Online Small businesses will often rely on their website for consumers to find them, so this is your opportunity to make a good impression with potential leads or returning customers. Therefore, you want to make sure that site keeps your visitors engaged and interested.

There are few brands that aren’t aware of the importance of being engaging on the web, but smaller companies often don’t believe they have the resources or time to be updating their websites on a more continuous basis with fresh and new content. So what many small businesses do is create a Facebook page and forgo the website.

There is no question that Facebook and other social media outlets are an excellent place to begin but if you want to gain the trust of your customer you need a website – it really is that important, because it shows that you have a company that is established. You want to make sure that your website experience will match your customer service experience.

We live in a world that is increasingly mobile and so consumers expect the same shopping experience online as they would get in your store. Therefore, it is a good idea to offer a seamless customer experience such as providing in-depth details on your products/services, purchasing information, easy contact, and a way for customers to quickly reach you such as live chat.

You should also personalize your site in a way that works for your business. Enhance your customer experience by tailoring your site to their needs. Don’t use flashy gimmicks. Use big data analytics to learn what it is your customer is looking for when they arrive at your site and then create an experience that pleases them.

Make sure you are using social media as a tool to communicate and engage with your customers online. Social media’s role has changed a lot in the last few years. Not only is it a way to share and promote your content from your site, it can be an extension in your customer service – a quick and easy way for your customers to contact and connect with you.

You can also reach your customers quickly and in a very cost effective way, that costs only pennies per customer. Engaging your customers online is no longer a novelty – something you can think about offering. It is what consumers want and if you aren’t providing it, you need to expect that they will look elsewhere.

Why customer engagement is key to your success?

Success Customer engagement focuses on you encouraging your customers to share and interact with your company staff. It encouraged them to share their experiences and in return, what you create from them is your brand.

When you execute this well, you will develop a solid customer engagement strategy that will promote loyalty and growth. Those companies that focus on customer engagement focus on value creation rather than on extracting revenue. These companies are well aware of how to engage their customers online.

They know how to provide them with real value whether they offer an superior end to end experience for their customer, exceptional content on their website, the best possible customer support and service, what they are doing is making sure they deliver more than just your typical sell. Incorporating these customer engagement strategies can be healthy for your business. Remember happy customers are the life of your business

Obsess over your customers! It’s necessary to success! It begins with the culture you establish for your company and making sure that your support team is at the frontlines to make sure your customers are happy and their needs are addressed. Your entire company from top to bottom needs to share that providing an amazing customer experience is necessary for the key to your company’s success.

Think about how your company model can service your customers in the best way possible. What is it your customers need from you and when do your customers need you. What hours should you be available? Do you offer a seamless process for your customers? Your customer experience allows you to offer you a way to increase your customer satisfaction and loyalty, which in turn leads to them advocating for you.

Your company grows because you have happy customers. Companies that miss this may stick around for a while but they will eventually falter. It is much more difficult to continue to build new customers than it is to keep your current customers engaged and happy, and wanting to return to buy more products from you.

Companies that actually value their customers and work hard at engaging them are wise companies and they are far more likely to be here a decade or two from now. Your customer is the lifeblood of your business and it is important to ensure that all of your employees treat the customer with the importance that they deserve. What an interesting and engaging relationship one can build with their employees.

The KPIS and customer engagement goals

Customer Engagement is often overlooked. Yet every company should have their KPIS and customer engagement goals set. So what should that look like? ROI or return on investment is key to every business and Ro, which is the return, is up to you. What one sees is a good return on their investment is personal and it is defined by the company and the shareholders or by management.

You need to make sure that you define this. You do not need to make sure that all is directed in a commercial direction, but it is a good idea if it ties back to your commercial venue. It is easy to make sure that your commercial goals are linked to your marketing KPIs or you customer engagement by simply developing your own matrix.

You can use this approach so that people from varying levels that each has their own perspective within the company can see the value of having a retention program or customer engagement program. For example, look at a referral of your product to a friend vs. a customer who makes their third and fourth purchase. Both of these matters.

Both of these are linked to the traffic on your website. As a result, you can easily tie them both to sales. For the repeat customer it is clearly visible that there is lifetime value just as there is for the new customer. So when it comes to new vs. return visitors Google Analytics is an excellent tool for marketers who are trying to establish commercial goals and need to see if those goals have been met.

You will be able to easily see where the customer engagement takes place and the direct relationship is built. For example, you could see that Facebook, which is generally customer orientated, is where you had your first customer engagement. You might have a customer group on your website. You might have a customer form.

Your goal is to find the simplest way to judge customer engagement. With social media usage growing at exponential rates, it is the key to amplify your message. When you engage your customer on some level, you can look at just how well your content/message is resonating to your audience. Sales are your end goal; however, before the sales, the KPIs can make things more manageable for those on the front lines and it will certainly make it more meaningful.

Excerpted from the book Online Customer Engagement.

This excerpt has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Download this book on Boostlane:

https://boostlane.com/p/boostlane/836/online-customer-engagement/