Customer Engagement and its effective ways to help Business Growth

With ever-changing business environments, marketing and outreach methods are constantly under re-calibration and to keep up with the shifting times, marketers are ensuring better capitalization for new market opportunities.  While marketers constantly seek better ways to be ahead in the game, customer engagement has been at the top of the list. According to Forrester, 56% of marketing leaders say that improving customer experience is a top priority for supporting their company’s business strategy.  Thus, customer engagement and showing customers how much they mean to them have become a top priority in the industry. By creating seamless experiences that build trust, brands are on their toes to get the desired experience.  

What does Customer Engagement mean?

As the name suggests, customer engagement is something that delivers connected experiences to your customers instead of single, one-off, or fleeting transactions. Customer engagement is an ongoing interaction between a company and a customer wherein the company provides customer service and satisfaction.  While customer engagement means different in different industries, in the B2B industry, it is a crucial business tool that generates new leads, helps reconnect with existing consumers, and increases profits.  

What makes B2B customer engagement different from others?

Sometimes, customer engagement is confused with customer satisfaction and experience, however, there is some overlap. With both having distinctive aspects, customer experience is the perception that consumers form based on everything they see, hear, or learn about your company. Whereas, customer satisfaction is how much your audience or consumer like or dislike your product, service, or experience. Although both are essential when interacting with consumers, customer engagement also involves paying attention to building a rapport and providing a tailored solution. Moreover, for B2B, the target audience is different from that of a B2C. In B2B, processes and operations are streamlined to cut down on costs and boost revenue and growth, making purchasing decisions more logically.  

A refreshing perspective on B2B Customer Engagement in 2022

Customer engagement has always been prevalent, be it providing hyper-personalization or developing the brand to its utmost best. However, with constant changes in marketing trends, customer engagement strategies too, are evolving, especially post the pandemic. With over two years of staying indoors and working remotely, digital selling is one of the major changes adopted by B2B companies.  According to experts, almost 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will likely occur in digital channels. The trend of focusing on human-centric communications within remote customer engagement is at its peak, but so are the hybrid interactions. Customers, today, are preferring human-centric communications within remote customer engagement. This shift from physical to digital channels means that organisations need to amend their strategies to engage customers in the forthcoming times.  

Benefits of Customer Engagement 

Every company needs increased sales and global brand recognition and customer engagement is one of the gateways to that. Traditionally speaking, customer engagement has been the backbone of building relationships and with the advent of digitalization, it has been easier to maintain that relationship.  With an effective engagement strategy, customer engagement boosts loyalty and customer retention. When genuine interest is shown in customers, they’ll be more likely to buy from you again. By becoming the holistic answer or solution to the customer’s problem, you can be their go-to solution provider. Furthermore, with consistent customer engagement and giving them what they seek, there will be a significant increase in users. Eventually, with the brand familiarity, they will fall back to you for the solutions, leaving you with a strong customer base.