Customer engagement - facts and figures

"86% of buyers will pay more for a

better customer experience"

Forbes

In the past 7 weeks, I have introduced you to dif ferent ways you can engage your customers. That you improve your employee engagement, use picture contests or promote your products through special offers, all you are trying to do is to please your existing and potential customers. That means that at best, you are reaching customer engagement, building up a crowd that will see you and only you to fulf il specif ic needs. But what are the real advantages of customer engagement? Why should you all aim to it?

Engage - Amplify - convertPictawall

The goal of every of your act ions

From banking to hospitality, in any sector companies that succeed in engaging their customer-base generate signif icantly more revenues than their counterparts. On average, engaged customers can increase your prof itability and revenues by a 23% premium (Gallup, 2014). These tend to visit your store or website more often and they also spend up to 90% more frequently and spend up to 60% more per transaction than other customers (Hahn, Bansal and Schnoes, 2015). The opportunity is stil l immense, knowing that ?86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience? (Forbes, 2013). But perhaps the most appealing statistic is the fact that a 5% increase in your customer retention can increase your prof its by 25% to 95% (Harvard Business School).

More revenues

But increased prof its and revenues are only the quantitative and most visible benefits of your actions to enhance your customer engagement. These better results are likely to be driven by a positive reputation or at least a non-negative reputation. By enhancing your customer engagement, you give yourself the opportunity to receive more positive testimonials from your most engaged clientele. Most importantly, you might avoid negative comments about your products or company in general. Did you know that it takes 12 positive comments to make up only 1 single negative comment? The good news is that 63% of the buyers say the customer service is the most important criterion while choosing a brand (Parature, 2013). That clearly shows that if you want to avoid your reputation to be tarnished, your focus should be on enhancing their customer service.

Reputat ion The shift to online customer service With worldwide online sales expected to reach $2 trillion by 2016, this is 1 retail transaction out of 2 that will soon be made online. With your customers buying more and more online, you must be able to provide excellent service online as well. Most companies are stil l trying to f ind their way in how they can use social platforms to market their brands. However, it seems like these are destined to be the next place where your customer service should focus. Where else would you complain about an awful shopping experience than on your Facebook or Twitter account? And we all know the meaning of viral on these platforms. So if you want to avoid few negative comments to spread and turn into a bad reputation for your company, you?d better start controll ing your image on social media. Be prompt to answer positive and even more negative posts, serve your customers where they want to be served.

Haven?t started yet?At a time when competit ion is getting f iercer, an engaged public is l ikely to be your best asset to expand your activity and simply prevent your business from going bust. 68%

of your competitors have already understood it and will increase their spending to improve their customer experience (Call Center IQ, 2014). If you intend to expand your business, it is high time for you to make an action plan. At Pictawall, we focus on engaging your customers through their favourite channels, the social media.