Consumer Engagement in 2018: Top Trends of the Year

In the simplest form, consumer engagement is when a company develops a purposeful relationship with their consumer base. The relationship helps to foster a sense of brand loyalty and keeps the customers interested and engaged with the company.

Customer engagement is so important because it helps create better customer retention, leading to more money for the company. Generally, customer engagement strategies consist of marketing campaigns, blog posts, social media, and more.

Since customer engagement is critical for keeping customers and gaining new ones, it’s no wonder than many of today’s most successful companies prioritize their engagement with customers.

But what are the best, most useful ways to improve customer engagement?

In this post, we will explore some of the biggest trends in customer engagement in 2018 and why they have been so successful this past year.

Personalization with the use of artificial intelligence

Customers are all about wanting personalized experiences when they are shopping. Receiving personal recommendations about what products will best suit their needs or where products are in a store are becoming commonplace.

According to a recent study, consumers said they felt more loyal to a brand that personalized their shopping experience to what they liked or may like. In fact, 61% of people said they felt this way, meaning AI coupled with tailored shopping is a winning combination for customer engagement.

Geolocation

With approximately 80% of people owning a smartphone, geolocation has become extremely popular for gaining customer loyalty. Geolocation typically uses beacon technology that can track customers who enter certain stores, such as Target, and send them personalized content.

This type of customer engagement is similar to the trend we discussed above, but recommends things based on someone’s location.

The Internet of Things

IoT is one of the fasted growing forms of technology in the world, so of course, it plays a pivotal role in customer engagement. IoT can gather important data in real-time so that data can be used to help improve customer experience.

For instance, IoT can record customer behavior patterns and send that data back to a company so they can tailor shopping experiences to specific people.

Furthermore, IoT can be used to help solve customer issues in an easy, quick, and painless way. Say a customer is having trouble buying something from an app. They can have the option to report the issue and then have the issue quickly resolved by a designated report team. IoT allows companies to get ahead of issues before they become catastrophic money-losing problems.

Social Media

The ever-popular social media platforms are one of the most popular and efficient ways for companies to talk directly with their customers and engage with them.

Companies can use social media for clever and fun marketing campaigns and use it as a way to directly speak with their fanbase, answer questions, or even just chat with.

Many companies are also beginning to use social media to help customers with any issues they are having or any concerns they have. Instead of needing to pick up the phone and call a company’s customer service team, people can simple send a tweet to the company about their issue and the issue will be rectified directly through social media.

Final Thoughts

Customer engagement is a must more than ever before as competition continues to grow and companies use technology to their advantage.

Since customers are more likely to buy, and continue to buy, from a company they trust and feel a connection with, implementing some of the top trends for customer engagement we have seen in 2018 will help companies foster better connections with their customer base.

Although implementing every single trend for 2018 into your customer engagement plan may not be necessary, uses of few of the best options for your specific business may work wonders!

Give one or more of these top trends a try today and watch your customer loyalty improve in no time.