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Connecting with customers in meaningful ways is a big challenge for a business. Modern businesses are turning to Customer Engagement Platforms (CEPs) to revolutionize how they engage with their audience. These platforms offer a range of tools and capabilities designed to facilitate personalized and multichannel interactions that create deeper connections and drive meaningful outcomes.
In this article, let us go deeper to learn more about what constitutes a customer engagement software platform and the various types of customer engagement tools based on their use cases.
A customer engagement platform is software that helps businesses acquire, engage, and serve customers across all communication channels under one solution. Having all conversations in one inbox helps you to understand the customer journey and get better insights to help agents make better decisions.
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With the right customer engagement hub and software in place, you can build long-lasting customer relationships that can increase customer lifetime value (CLTV), sales conversions, as well as retention.
The core elements of customer engagement are:
If you want to know the entire procedure, just think of a bustling hub where streams of data flow in from all directions. And, converging into a unified nexus of customer insights. This is the heart of a Customer Engagement Platform (CEP), where every interaction website visits to social media interactions are meticulously collected and integrated.
With the help of advanced analytics, it transforms this wealth of data into actionable intelligence, segmenting customers into distinct groups based on shared traits and behaviors. You cannot deny that automation lends efficiency. It frees up valuable time while ensuring timely and relevant communications.
Behind the scenes, the platform’s analytical prowess discloses customer behavior and plays a crucial role in making strategic decisions and fine-tuning engagement strategies. As feedback flows back into the system, businesses adapt and evolve. You can continually nurture relationships and foster lasting loyalty.
Also, it serves as both architect and conductor and harmonizes the symphony of customer engagement with precision and finesse.
Both Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and Customer Engagement Platforms (CEPs) share a common goal. They enhance customer interactions, but they differ significantly in scope and functionality. A CRM system primarily manages customer data, tracks interactions, and facilitates sales and service processes.
It serves as a repository for customer information. Also, it enables businesses to streamline their sales pipelines, manage leads, and track customer communications.
On the other hand, a Customer Engagement Platform goes beyond data management. It incorporates advanced analytics, multichannel engagement capabilities, and personalized interactions. It orchestrates targeted marketing campaigns, automates customer communications, and analyzes customer behavior to optimize engagement strategies.
Unlike a CRM, which primarily serves sales and service teams, a CEP encompasses marketing, sales, and customer service functions. It provides a holistic approach to customer engagement across the entire customer lifecycle. In essence, while
Finally, a CRM is focused on managing customer relationships and transactions, in contrast, a CEP is geared toward cultivating meaningful engagements and long-term customer loyalty.
A good customer engagement platform should provide capabilities to streamline your communication with your clients and deliver them an unforgettable experience.
However, the important use cases of customer engagements are discussed below.
Websites are a key source of customer engagement and lead generation. Implementing appealing web design and engagement ideas helps constructively engage users at multiple touchpoints to increase website engagement.
Engaging customers at the right moment when they are looking for it with the help of advanced digital engagement tools like live chat, co-browsing, and video chat delivers a better conversational support experience.
An effective customer engagement platform helps to scale customer service as per the requirement to deliver an excellent customer service experience.
Leveraging AI chatbots helps businesses automate lead qualification by asking preset questionnaires to website visitors. It helps to close sales instantly, which increases sales funnel velocity.
Investing in a customer engagement technology or platform allows businesses to significantly improve the experiences they offer to their customers through digitalization and automation via a variety of communication channels.
Self-service portals and digital communication channels are the key driving forces for retaining your customer base and overall business growth.
Now we know why you should have a CEP, let us go through the key features narrowed down, which include digital customer service channels, a self-service portal, and a knowledge base.
Customer concerns not being addressed fast is one of the crucial reasons why clients abandon online transactions.
92% of customers feel satisfied when they choose live chat to connect with businesses, unlike reactive channels such as phone or email.
As response time plays a vital component of a good customer service experience, live chat fulfills it by having their issues resolved quickly.
Live chat is the most preferred software by businesses to deliver real-time responses to customers. It is a complete customer service toolkit that includes live engagement tools like co-browsing and video chat that deliver an interactive support experience.
An AI-enabled customer engagement software fulfills client’s expectations of getting real-time responses.
Chatbots can engage with your customers with immediate responses and increase customer satisfaction, which makes them happy to retain your brand.
Using a chatbot, you can easily understand how to measure customer engagement online and cater to engaged customers across their journey with your brand.
How do AI bots improve customer engagement?
Emirates Vacations is the best chatbot example for boosting customer engagement. They built a chatbot within its display ads and engagement rates have risen 87% since deployment.
33% of customers are most frustrated by having to wait on hold and by having to repeat themselves to multiple support reps.
Visual engagement tools are being widely adopted by businesses to increase customer engagement. Engaging clients with video chat helps customers through tricky situations in real-time, unlike reactive channels.
Live video chat is a proactive support channel that allows:
A knowledge base is one of the most powerful tools when it comes to capturing, managing, and propagating knowledge across an organization.
The reasons to employ such a solution are as numerous as the benefits of knowledge sharing themselves, especially for businesses that are always eager to learn more, keep improving, and provide better customer service.
A customer engagement platform can easily track the links when customers land on your knowledge base. You can also see whether people have their questions answered when they visit them and keep track of the resources you have already shared.
Social media platforms can help with customer engagement in several ways. In addition to effective engagement and communication, social media also makes it easier to market your brand.
Here is how social media platforms can help to boost engagement.
It includes leveraging the platform’s capabilities to deliver personalized, timely, and seamless interactions across all touchpoints. Now let’s take a look at some essential tips to enhance customer experience using CEPs:
Usually, businesses focus on engaging users at the beginning of their journey in different ways like welcome emails, and onboarding messages but lack a long-term solid customer engagement strategy. User engagement spans the entire lifecycle and should be at a balanced pace to drive users deeper into the product.
Your approach to how conversations go with the right information can make the difference between customer retention and customer churn. We have outlined the main categories to engage clients and examples of the best platforms.
Let us dive in.
Live customer engagement is all about delivering personalized one-on-one conversations with the customers in real time with the help of advanced tools like co-browsing, screen sharing, video & voice chat.
How do live tools improve customer engagement?
Some best platforms for live customer engagement are Pega and REVE Chat, which is an omnichannel live chat platform that provides real-time sales and support assistance with a complete suite of live engagement tools.
AI Chatbots are a smarter way to ensure that customers receive the instant response that they demand. Deploying bots can help businesses engage customers 24×7 by instantly responding to their common queries.
Key ways chatbots help in customer engagement:
Some best chatbot platforms for customer engagement are Bold360 and REVE Chat.
The main focus of email engagement should be providing real value to the users whether it is being used for onboarding or a weekly newsletter. Emails sent in the right manner act as an extension of your brand.
How do email platforms boost customer engagement?
Hubspot and Marketo are examples of the most preferred email marketing tools used by businesses.
Choosing the right help desk software helps a customer support team to organize, analyze, prioritize, and respond to customer queries and requests effectively.
The main benefit of deploying the right tool helps to route the customer conversations to the right agent or department and provide effective customer service solutions.
The best examples of help desk tools for better customer engagement are Zendesk and Freshdesk.
Customer-centric companies are more profitable than those not focused on the customer. It proves that putting customers at the core is a big step toward business success. Collecting customer feedback is important. And equally important is how you collect customer feedback.
How do feedback tools improve customer engagement?
Knowing how to choose the right tools for your business, however, is a bit tricky. Obtaining feedback is attributed to the fact that customer feedback tools are very diverse in purpose like surveys, online reviews, visual feedback, etc.
Survicate and SurveyMonkey and the most preferred feedback collection tools implemented by businesses.
In-app communication is the most contextual way to reach users. Hence the communication should make users feel like an extension of your product. For effective in-app messaging, the best way to educate users is by minimum onboarding steps and focusing on user goals.
If your product has a broader audience, you need to choose a customer service tool that allows scalability and allows you to create a database of FAQs for in-app outreach.
Some best examples of in-app customer engagement platforms are Appcues and Sendbird.
Analytics tools are vital as they empower your support teams to understand how customers interact with the brand.
Choosing the right analytics tools will help to capture crucial data about customer behavior. By using such data points, companies can better their customers and hence, provide better value.
Hotjar and Kissmetrics are the top analytics tools used for customer engagement.
Social media is one of the most cost-effective online marketing strategies that allow businesses to enhance their visibility and brand awareness. You can witness greater social media impact with some important tools in your arsenal.
Hootsuite and Brand24 are the most preferred tools for monitoring social media customer engagement.
Now it is evident that customer engagement software is very important in delivering a better customer experience (CX). If you are looking forward to increasing revenue efficiency and delivering a superior customer experience, a good customer engagement platform can do it for your business.
Start with identifying your core business requirements and choose the right consumer engagement platform that can empower your support team to deliver better service and increase customer satisfaction.
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