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Customer engagement is the connection your company/brand has with your customers. Highly engaged customers tend to be better customers. They buy more, are open to suggestions on buying products or services they don’t currently purchase and are more likely to tell their peers about you and your brand. These benefits contribute to greater loyalty, making your customers less susceptible to buy from your competitors.
Effective customer engagement helps to increase retention and customer lifetime value.
Customer engagement is crucial to increasing retention and sales while reducing churn. It costs a lot to acquire a new customer, so you obviously want to hang on to them once you've earned their business. It is also much easier to drive incremental sales by selling more to an existing customer than trying to secure new ones. An engaged customer will remain with your organization for longer periods of time (the customer lifetime) and will be far more receptive to opportunities to make more purchases, thereby increasing their value and loyalty to you (the lifetime customer value).
Here is how the process works:
A typical company will have hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of individual customers. Each one is different, with unique needs and wants. The more you recognize, understand and act upon each of your customer segment's triggers, the greater the level of customer engagement.
Engagement triggers can be identified in many ways. Two of the most common are sales data analytics and good old-fashioned customer feedback. Both methods should be integral parts of a robust B2B customer loyalty program.
Sales data analytics: Looking at what products or services a customer has purchased is an easy way to understand a lot about them. Ideally you want them to continue making their regular orders however, you can also target customers with offers to drive desired purchase outcomes. Identify the product(s) they are not buying from you (that they may be buying from a competitor) and encourage them to make that purchase with you. Easier said, than done…right?
With a loyalty program, the use of targeted or personalized bonus reward offers tied to desired purchase outcomes will help ensure the customer recognizes that you understand them and their business, driving better appreciation, loyalty and engagement.
Customer Feedback: Asking customers for candid feedback about their likes, dislikes and wishes regarding their relationship with your brand is a staple element of best-in-class customer support. It shows you care about them beyond the most recent sale and indicates you wish to build upon your current relationship. Obviously, you may not be able to act on every request, but at least be sure to acknowledge its receipt. Then commit to doing your best and be sure to share success stories where feedback was acted upon. Customer feedback can be easily solicited via an email survey or a comments section on your website. Asking customers how they are treated will help to drive greater customer engagement.
Any customer engagement strategy needs to be nurtured and developed over time. A “one and done” engagement tactic is short-sighted and highly ineffective. A B2B customer loyalty program is a long-term engagement initiative that addresses this issue very well, helping to create highly engaged customers. They are rewarded for their ongoing purchases, and their historical purchase data is used to identify other products they could be purchasing. Offering bonus rewards to influence those purchases will drive a greater share of market and increased sales benefits.
Creating stickier, ongoing relationships with customers is a cornerstone of any customer engagement strategy and is a key focus and benefit of a well-structured and executed loyalty program. A customer who opts into the program is giving a telltale sign that they are interested in rewards and will be motivated by them.
It is imperative to link the customers' interest in rewards to the company's interest in retaining these customers for longer periods of time and selling more to them during their customer lifetime.
Because the actual rewards help to drive customer engagement, it’s important to regularly remind them about their point balance, how to earn more points and what items they can redeem their points for.
Using rewards to incentivize customers to make continued purchases and expand into different categories, will help grow your bottom line while delivering more rewards to the customer on a "pay for play" performance basis. This will heighten their level of customer satisfaction - "I got the product I needed, and I also got closer to the trip I want to take" - creating more loyal customers.
Purchase frequency for customers can vary significantly. No matter how frequent or infrequent the customer purchasing cycle, it is critical for your company to remain top-of-mind. Many companies use email and social media to remain visible with customers. A leading indicator of customer engagement is seen in email open and click-through rates, but for B2B companies’, open rates tend to be very low:
All Industries*:
*Source: campaignmonitor.com
However, the story is very different when it comes to customers who participate in loyalty programs, where email open and click-through rates are far higher because they contain information that is personally relevant and therefore highly engaging:
Loyalty Programs*:
*Source: Constant Contact analysis of Lift & Shift client emails
Reward emails contain relevant and sought-after information including:
Are you looking for a new way to engage with your customers? Let us show you how a loyalty reward program can do just that.
Lift & Shift offers a powerful B2B reward platform that can help your company leverage its sales data to drive incremental purchases with customers and channel partners or motivate sales staff. We work with manufacturers, distributors and service providers to analyze sales data, identifying purchasing gaps and other valuable targeting opportunities.
We create and deliver highly relevant offers to customers, in-house sales staff or sales associates, motivating your target audience to respond, using a wide array of appealing reward options as influencers. Our performance-based reward structures deliver an unparalleled return on investment, with absolutely no wasted budget.
Our customizable reward platform enables clients to easily benefit from a robust loyalty reward program. It's affordable and includes Lift & Shift’s turnkey professional program administration. We take care of everything so you can focus on your key initiatives.