user engagement model
The 4 Phases of Building a Modern User Engagement Model
The write-up explores the four stages of the user engagement model that remain the same regardless of your business type or size.
Humans seek kinship. They thrive on relationships. No matter how empirically we think, our emotions in most cases have an upper hand in our decision-making process. This is especially true when it comes to buying stuff.
What are the needs, wants, or desires of people a brand promises to satisfy? How is people’s experience while inquiring about the product? These are some tangible factors that deeply affect a consumer’s buying decisions. How was their experience after the sales and while using the product are some big factors that would decide if they will come back for another purchase, remain loyal to your brand, and also advocate it to their friends and family?
The underlying idea here is to provide an optimum customer experience to the users engaged and form long-term relationships with. In other words, the end goal for all businesses should be for engaged customers to be happy customers.
Successful businesses know this effective yet easy and most overlooked aspect of the business. They not only plug the holes in the way they engage with their customers but also optimize their user engagement strategy across a user’s customer journey. How do they do this? By using a user engagement model.
User engagement & customer experience — what’s the difference?
User engagement is the science of forming strong customer relationships to enhance business goals. A user engagement model allows businesses to provide great customer experience to a user throughout their customer journey. Effective user engagement strategies help the customer to take actions quicker, with the least amount of resistance & reluctance. It also keeps them loyal to the brand or business in this cut-throat competitive world.
User engagement & customer experience in the digital world
In the past century, though this underlying theme of building fulfilling relationships with the customers has not changed, the way businesses make them have. Modern technology with its digital prowess has made it possible to make the entire process more effective and engaging.
The digital advancements substantially changed how businesses interact with their customers. For instance, many mediums like emails, Chatbots and live chat, social media, websites, forums, etc. now coexist to cater to customers across multiple touchpoints that could very well resemble an in-store experience.
Salesforce’s research shows that customers desire an omnichannel experience, something that digital technological advancements can make possible.
This expansion of several touchpoints to the customer experience allows your customer to have an elaborate customized brand experience, where their needs are met and concerns solved.
Furthermore, digital user engagement models reduce human intervention at every touchpoint and thus have made the whole process more effective, less expensive, and quick. With the advent of superlative AI-driven technologies that work across channels as mentioned above such as live chat, Chatbots, Cobrowse, etc have made today’s customer more digitally connected than ever in human history.
When it comes to introducing AI in enhancing the customer experience — 62% of customers are open to the use of AI to improve their experiences — up from 59% in 2018, according to the State of the connected customer, 3rd edition, Salesforce research.
Now in order to offer such awesome experiences, we need to have a customer engagement model in place.
What is the purpose of a user engagement model?
Simply put, the purpose of a customer engagement model is to engage with customers in an informed and effective way of forming long-lasting customer relationships. Through a user-engagement model, businesses can plan out user engagement strategies for customers based on their past purchase behaviors like what drove the customer to make the buying decision, what was their motivation, who was involved in helping them in their customer journey, etc.
The two vital aspects of every customer engagement:
Acquisition: The ultimate goal of customer acquisition is to get as many visitors as possible and convert them into customers. One way to do it is by delivering strong brand statements and increasing awareness amongst the public about the business.
Retention: This is focused on retaining and nurturing people that already are customers. Retention endeavors increase brand loyalty and brand advocacy through happy customers.
The 4 stages of a user engagement model
Here are the four stages of the user engagement model that remain the same regardless of your business type or size.
1. Awareness
This is the first stage of the user engagement funnel. The goal of this stage is to spread and increase awareness of the product or the service to the potential market. The target audience here is the group of people who are looking for help and do not know where to find it. We entice them through outreaching activities to become our customers by telling them who we are, what we do, and how we can help them.
Campaigns are designed on the pain points and the challenges of the customers. Tools like Google Ads, Google trends, Social media ad platforms, Google Analytics, and other SEO tools are used for running campaigns consisting of ads, blogs, and other marketing and advertising material. The KPIs to be measured here are impressions, applause rates, and brand awareness.
2. Consideration
This is the second stage in the user engagement model. Now the user is aware of their problem and how to find the solution to it. They are also aware of the numerous businesses that promise solutions to their problems. So, in the consideration stage, your focus should be on the ‘why’ — why should a customer choose you amongst your competitors? Try to anticipate their questions and offer high value, elaborate, and visually appealing content.
Optimizing landing pages, FAQs section, product descriptions, etc are important. Tools like cobrowsing software can also help users navigate through the website well, taking in all the information they need. Live chats can also help quell users’ queries.
The metrics to consider are increasing the number of subscribers and leads and reducing the acquisition cost.
3. Conversion
Now the prospect customer knows a fair bit about your product and service and wants to do business with you, but still has not made the purchase yet. The main concerns of the users in this stage could be the trust in promises you’ve made, the prices, or a genuine lack of information. Your focus on this stage should be in providing adequate human interaction to this converted lead.
To do this in a more intimate, trust-instilling way you should adopt co-browse technology that allows sales reps not only communicate with the users through video calls and screen sharing but also do the browsing for them, such as filling forms, navigating through the website, entering data before purchase, etc. giving them a highly assisted experience.
The key metrics to be measured here are conversion rates and no of sales made.
4. Retention
Only half of the work is done when the sale is made. The goal now must be to ensure good after-sales service & other marketing endeavors to retain the customer and increase their brand loyalty.
Investing in retargeting tools will help you reach them out with relevant, useful ads. Bulk email marketing campaigns can help you send newsletters to provide them information on upcoming products and projects. Sending Tutorials through push notifications promotes interaction. Sending out coupons, and customized offers work wonders in bringing them back to the website.
The metrics to be focused on here are customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
In this stage, focus on growing the relationship between the brand and customer, and how to nurture it into something the customer remembers in the time to come. Write them appreciation emails, letters, postcards, and offer incentives to peak their interest.
Conclusion
The consumer today has more power over their experience than ever before. Thanks to the round the clock interaction with the brand through technological advancements, transparency of information, and businesses being more customer-centric in general.
We can see how customers are flocking towards enterprises that have a user engagement model that allows them a tailored customer experience, with an element of humanness and 100% satisfaction.
All businesses should note this and arm themselves with a user engagement model that inculcates tools and resources for the best customer experience for their users.
