A beginner's guide to customer engagement

• Jonathan Crossfield
• 2 September 2009
• Page 1 of 2 : single page

A business that tries to dictate its customers' behaviour may as well try herding cats. Customers will decide for themselves exactly how they will behave and whether or not to choose your business, your products or your website, thank you very much. When you're acting as a customer, don't you?

The title of this article - customer engagement - is a bit of a fudge. Engagement needs to happen before they become a customer. A person needs to have made a decision to listen to your message before it will get through. We choose which emails to open and which to delete. We choose which channel to watch and when to skip the ads. We choose which links to click on in Google and which to scroll past.

Too often, a business will design a campaign in expectation of a specific response only to grow frustrated as everyone chooses to avoid the link or misinterpret the webpage or - quite frankly - not be as impressed as you told them they should be.

So, how does one business attract thousands of loyal, happy and active customers while another remains forgotten and unloved - or worse, criticised and hated? The simple answer is, the first company understands how the customer has the power in the relationship and is happy to listen.

By engaging the right audience, interacting with them and allowing that audience to grow - unrestricted - as large as possible, you have the best platform from which to convert customers.

This is not just about the trendy social networks like Twitter and Facebook. They are just one small tool in a bigger engagement strategy. This approach should inform your entire business, from the website to your marketing, and even your offline activities like customer service and traditional advertising.

Customer-friendly web design

A customer-focused strategy starts where it ends: the website. Ever been to a website where you couldn't find what you were looking for? It's a common failing - and big business isn't immune. Often, a website is launched to tick off that 21st century must-have, with little regard to whether the site genuinely adds value to the customer.

In web design, there is a five-second rule. When clicking through Google results in search of a product or solution, a person will, on average, scan a page for five seconds before deciding to read on or click back for the next link.

"By engaging the right audience, interacting with them and allowing that audience to grow - unrestricted - as large as possible, you have the best platform from which to convert customers."

We have all had experiences of sites that confuse, confound and annoy by failing to serve us in the way we expect. There are FAQ pages that don't actually answer anything worthwhile; purchasing processes that are complex and buried; and confusing copy that requires effort and time to extract the pertinent points.

Make sure your website isn't guilty of these failings.

A website should always - always - be designed from the customer's point of view. It doesn't matter that you want to shout out how great your business is if that statement doesn't answer a specific consumer need.

Does the home page explain, clearly and briefly, how a customer can benefit by choosing you or your products?

Is the navigation of the site simple and intuitive to anyone regardless of their skill level? You may be able to interpret the trendy menu bar and jargon - after all, you dreamt it up - but could your mum find her way around the site without help? Your neighbour? Your ideal customer?

Don't make your audience struggle to decipher your site; they won't do homework. Don't sacrifice usability and simplicity for style and special effects; they won't impress. With Google just a click away, they will simply find a website that speaks to them quickly and plainly instead.

Most website mistakes are caused by inexperience. If you are at all unsure about how to tailor a website to a customer's needs, call in the experts. Without a decent website, no amount of engagement is going to convert visitors into customers.

Building trust

Trust is one of the biggest deciders for a potential customer when choosing whether to buy from you or the competition. Will the item arrive in the post as promised? What happens if it is broken or doesn't do what I require? How am I protected from fraud or bad service? How reputable is the business?

The Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey published in July surveyed consumers to determine the factors that created trust with a brand (see Figure 1 below). The greatest influence on trust - with 90% - was word of mouth from a known contact. In equal second place at 70% were ‘consumer opinions posted online' and ‘brand websites'.

You can tap into word of mouth and consumer opinions with little effort. Consumer reviews on your site become a form of user-generated content, allowing you to benefit from the work and opinions of your audience. These reviews or bites of feedback create trust and reduce risk for customers, potentially converting more readers.

You may need to moderate feedback to remove particularly offensive comments, and there is certainly no guarantee that all the reviews will be good. However, if one of your products or services continually generated negative feedback, why would you continue selling it? Such feedback could provide useful insight into which products you should be selling or how to improve your offers, resulting in better feedback in future. No one knows how to improve your products better than your customers.

If you choose to make customer feedback publicly available on your website, resist the temptation to delete negative comments. Trying to control the conversation quickly destroys trust as customers will notice. You need to approach customer engagement honestly, publicly and with humility. Mistakes and imperfection are human. No one trusts a company that hides criticism or mistakes behind a wall of arrogance.

By demonstrating that you accept and respond to criticism, customers will trust you even more. They will know that their needs and opinions are taken seriously and that you genuinely strive to provide them with the best possible solution.

Being human with video

We all respond differently to a friendly face than to an inanimate object (or text). It provides a human connection instead of merely clicking buttons on the machine.

Video tutorials, testimonials and user guides are extremely popular with an audience looking for easily digestible content, allowing you to provide different content that appeals to various user preferences. Some people prefer to learn by reading, others through demonstration - something video does very well. Your website can easily cater for both of these preferences, engaging more users in the way they feel most comfortable.

Watching a testimonial from a previous customer can also be more personal and persuasive than reading a review. It brings that transaction and opinion to life. Importantly, video humanises the experience and breaks the sterile, machine environment. But you can take this idea even further.