9 Practical Ways to Boost Ecommerce Customer Engagement

Consumers across the globe can purchase nearly anything they wish on whatever device they want, the eCommerce customer experience has drastically changed. Hence, providing excellent eCommerce customer engagement is a necessity for customer retention.

Ecommerce customer engagement

The eCommerce experience has dramatically changed which is why providing excellent eCommerce customer engagement is vital for business as it increases customer retention.

As consumers increasingly rely on online shopping, their expectations for better CX also continue to rise, which has made eCommerce customer engagement critical today.

73% of customers point to customer experience as an important factor in their purchasing decisions.

Most of the successful eCommerce brands understand that customer engagement improves customer loyalty, builds relationships, and increases conversions. Research shows that repeat customers spend up to 3x more than one-off buyers. However, it can be difficult to achieve without the right tools or strategies.

Let us discuss the important techniques and best practices for boosting eCommerce customer engagement.

What is Ecommerce Customer Engagement?

Ecommerce customer engagement is defined as the emotional connection between a consumer and a brand. Usually, the customers that are highly engaged, tend to buy, promote and show more loyalty.

The strategies of e-commerce customer engagement are used by online retailers to acquire, retain and grow their customer base. It includes tactics such as personalized communications as well as product recommendations, providing helpful content, offering discounts or incentives or creating social media campaigns, among other strategies.

Key objectives of ecommerce customer engagement

Key objectives:

  • Personalization: Tailor experiences based on individual preferences and behavior to make customers feel valued and understood.
  • Omnichannel consistency: Provide seamless experiences across all touchpoints, including website, mobile app, social media, and customer service.
  • Community building: Foster a sense of belonging and connection among customers through user-generated content, forums, and events.
  • Proactive communication: Anticipate customer needs and reach out with relevant information, offers, and support at the right times.

Benefits of ECommerce Customer Engagement

E-commerce customer engagement is essential for providing a memorable experience across client journeys. The benefits of e-commerce customer engagement allow businesses to form stronger relationships.

Benefits of ecommerce customer engagement
  • Increased Customer Loyalty – Engaging customers over e-commerce websites helps create a sense of loyalty with them, as they enjoy the effort taken by the company to interact with them. Engaged customers are 5X more likely to stick to the same brand in the future.
  • Improved Brand Visibility – E-commerce customer engagement is a great way to improve the visibility and popularity of a brand, as customers are likely to promote brands that take time to engage with them.
  • Better Understanding & Insights – Engaging customers online provides companies better insights about their buyer’s behavior and preferences which can help inform and improve their marketing strategies in the future.
  • Lower Costs – Compared with traditional methods of engaging with buyers, e-commerce customer engagement is relatively more cost-efficient and hence allows companies to reach out to more people around the globe while expanding lower amounts of resources and money.
  • More opportunities for Cross-selling and Upselling- Engaged customers are more likely to purchase other products or services offered by you.
  • Higher Return on Investment (ROI)- ECommerce platforms that offer targeted marketing messages can boost lead conversion rates and better ROI.

9 Most Popular Strategies to Boost ECommerce Customer Engagement

Building customer loyalty is essential for successful e-commerce companies. Building your online store on the best eCommerce platform is not enough. There are always some ways to make the best of it.

Popular strategies to boost ecommerce customer engagement

1. Design an Outstanding User Experience

When it comes to growing customer engagement, design elements are extremely crucial.

A smooth, seamless user experience and navigation flow will captivate users, encourage them to visit again. Make sure your website design reflects the tone of voice you want to communicate with customers; think about what would make their online shopping journey easier, faster, and more enjoyable.

2. Offer Loyalty Programs

One way to keep customers engaged and coming back to your eCommerce store is by implementing a customer loyalty program. Loyalty programs are the best way to make existing customers valued. It is important as it costs 5x less to retain customers than to acquire new ones.

A loyalty program is a rewards program that offers incentives and perks to customers based on their repeat business. It’s a great way to increase customer retention and foster long-term relationships with your customers.

Amazon, the biggest e-commerce company in the world, launched Amazon Prime as a paid program.

Offer loyalty programs

The loyalty program gives its members access to benefits consisting of two-day delivery,free streaming of videos and music for a monthly ($12.99) or annual fee ($99/$49). It also gives users a chance to invite a friend for a reward of $5 Prime Referral Credit.

Some common loyalty program incentives include free products, exclusive discounts, cash-back rewards, and birthday coupons. The key is to create incentives that align with your customer’s interests and offer real value for their loyalty to your brand.

3. Leverage AI and Automation Technologies

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation technologies can help personalize the customer experience by providing tailored product recommendations, personalized marketing messages, and proactive customer service.

Likewise, automated email campaigns that trigger based on customer behavior and purchase history can help keep customers engaged as well as entice them to return for repeat purchases.

How bots can fit best for customer engagement of your eCommerce site.

  • Recommending the right products – Bots are widely used to improve customer service, suggesting customers find the right products or services that will streamline the user experience.
  • Provide personalized experience – Customers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides personalized experiences across all touchpoints.
  • Engage customers 24×7 – Bots are available round the clock to engage customers and answer their common queries instantly. They are easily scalable and reduce the number of support tickets.
  • Predict user intent – AI-powered chatbots have the capability to detect intent and follow up with relevant conversation flows to engage.

4. Offer Self-Service Options

Forrester research shows that 53% of customers are likely to abandon an online purchase if they can’t find a quick answer to their question. Hence, offering self-service options is extremely vital.

Offering self-service options such as FAQs on your website, you’ll provide prospects with everything they need while they’re browsing on your site, reduce the number of tickets and phone calls that could hamper the agents’ productivity.

Besides this benefit, there are various tools available that work together with AI technology like Drift or Hubbot that streamline online conversations between an AI support agent and one-click problem resolutions delivered straight away at point-of-contact – win-win scenario!

5. Triggered Marketing Emails

Using triggered emails is a great way of improving eCommerce customer engagement.

You can use triggered emails such as abandoned cart reminders and follow-up emails after a purchase in order to engage customers further down the line after initial contact has been made.

While abandoned cart reminders are sent when prospects have added items but failed the follow-through checkout process, follow-up emails typically include incentives such as discounts on future orders – both email types serve the purpose of increasing retention which keeps existing consumers engaged for a longer period of time – result: extra revenue stream!

6. Collect Product Reviews to Build Online Reputation

Gone are the days of showcasing products for purchase with no reviews or customer feedback attached about their quality.

Modern consumers want all available information before making an informed purchase decision, which can come from reviews written by current users of the product or service, as well as from professional product reviewers.

Your goal should be to showcase both kinds of reviews (unless there are none available) so customers have a comprehensive view of each product and service your company offers before deciding if it’s right for them – which helps keep their engagement high.

7. Provide Real-Time Support with Live Chat

79% of consumers prefer live chat because it provides them with immediate support at the time they need it. Live chat is the best tool that delivers exceptional value in terms of engaging visitors in real time and increasing customer satisfaction.

It enables eCommerce businesses to connect with their customers and offers solutions to their problems, leading to an increase in customer satisfaction. Brands like Intuit and Sam’s Furniture incorporated live chat and had a significant increase in sales conversions.

Key ways how live chat helps to boost your eCommerce engagement.

  • Engage customers proactively – The visitors who just browse or compare prices, proactively engaging with them when they need help, increases the chances that the visitors will convert into buyers.
  • Understand customer pain points – Live chat empowers support agents to tap into the pain points of the visitors and provide the best solution.
  • Gain insights into customer behavior – The tool helps to learn a lot about your customers based on their visited pages.
  • More sales via mobile – Live chat helps to integrate a mobile chat window and can guide the customers to complete the purchase.
  • Live chat can boost sales, too – a business can upsell products, cross-sell complementary items, or offer personalized discount codes to incentivize the purchase while the customer is still browsing.
  • Having a well-trained team of customer support personnel available on live chat ensures that your e-commerce store is constantly engaging with customers and satisfying their needs.

8. Use Segmentation and Dynamic Content

Segmentation and dynamic content are powerful tactics for personalizing the customer experience.

These strategies involve breaking down customer data into specific groups or segments based on demographics, behaviors, or other characteristics. Once customers are segmented, e-commerce companies can use dynamic content to personalize the customer experience.

Dynamic content is content that changes based on the customer’s behavior, preferences, or other predefined criteria.

For example, an eCommerce company may email personalized product recommendations based on the customer’s past purchases. Or, they may display a different homepage for customers who have shown an interest in a specific product category.

9. Leverage the Power of Social Media

Online stores with a social media presence have an average of 32% more sales than those that don’t.

Social media should be utilized in order to reach out directly to customers in an authentic manner, share feedback over different platforms, and create a sense of community across multiple networks.

A strong social presence enables you to slice and dice the content you create and reach out to your audience through it.

It covers selecting the right social media platforms, creating engaging content, and using social media analytics to optimize performance. ECommerce brands can also use social media as a customer service channel, allowing customers to reach out with questions or concerns.

By providing excellent customer service on social media, e-commerce companies can build customer loyalty, prevent churning of unhappy customers and strengthen their brand.

Examples of Successful ECommerce Consumer Engagement

E-commerce customer engagement is an essential component of successful e-commerce businesses. It helps businesses maintain client relationships, build loyalty, and increase sales.

Amazon Prime

As a leader in eCommerce customer lifecycle engagement, Amazon offers its Prime members exclusive benefits including free two-day shipping, discounts on select items and access to streaming services like Prime Video. These services further enable customers to become invested in the brand and create a stronger sense of community around shared personalized experiences.

Warby Parker

Warby Parker’s online eyewear shop is designed to provide an easy shopping experience to its customers. From helpful video tutorials to virtual try-on tools and chat agents available round the clock, Warby reaches out easily with all the necessary information needed by the consumer while allowing them to book virtual appointments at the same time. This makes it incredibly easy for customers to get these customized products without ever leaving their homes.

Adidas

Adidas has been able to revamp its brand image through expansive content initiatives on social media channels such as Instagram and YouTube. Adidas also offers reward points for every purchase which later can be redeemed against future purchases or refer to friend rewards which incentivize existing customers or fans of the company’s products.

The success of Adidas’s campaigns highlights how important properly engaging with audiences is when companies want to increase sales or foster loyalty from their fan base.

Bonobos

Bonobos built its customer loyalty around offering an excellent post-purchase service experience which includes an easy returns process without questions asked policy and options like next-day delivery throughout major US cities so you never run out of Bonobos clothes again.

Beyond this program, Bonobos has also cultivated powerful relationships with their customers by sponsoring events throughout different cities in North America so customers can learn about sizing problems for themselves directly from a Bonobos product expert!

ECommerce Customer Engagement Best Practices

Engaging with customers is key to building a successful eCommerce business.

ECommerce customer engagement best practices

1. Personalize communication with each customer by understanding their needs, expectations and preferences. It will help to delight customers by aligning your products/services with what they are looking for.

2. Respond quickly to customer inquiries and complaints by leveraging the power of live chat to your customer service. It will deliver real-time sales and support assistance and improve customer satisfaction.

3. Create loyalty programs and reward customers for repeat purchases as customers are your biggest assets. Keeping them happy by rewarding them with surprise coupons or discounts with retain them and increase their lifetime value.

4. Use email marketing to keep customers informed about new products and promotions. It will keep the customers notified about the new add-ons and promotional offers.

5. Leverage social proof to attract and engage prospective customers. Social proof such as testimonials makes your brand trustworthy and influences customers, which results in their advocacy.

6. Use e-commerce chatbots to provide quickly to manage customer expectations efficiently. Bots are available 24×7 and deliver instant answers that reduce the number of support tickets in first-contact resolution.

7. Offer free shipping or returns to encourage customer purchases. The stores that offer the privilege of free shipping, returns, or exchange increases eCommerce customer engagement and sales.

8. Provide detailed product information and reviews to increase customer confidence. Featuring customer reviews and success stories strengthen customers’ trust in the brand.

9. Use retargeting ads to bring back customers who abandoned their shopping carts. Putting efforts to bring back customers showcases how you as a brand value your customers by offering the best deals to them.

10. Continuously analyze customer data to improve the overall shopping experience. It will help to identify the gaps and the areas of improvement so that you can outline strategies accordingly.

Building Successful ECommerce Consumer Engagement with Omni24

The key objective of eCommerce consumer engagement is to turn happy customers into brand advocates, and also to manage unhappy customers. With Omni24, an eCommerce business focusing on increasing customer engagement, you should be implementing personalization tactics that will have a significant impact on customers’ lifetime value (CLTV).

Using customer data rightly helps you to offer customized promotions, recognize returning customers and anticipate their needs. Personalized customer service experience can deliver six times more transaction rates than generic communication, so it’s worth making the effort.

FAQs of ECommerce Consumer Engagement

Businesses that invest in customer experience by understanding their customer’s pain points, needs and expectations. By extending the customer experience beyond a purchase, successful customer engagement extends the customer lifecycle, fosters loyal customer relationships, attracts new customers and helps companies better anticipate customer expectations.

An excellent customer experience will help build trust and encourage repeat purchases. However, a negative customer experience can result in a loss of sales, a damaged reputation, and negative online reviews. About 60% of consumers worldwide said they stopped doing business with a brand due to a poor customer experience.

The customers who are more engaged are the most satisfied. They are easier to retain, easier to sell to, and are more likely to be brand advocates. The key to increasing revenues and building market shares in sales is to engage your customers and build long-term relationships.

Providing excellent eCommerce customer engagement is not only helpful for business, but it is a necessity for customer retention. Today’s consumers increasingly rely on online shopping, and their expectations for better CX also continue to rise due to which eCommerce customer engagement is critical.

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