Customer engagement can be difficult to measure without the proper tools, resources, or know-how. Customer data platforms have been a massive help for businesses, but they are not the be all and end all.
Analysing customer behaviour can tell you a lot about your business performance. Understanding their level of engagement will allow you to identify where you’re going right. But also, more importantly, where you’re going wrong.
For you to be out in front of your competitors, you need to engage with your customers better than anyone else. That means a deeper level of understanding, better segmentation, and a higher level of personalisation.
The first step is admitting it. There is no such thing as the perfect business and mistakes come with the territory. Creating a good customer experience comes down to identifying where you need changes and then making them. Understanding the “why” when it comes to measuring customer engagement will lead you to a successful future.
Anything you do in your business should be measured and evaluated consistently. It is no different when it comes to customer engagement. By tracking your engagement levels, you can discover ways to improve the customer experience while also keeping churn low.
Your engagement metrics will help you understand the value that your customers receive from interacting with you. Keeping the customer in mind when it comes to setting your goals is important for the success of your engagement campaigns.
Your customer has a choice to make when it comes to shopping. They could easily go to one of your competitors. But, by being customer centric and nailing your customer engagement efforts you make their choice a lot easier. 75% of consumers claim they would be willing to spend more with a brand that provides really good quality experiences.
The wants, needs, and preferences of the customer is what should drive customer engagement. You can understand where you might be going wrong by measuring your engagement levels.
Measuring the level of customer engagement also allows you to find out what they find the most valuable or interesting. It can come down to certain products or offers you are providing.
When you understand this, you can start to segment your customers and provide a more personalised experience. The benefits of a customer data platform has helped businesses in carrying this out, and continues to do so.
Personalisation is king when it comes to providing the best customer experience possible. One would assume that companies have this nailed down at this stage. But 36% of consumers still think that businesses should be doing more.
To get ahead of your competitors, use the data you have to understand your level of engagement and make changes where necessary.
Conversion rate is one of, if not, the most important metric when it comes to any website. It doesn’t matter what you consider your conversions to be (purchases, deposits, newsletter sign ups etc). If the rate of conversion is low, then the rate of engagement would be low as well.
Your level of conversions is a direct indicator of how engaged your customers are with your business. In order for someone to go through the steps of purchasing from your site they need to see the value in doing so.
You have to engage them all the way through until the conversion is complete. Without understanding how to engage customers, your conversion rate, and therefore your revenue, will remain low.
Analysing how your customers are interacting with your website is simple enough to understand and doesn’t require the use of a customer data platform.
A simple tool like Google Analytics can easily track what your customers are doing and where they are spending time. There are a few metrics to have a look at to measure customer engagement.
Number of pages per session gives a good indication of how they navigate your website. Understanding the average customer journey can aid you in creating a better user experience along that journey. Optimising the steps along the way can help you increase your conversion rates.
The average time spent per page can also bring similar benefits. If it’s a page where you are trying to drive your customers towards completing a goal then you want them to spend time on that page. If that number is low then you would want to consider changing that page in order to make it more engaging.
The overall time spent on your site is a good indicator of whether your site is engaging or not. A low level of time spent, or a high bounce rate means that your website could be poorly optimised. This will show largely in your engagement levels, in that they will be very low.
One thing that you can’t rely on a customer data platform to do for you is get feedback directly from the source.
Keeping track of your Net Promoter Score (NPS) will help you measure customer interaction and trust in your service. It can also give you a good indication of their level of loyalty to you.
Gathering information to contribute to your NPS generally comes in the form of a customer survey. This survey usually consists of two questions:
Of course, these questions can be tailored for your business. But they will more than likely be similar to the ones above.
Customers can be quite honest with this feedback. Understanding and actioning their feedback will help you make significant improvements to your loyalty and engagement rates.
A feedback loop so customers know what action you’ve taken can help to strengthen the relationship.
Social media is a fantastic tool to increase brand awareness, promote different offers, or build a community of engaged followers.
Tracking your level of engagement on social media is pretty straightforward. You should be looking at:
Engagement doesn’t happen only before customers enter your site. A lot of it is done on your site while they browse. If your site isn’t engaging, then users will likely get bored and look elsewhere.
Measuring the level of engagement on your website isn’t a tricky task. There are plenty of onsite goals you can get your customers to complete to measure how you are performing. A customer data platform would help you better understand where your customers spend time and interact with your site.
Videos are an effective way to keep customers engaged while browsing your site. 87% of marketers have found that their use of videos has resulted in positive ROI. More specifically, 81% have said it has had a direct, positive impact on their level of sales. It has also helped a high number of customers better understand their product.
Gathering customer data by including some sort of form throughout your website is a good way to both:
When a customer is willing to give up their data to you, the chances that they are engaged with your business is pretty high. And this data leads to further engagement in the form of more personalised campaigns down the line.
Just make sure you reward this by (a) sharing something of value and (b) don’t share their data with third parties.
There are two ways that you can break down user activity metrics. Both are pretty self explanatory:
Analysis of both DAU and MAU can give you good insight into how customers are interacting with you over a certain period of time. They can also further inform your marketing retention efforts.
The most important thing is that you don’t leave these measurements alone too long. Just because you have made changes once doesn’t mean you’re finished with it. You need to make sure you are keeping track consistently.
Constant understanding of how your engagement efforts are performing will help you deliver the best possible customer experience. It will also push you ahead of your competitors and win the battle in a booming market.
If you would like to know more about how a customer data platform can help you engage with your customers on a deeper level, get in touch with us today.
About Xtremepush
Xtremepush is the world’s leading customer data and engagement data platform. We work with various top brands within the eCommerce industry. Schedule a personalised demo of our platform to learn more about how we can help your brand drive repeat customers and increase revenue.