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CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT
Ways to boost your profitability through customer engagement
By our News Team | 2022
Increasing sales is one way a company can grow profitability. Another is to enhance customer engagement to lower costs and boost loyalty.
Increased competition, unpredictability in supply chains and shifting consumer expectations all provide challenges for B2B businesses that are wanting to expand their revenue. This is according to Greg Gatherer, Account Manager at Liferay Africa, which is part of the international software development company.
However, a company’s profitability is not just defined by its sales. This is certainly one strategy, but there are many other strategies businesses can implement in order to increase profitability and increase customer engagement over their entire lifetime.
Photo by Olia Danilevich from Pexels
Gatherer says the following are among them:
Cutting customer service costs
By incorporating self-service into their digital tools instead of costly one-on-one customer support, businesses can improve customer service efficiency and minimise cost-to-serve. This can be done via digital channels such as chatbots and FAQs.
In addition to self-service helping businesses save money in support costs, it’s also become the way customers often want to be served. Self-service is not only a useful method for lowering customer service expenses, but is also a successful technique for engaging and interacting with clients.
Personalising digital experiences
Personalisation simplifies experiences. Help buyers to cut through the clutter by directing them to the resources and goods that are most relevant to their needs.
Use a modern e-commerce solution to engage with buyers by:
- Tailoring content, messaging and pricing according to organisation, job role and preferences.
- Configuring navigation and search to better fit what users are looking for, and
- Upselling and cross-selling by leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning based on the customer’s purchase history, or what users with similar profiles have searched in the past.
Streamlining purchasing processes
B2B transactions can be complicated and time-consuming, requiring several decision-makers and stakeholders, as well as lengthy approval processes and workflows.
By simplifying purchasing, sellers can improve the buying experience by:
- Streamlining ordering through self-service rather than needing to contact a sales representative to place an order.
- Providing more detailed product information — such as databases, videos and manuals — on the same site that purchasing occurs, giving buyers the confidence they need to make the correct purchases, and
- Personalising catalogues and pricing for a tailored experience based on account, buyer role and location.
This not only makes it easier for customers to purchase, but it also makes it faster for buyers to increase their order size.
Increasing customer lifetime value
Getting a new client can cost up to five times as much as getting an existing customer to make another transaction. Profitability will be achieved through repeat business. Extend the lifetime of customers by:
- Automating reordering processes so that buyers don’t need to repeat steps every time they place a similar order.
- Scheduling reminders to help notify customers to place orders, and
- Triggering automated alerts when specific products are back in stock.
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