A customer engagement platform is a form of digital software which aids businesses in managing complex customer relationships. This software allows a company to manage, optimise and analyse the customer journey. This is conducted through automatically sending personalised messages to your customer base through various platforms. 

In our advanced digital age, customers typically have the luxury of a fast and personalised service. And with new competitors springing up every week, these expectations will continue to heighten. At the core of it, customers want meaningful marketing, tailored recommendations and a thoughtful service experience. Not only that, but customers also want accessible and convenient ways to contact businesses. Common examples include:

• Social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram
• Live chat features
• SMS and other messaging apps
• Phone and email contact details

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The Benefits of Using a Customer Engagement Platform

Within that desire of a convenient, accessible service, they ultimately want to speak with businesses through the same communication channels as they would with friends and family. The relationship developed between a business and a customer is complex and nuanced – therefore it needs to be managed appropriately. This is where we see the importance of efficient customer engagement software. Here are some examples of the benefits associated with an effective customer engagement platform:

• The creation of a deeper and trustworthy dynamic with customers
• The ability to deliver unique customer experiences 
• Strengthening of customer personalisation 

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Creating and Building a Trustworthy Dynamic

If we haven’t already cemented this - a personalised customer experience is going to build brand loyalty. It is something we see everyday in major brands – email recommendations, personalised vouchers tailored to your shopping habits, and much more. But creating this personalised service doesn’t come easy. Acquiring this data can be extremely difficult and typically requires a great deal of financial investment, time, and planning to create a digital customer engagement platform in-house. 

When we look at traditional customer relationship management systems, we see how the customer engagement is heavily focused on generating transactions. But this is an outdated concept and in the modern era, the focal point is the customer. Customers want to be treated as individuals instead of a mass statistic – and frustrations will quickly develop with brands they feel lack appreciation for them as individuals. 

Nowadays, the most successful brands are the ones which win the hearts and loyalty of their customer base. This is achieved through moving away from focusing purely on one-off customer transactions. They are shifting their engagement strategies to focus more on developing and growing customer loyalty by creating a more trustworthy relationship by having the customer at the centre of the relationship. This is achieved by understanding their preferences and gauging their needs, which can essentially guide the customer through the purchase journey. 

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The Delivery of Unique Customer Experiences

For a brand to maintain and grow their customer base, it’s of vital importance to collect and analyse every customer interaction across their communication channels in order to build an authentic profile of their customers. Doing this successfully leads to a fantastic consumer experience. While many customer engagement platforms aren’t built to handle this, Redfast has been developed with the flexibility to manage the influx of digital channels, along with the data contained within each platform. Through the use of this technology, customers can choose how they engage with a business.

With the rising trend of digital customer engagement, it’s crucial to ensure that a proven and effective customer engagement platform is incorporated into the business software. An example of how Redfast aids in this is through our Better Error Experience service. When a customer is experiencing site errors, a remedial prompt will pop up immediately, offering acknowledgement to the error and providing access to support, or a financial offer. 

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Strengthening of Customer Personalisation

When we look at the marketing of major brand names, we can see how they use personalisation to effectively shout through the noise of highly saturated, competitive markets. A simple but effective tool is using personalised greetings. These can have a massive impact on building better relationships with your customer base. 

Despite its simplicity, it’s a powerful way of showing that you recognise and value each customer as an individual entity and not a lumped-together demographic. By greeting a customer by name, it’s effectively going to create a sense of trust and belonging as the business has put effort into learning who they are. These greetings don’t have to be complicated – using a customer’s first name on a website or email can go a long way in making a customer feel seen and appreciated. 

Another way of achieving customer personalisation is by tailoring communications based off what stage they’re at in their buying process. If the customer has an online basket which hasn’t been updated for a while, an automated email with a personalised offer relating to their order can encourage the customer to complete their purchase.

Here at Redfast, we offer personalised onboarding. This guides users to features, content and benefits, in a personalised way that takes into account what the user has not yet done. This ensures that the user is not being prompted with things they are already familiar with. 

Investing in a Digital Customer Engagement Platform

Ultimately, a customer engagement platform is an investment in the management of one-to-one interactions. And while these interactions may seem small or insignificant, they can be a genuine game-changer to building those solid relationships with your customers. It allows you to connect with your customers on a more personal level, thereby developing a sense of intimacy and trust. This aids in engagement and loyalty. 

It allows you to address issues promptly and provide each customer with personalised support, and with the platform sending automated responses to repetitive queries, it allows time and space for human employees to address complex customer issues. 

To wrap it up, a customer engagement platform is there to tailor interactions and communication to the specific needs and requirements of individual customers, creating a sense of a more personal connection and a more positive experience overall.