely important for making sure that your consumers are satisfied and are having a positive customer experience. It is also crucial for encouraging customer loyalty.
Therefore, here are five customer-centric customer engagement trends that your business simply cannot ignore in 2021, creating customer experiences whilst keeping up with ever-changing demands.
1. Insight-led customer engagement strategies
Insights provided by customer engagement platforms can inform you of what you are doing right, and where your weaknesses might lay.
Instead of having to rely on trial and error, you can use these insights to create a customer engagement strategy which is more effective.
2. AI based tools
There are more artificial intelligence-led tools available for businesses every day, which can allow you to streamline the customer experience.
In addition to AI analytics, AI-based chatbots are becoming increasingly popular. In fact, one survey found that 41% of consumers chose online chat or live support as their preferred way of engaging with UK companies.
3. Digital experiences
Go beyond the webinar and get creative with your digital experiences. Build, optimize and execute branded, customized digital experiences with the cloud-based ON24 platform.
Not only will this encourage customer engagement, but every experience created with the ON24 Digital Experience Platform will deliver engagement-driven behavioral data which can help you to personalize and adapt your engagement in the future.
4. Personalised service
The ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach will just not cut it when it comes to customer engagement. In order to make sure customers keep interacting with your business, it pays to offer a more personalized service.
This could be done through a mobile app which makes the experience easier, or by remembering customers, offering them relevant offers and recommendations.
5. Consistency
Most importantly, your approach must be consistent. As we are still not completely at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel, though we might be able to see the light, customers are likely to sway heavily towards your digital channels.
However, this doesn’t mean you only need to stick to an omnichannel approach, a multichannel strategy can be just as effective as long as it is consistent across channels.
Conclusion
Whilst customer-centric culture increasingly becomes a growing trend, it is no longer enough to offer a universal customer engagement strategy.
Instead, experiences both digitally and in person must be personalized and consistent, whether it is omnichannel or multichannel alike. To keep your customers loyal, your business must be strategic and one step ahead, utilizing AI technology and analytics in order to develop an insight-led customer engagement strategy.
