Customer Engagement | Customer Experience |
| Brands making an effort to maintain customer relationships | Customers’ perception of the brand |
| Aims at customer loyalty and customer lifetime value | Aims at overall customer satisfaction |
| Any communication between the brand and the customer | Stems from a customer’s sum total interactions with the brand |
Though customer experience and customer engagement are two different elements they still go hand in hand and help businesses provide customers with the most delightful brand experience. When trying to run a successful business both customer experience and customer engagement are equally important. The terms are often used interchangeably even though they mean different things. So what are customer experience and customer engagement? We are glad you asked.
What is customer experience?
Customer experience is customers’ perception of the brand that stems from their total interactions with the brand. These interactions can be anything from the onboarding process to customer support interactions. Every step in the customer journey has the potential to impact the customer’s perception of the brand or business.
What is customer engagement?
Customer engagement on the other hand is all about a company’s effort to build a dialogue among its customers to keep them engaged. Businesses work on customer engagement strategies by making efforts to communicate and interact with their customers. Through quality customer engagement strategies businesses can not only keep an eye on consumer behavior but also have a stronger influence on customers. Connecting with customers can also bring other advantages like increased sales, better participation, repeat buyers, etc.
How customer experience and customer engagement go hand in hand
Customer experience and customer engagement are different yet equally important elements that play a far-reaching role. Focusing on building customer experience or customer engagement has the potential to positively impact the overall growth of any business. However, when both are given equal importance it can provide the best results. It is important to understand that both when put together create a synergy that not only benefits the customers but also the business itself.
Here are 5 reasons why CX and CE go hand in hand –
1. Whenever customers feel like a brand is providing them with the best customer experience, they not only promote the brand among their circles but also engage better with the business itself.
2. With every positive brand experience and customers’ perception of the brand gets better and they are much more likely to become repeat buyers. This means they are very likely to engage with the business very often.
3. Customer experience and customer engagement together also impact your net promoter score and customer lifetime value. Happy and satisfied customers are excellent brand influencers who help you increase your brand visibility.
4. Good customer experiences help businesses build a stronger foundation with their customers which makes it easier to interact easily and maintain good customer engagement levels.
5. Better engagement and positive experiences at the right time also boost sales and ultimately increase growth and profitability levels.
Tips to improve customer experience and customer engagement levels
Set up Self- serve portals
The Harvard Business Review noted that across industries, fully 81% of all customers attempt to take care of matters themselves before reaching out to a live representative. Customers love the idea of being independent. Customers now hate to bother agents and prefer solving their customer support issues all on their own. According to a report by Microsoft, about 77% of consumers report having used a self-service portal. Knowledge management systems that can be accessed by customers at any time help businesses provide a great customer experience.
Omnichannel support
According to a report by Omnisend, Marketers using three or more channels in any one campaign earned a 287% higher purchase rate than those using a single-channel campaign. Customers are everywhere and just like them businesses also need to be everywhere the customer is. Taking care of customer service needs across various channels can help businesses make the customer experience much better. Facilitating an Omnichannel support strategy not only helps brands better engage with customers across multiple but also provides customer service teams and businesses numerous advantages.
Invest in AI Chatbots
According to a report by Drift, the vast majority (87.2%) of consumers have neutral or positive experiences with chatbots. Artificially Intelligent Chatbots help brands in cutting down operational costs and increase CSAT scores in no time. Another report by Drift noted that the number 1 use case for chatbots is to get a quick answer to a query. Due to the nature of their quick assistance AI Chatbots help customers quickly solve customer support issues within a matter of minutes. Their Machine learning and natural language processing abilities help them provide a human-like customer support experience that makes them even easier to use.
Feedback collection and implementation
Keeping up with changing customer expectations is essential and the best way to do it is by collecting regular feedback. Feedback implementation helps businesses to create better and much more satisfying customer experiences. Regular feedback or customer surveys helps businesses understand if customers are truly satisfied or if they are still unsatisfied with their products or services. The information collected provides valuable insights into a customer’s overall brand experience. In addition to this, it also helps brands identify any loopholes in the existing customer support strategies after which they can make changes accordingly.
How can Kapture help
Investing in the right customer relationship management system like Kapture can play a far-reaching role. Kapture’s intelligent CRM helps businesses step up their ticket resolution game in no time.
Kapture helps businesses –
- Decrease ticket escalations
- Improve First call resolution rates
- Satisfies your customer expectations
- Helps your customers help themselves
- Enables 24/7 customer support
Want to know more about how you can boost customer engagement and customer experiences? Click here to book your next free trial with Kapture!
