This article has been contributed by Vaibhav Kandpal, CEO & Founder, Lead Experts.
Brands now approach client loyalty differently because of gamification, which turns mundane transactions into interesting experiences. Gamification is essentially adding game-like features to loyalty programs, like levels, challenges, and rewards. Customers find loyalty programs more enjoyable as a result of this strategy, which also promotes repeat interactions. The approach has become quite popular across industries, and big Indian companies like Google Pay and CRED have effectively employed gamified strategies to boost client retention and engagement.
The Concept of Gamification
Gamification operates by utilizing the reward system in the human brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter linked to pleasure and satisfaction that is released into the brains of customers when they accomplish a task, such as completing a challenge in a loyalty program or earning points for a purchase. This feeling of accomplishment encourages repeat behavior, which fuels the loop of customers wanting to interact with the company further.
Gamified systems encourage customers to actively participate, in contrast to traditional loyalty programs that frequently involve passive point accumulation. These interactive experiences, which range from spinning virtual wheels to finishing seasonal challenges, are captivating and unique. In addition to improving consumer satisfaction, this active engagement strengthens the brand’s emotional bond with its audience. A key component of gamification is personalization, which enables brands to personalize rewards according to consumer preferences. Customers feel appreciated and acknowledged by the brands as a result of this personalised approach, resulting in stronger brand loyalty.
Important Components of Gamification
Effective gamified loyalty programs include a few essential components. One essential component is point collection, in which users collect points for various activities, such as buying something, sharing a post, or referring a friend. These points can be earned and exchanged for benefits. CRED has made good use of this approach in India by giving “CRED coins” to consumers who use the app to pay their credit card bills. These coins can be exchanged for raffle entries, discounts, or exclusive deals, adding interest to regular financial management.
Quests and challenges are yet another potent element. Customers are encouraged to participate as soon as possible to prevent missing out because these are frequently time-bound. One excellent example is Google Pay‘s “Go India” promotion, in which customers accumulated virtual tokens of Indian towns through transaction completion. With its festive themes, the campaign used time-limited challenges to encourage frequent usage.
Tiers and levels create a sense of progression, rewarding customers as they move through different phases. New advantages are unlocked at each level, encouraging users to interact with the application more effectively. Unpredictability is added via surprise rewards, which keeps consumers interested and involved. These sporadic rewards, like unexpected sales or extra points, generate enthusiasm and promote ongoing brand engagement.
Gamified loyalty gains a sense of community through social competition in the form of leaderboards and challenges. By highlighting exceptional achievers, leaderboards appeal to people’s need for recognition. This encourages more users to join, extending the loyalty program’s reach through a cycle of social sharing and engagement.
Indian Market Examples
Gamification has been enthusiastically adopted by the Indian market. Google Pay stands out as an example, particularly during holidays when it introduces themed promotions like “Go India.” In order to increase engagement, users are urged to make transactions in order to earn city tokens, which correspond with seasonal and cultural contexts. In addition to increasing sales, this establishes a cultural connection with clients, which makes loyalty programs relatable and enjoyable.
CRED has adopted a different strategy by making financial responsibility more like a game. By rewarding customers who pay their credit card bills with CRED coins, it turns a tedious chore into an enjoyable and fulfilling experience. For daily prizes, the platform also features interactive games like spin-the-wheel, which keeps users interested even after they pay their bills. This strategy not only promotes sound financial practices but also strengthens client loyalty by making money management enjoyable.
A number of trends are anticipated to shape the future of loyalty programs as gamification develops. AI-powered hyper-personalization enables brands to customize challenges and rewards to each customer’s unique interests and behaviors. Due to the increased relevance brought about by this degree of personalization, loyalty programs become more interesting and successful.
Financial well-being is another area where gamified loyalty programs are growing. These days, apps encourage saving, investing, and financial objectives by including elements of games. Brands are increasing user accessibility and engagement with financial literacy by incorporating progress bars, badges, and incentives for reaching financial milestones.
Through the idea of tokenized rewards, blockchain technology has been making an impact on loyalty programs. These blockchain-based incentives provide digital points real value by being exchangeable or redeemable across platforms. This adaptability creates new chances for brand collaborations in addition to expanding the reach of reward programs.
Another new trend is community-based gamification. Brands are starting to emphasize team-based challenges and collective rewards rather than just individual accomplishments. In line with the growth of social commerce and community-driven marketing, this strategy fosters a feeling of community and belonging.
Challenges and Prospects for the Future
Despite the many advantages of gamification, brands nevertheless face some obstacles. The danger of excessive gamification is one major worry. Customers may grow weary if brands use game elements excessively without changing their strategies. For long-term success, the experience must be balanced and kept interesting.
Another important issue is the perceived value of rewards. Customers may stop participating in the program if they believe that the benefits are not worth the work. Keeping customers engaged requires that rewards are worthwhile and in line with their expectations.
There are numerous prospects for gamified loyalty innovation in the future. Brands that incorporate social concerns might attract a socially conscious audience by rewarding eco-friendly purchases or philanthropic gestures. The attraction of loyalty programs can be increased in varied markets like India by implementing regionalized techniques that take into account local preferences and culture.
Another intriguing option is cross-platform collaborations. Consumers can benefit from increased flexibility and value when brands enable them to earn points on one platform and use them on another.
In conclusion
Customer loyalty has been transformed by gamification, which turns conventional programs into dynamic and captivating experiences. The possibility of highly customized, community-based, and socially meaningful loyalty programs will only increase with the development of technology. Brands that emphasize on producing enjoyable and meaningful experiences will have an advantage over competitors and convert occasional customers into loyal customers. The potential of gamified loyalty lies in its ability to evolve, innovate, and establish a deeper connection with consumers combining the thrill of gaming with the fulfillment of brand loyalty is what will determine its future.
Engaging and retaining B2C customers is a top priority for businesses. StartupTalky reached out to various B2C business owners to understand the innovative strategies they use to stand out and keep their customers coming back. From personalised experiences to utilising technology, these industry leaders share their insights and tactics that are driving customer loyalty and satisfaction. Read on to discover the creative approaches that are making a difference in the world of B2C businesses.
Tapasya Sharma, Global Head, Digital Marketing & E-commerce
Tapasya Sharma, Global Head, Digital Marketing & E-commerce
At TERRA, we believe that the market, though competitive, offers a fair share to brands to carve out their niche in catering to a segment. Upholding global clinically tested recognition and standards, our raw materials and products are tested & certified by a clutch of globally recognized authorities and organizations including SGS, FSC, Dermatest, Intertek, and New Zealand FernMark accreditation. Coupling it with the biodegradable properties of our products, we have been able to pioneer in creating an ecologically conscious user base.
Since the majority of our target audience believes in a digital-first approach to their buying decisions, we target them through their preferred e-marketplace channels. Also, offering website-exclusive offers helps us retain a strong repeat customer base. Also, to sensitize the existing and potential audiences about their larger role in caring for the planet, we have unveiled a series of informative videos on our best practices for sourcing the choicest ingredients for the products sustainably; and ways to degrade the used biodegradable wipes for a better planet to be in. This feeling of belonging to a greater cause has helped us create a growing fraternity of conscious consumers.
Kaushik Das, Founder & CEO, AAONXT
Kaushik Das, Founder & CEO, AAO NXT
In a competitive market, engaging and retaining B2C customers requires a blend of innovative strategies. At AAO NXT, we focus on the following key strategies to ensure we stand out and maintain a loyal customer base:
Personalized Content Recommendations: We utilize advanced algorithms to analyze user preferences and viewing habits, providing personalized content recommendations. This ensures our users always find something that matches their tastes, enhancing their overall experience and encouraging continued engagement with our platform.
Exclusive and Original Content: Our commitment to producing high-quality, original content specifically tailored to our audience is a major differentiator. By offering exclusive AAO Original Odia web series, movies, and short films, we provide unique value that can’t be found elsewhere, attracting viewers who seek authentic and fresh content.
Interactive and Community Features: We foster a sense of community among our users through interactive features such as forums, live chats, and social media integrations. This allows viewers to discuss their favorite shows, share recommendations, and feel more connected to both the content and the platform.
Cultural Celebrations and Themed Content: We celebrate Odia culture through special events and themed content releases that resonate with regional festivals, historical milestones, and cultural celebrations. This deepens our connection with the audience and aligns our platform with their cultural values and interests.
User-Friendly Experience: Our platform is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, with easy navigation, seamless streaming, and cross-device compatibility. We prioritize a hassle-free experience, ensuring users can effortlessly enjoy their favorite content anytime, anywhere.
Continuous Improvement and Feedback Integration: We actively seek and incorporate user feedback to continuously improve our platform. This helps us stay attuned to our audience’s needs and preferences, ensuring that we evolve and adapt to meet their expectations.
Strategic Partnerships and Collaborations: We form strategic partnerships with major production houses and content creators to bring a continuous flow of high-quality content to our platform. Collaborations with influencers and cultural icons also help to boost our visibility and attract new users.
By implementing these innovative strategies, we aim to not only attract new customers but also keep our existing audience engaged and satisfied, solidifying AAO NXT’s position as a premier destination for Odia entertainment.
We implement several innovative strategies to engage and retain B2C customers in a competitive market. Our web and mobile apps offer timely notifications, keeping customers engaged with real-time insights and alerts. Regular portfolio updates via email ensure customers are continually informed about their investment performance. Constant follow-ups through personalized communication help maintain a strong connection with our clients, promptly addressing their queries and concerns. Our recurring investment facility simplifies the investment process, allowing customers to automate contributions and steadily grow their portfolios. We focus on delivering stable returns, building trust and reliability, which are crucial for long-term customer retention. Additionally, we uphold complete transparency, offering clear, accessible information about investment strategies, performance, and fees, fostering a sense of trust and confidence among our customers.
To ensure convenience and accessibility, we continuously improve our digital platforms, incorporating user feedback to make them more intuitive and user-friendly. Our commitment to security is paramount, employing the latest encryption and cybersecurity measures to protect customer data and transactions. We also offer dedicated account managers for high-net-worth clients, providing them with personalized attention and bespoke investment solutions.
These comprehensive strategies collectively create a seamless, engaging, and trustworthy experience that encourages customer loyalty and satisfaction.
Dr. Kishore Indukuri, Founder and Managing Director, Sid’s Farm
Dr. Kishore Indukuri, Founder and Managing Director, Sid’s Farm
In a competitive market, customer engagement and retention are crucial. We prioritize a two-way communication approach, actively seeking and valuing feedback through various channels. We believe in creating unique customer experiences. We invite them to visit our farms on weekends for a firsthand look at our operations and a chance to interact with myself and our marketing head.
We understand that customer preferences are not one-size-fits-all. We tailor offers to different customer segments based on their preferences, such as buffalo milk versus cow milk. We extend our commitment beyond milk by participating in community activities and sponsoring school programs under our “Milkology™” banner to educate children about the importance of antibiotic-free and hormone-free milk.
This constant reminder keeps us accountable to the core mission of Sid’s Farm – to deliver the highest quality dairy products while making a positive impact on our communities.
Deepak Khanna, Owner, DRK Jewels
Deepak Khanna, Owner, DRK Jewels
In a fiercely competitive market, DRK Jewels employs innovative strategies to not only engage but also retain our treasured B2C clientele.
One such strategy is our immersive online experience, where customers can explore our collections virtually, aided by cutting-edge technology that brings each piece to life.
Additionally, we leverage social media platforms to foster a vibrant community of jewelry enthusiasts, engaging them through captivating content and exclusive sneak peeks.
Moreover, our loyalty program rewards frequent patrons with special privileges and personalized offerings, fostering a sense of belonging and appreciation.
Furthermore, we continuously seek feedback from our customers, actively incorporating their suggestions and preferences into our offerings. By staying attuned to their needs and desires, we forge enduring relationships built on trust and mutual respect.
In essence, our innovative strategies revolve around creating meaningful connections, fostering loyalty, and offering unparalleled value, ensuring that DRK Jewels remains the foremost choice for discerning customers in a competitive landscape.
We allow our Mart & Micro Kirana entrepreneurs to engage with their and Frendy’s customers using our WhatsApp marketing suite embedded into our Mart PoS software as well as our Micro Kirana Partner App. The WhatsApp marketing is customized for each Mart/micro kirana owner and allows the owners to engage daily with their customers directly or via WhatsApp groups. They share deals & offers that are run either centrally by Frendy’s merchandising team or are customized by the mart / micro kirana entrepreneurs by themselves.
We have also piloted a loyalty program at our Marts that engages them to collect points on their daily shopping and then enjoy discounts when they do their monthly grocery shopping.
Fendy’s slew of 300+ aspirational yet affordable private-label products further creates brand loyalty among customers.
Apurv Modi, Co-Founder, Abhay Health
Apurv Modi, Co-Founder, Abhay Health
We believe that engaging and retaining customers requires a mix of innovation and personal touch. At Abhay Health, we’re leveraging technology with our telehealth services and health management platforms. This keeps our customers connected and supported, building trust and reliability. For Oliv Life, we emphasize creating user-friendly and cutting-edge products. Our team is constantly interacting with customers through social media and community events, listening to their feedback and adapting our products accordingly. It’s this direct engagement and responsiveness that really helps us build a loyal customer base and keep our brand fresh and relevant.
Tanay Sharma, Co-Founder & COO, CITTA
Tanay Sharma, Co-Founder & COO, CITTA
To engage and retain customers in a competitive market, we try to employ a number of innovative strategies. We focus on personalized marketing, using customer data to tailor recommendations and offers. Having a strong social media presence enabled us to understand the pain points of our discerning customers and tailor engaging content accordingly, that not only promotes our products but also educates parents about quality skincare practices. We also host live sessions with experts from different walks of life, creating a community of informed customers. Additionally, our dedication to ethical skincare for babies through innovative and gentle formulations has helped keep the brand fresh and exciting.
We have strong network of Distributors and Dealers in Tier 3 and 4 markets of India. Therefore we do a lot of Localized content and promotions to engage customers. Sweet Pricing along with variety is the key that helps us retain these customers because they look out for a trust they get with our local distributor along with credibility for the brand. These customers then also buy directly from our D2C website.
The analysis by the global market research firm EY states that consumer goods companies have enormous opportunities to use AI to improve asset tracking, supply chain management, and consumer experience and engagement. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to improve customer centricity and operational efficiency is on the rise among Indian merchants. An overwhelming 82% of Indians surveyed by the EY consumer index are optimistic that artificial intelligence will one day make shopping much easier.
Several industries have jumped on the bandwagon of innovation and adaptation in response to recent tech developments and the expansion of the internet. This trend has been especially accelerated by the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry’s collaboration with the e-commerce sector. According to McKinsey, E-commerce sales for consumer goods will quadruple from 2016 to 2025, reaching $1.8 trillion. With so much competition and so many brands entering the industry, AI is becoming an important differentiator for brands looking to remain ahead of the curve.
AI is crucial to draw customers closer to the company. Finding reliable customer insights to improve data-backed decision-making is a persistent problem in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector. Insights AI ensures organisations acquire in-depth customer behaviour data by combining powerful AI technologies like Emotion AI, Behaviour AI, and Generative AI. These innovations provide precise data for effective decision-making and aid brands in comprehending the wants and needs of target consumers.
Customer wants and demands in the fast-moving consumer goods industry (FMCG) are dynamic, just like in any other industry. Thanks to AI’s data-processing prowess, organisations can swiftly and accurately adjust their marketing plans to meet the needs of their target audience. Insights AI has the potential to greatly enhance the quality and affordability of products and services in the Indian fast-moving consumer goods market.
Through AI, Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies may better understand their customers’ habits and preferences, which in turn allows them to provide better service and encourages more participation. Artificial Intelligence also allows for substantial process automation, which saves time and money. According to an IBM poll, retail and brand executives expect cognitive automation capabilities to slash operational expenses by seven per cent on average.
Adapting to the latest developments in data-driven technologies like deep learning, artificial intelligence, and machine learning can greatly benefit FMCG companies. There have been revolutionary shifts in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry as a result of Machine learning and deep learning. With the massive amounts of data produced by the FMCG industry, Machine learning approaches help businesses identify and segment their target markets by analysing customer behaviour, preferences, and buying habits. Companies in the fast-moving consumer goods industry can use this information to improve their demand forecasting, personalise their marketing campaigns, and optimise product positioning and pricing tactics.
Leading FMCG Companies in India by Market Capitalization
Customised Suggestions
AI is having a major impact on consumer choices by providing tailored suggestions. In contrast to 23% worldwide, 48% of Indians trust AI for personalised promotions and sales, according to the EY report.
Online retailers, media streaming sites, and social media sites all use AI algorithms to sift through customers’ tastes, habits, and online activity. Customers have better shopping experiences, are more satisfied overall, and are likelier to a brand because of AI’s ability to provide personalised product recommendations based on their interests and preferences.
Using AI-based technologies to make buying decisions is becoming more and more acceptable to Indian shoppers. While just 58% of people worldwide are receptive to the idea of AI helping them make better purchasing decisions, 82% of Indians are. Indian customers have more faith in AI-generated personalised suggestions and AI-powered targeted marketing and sales. When asked for assistance, 82% of Indians would be willing to use a chatbot.
Variations in consumer demand contain useful information for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies due to the many connections and patterns they contain. Discovering these insights is essential for getting ahead in the industry. FMCG companies need to process this data to make informed decisions about product placement, product prioritisation, workflow optimisation, marketing segmentation, pricing and offer launch timings. Applying state-of-the-art tools and algorithms allows for thorough planning and optimisation in the FMCG landscape. As a result, more and more fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies are using AI-powered automation to reimagine the customer service they provide and boost engagement with their brands.
What is the future of AI in the FMCG industry in India?
AI is expected to play an increasingly important role in all aspects of the FMCG industry, from product development to marketing and sales.
As AI technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more innovative applications in the FMCG space.
What are some of the benefits of using AI for FMCG companies in India?
Some of the benefits of using AI for FMCG Companies are increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, improved operational efficiency, reduced costs and better decision-making.
How can FMCG companies in India use AI to improve customer experience?
AI can provide personalized recommendations based on customer behaviour and preferences.
AI-powered chatbots can offer 24/7 customer support.
AI can help companies understand customer needs through sentiment analysis.
If the customer is king, then customer feedback equals bags of gold coins for any business. Knowing what your customers are thinking about your product or service is an added weapon in your entrepreneurial arsenal.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos once famously said, “We see our customers as guests to a party, and we are hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little better.”
In this article, StartupTalky looks at why customer feedback is essential for any business and the various online and offline modes of feedback mechanisms employed by companies.
Any information that customers express about the product or service they are using is customer information or feedback.
Every successful endeavor thrives on a conversation—a continuous feedback loop between creator and consumer that fuels growth and progress, said Harkunwar Singh, CEO and co-founder of Novatr.
Simply put, a good customer experience bodes well for your business. A statistical report by Bain & Company showed that companies that excelled at customer experience grew revenues by around 4–8%!
Continuous integration of customer insights allows us to refine features, enhance user experiences, and address pain points swiftly. This dynamic feedback mechanism is ingrained in our deep tech development processes, fostering agility and responsiveness to the evolving needs of our user base, said Swayam Agrawal, founder and CEO of Aarika Innovations.
Our team on the ground collects feedback from our outlets regularly to understand the trends in terms of consumer taste preferences. Each comment guides us in refining flavors and enhancing overall customer satisfaction, ensuring your products not only taste great but also resonate with our consumers, said Siddharth Saraf, co-founder of Vaum Tonics.
However, the question arises: what defines a good customer experience?
Bain & Co. suggests answering five questions that will help companies come up with the best customer experience:
What do we want to stand for in the eyes of our customers?
Which actions will have the greatest effect on our target customers?
How can customer feedback promote learning and behavior change?
What aspects of their experience would our customers want to change?
How can we anticipate and mitigate risks to sustain the changes?
If you can answer these questions, you might as well have crossed the Laxman-Rekha to connect with your customer!
Online Channels
Unlike a few years ago, digitalization and the plethora of tech tools available have made listening to customers a little bit easier. Some companies tell us their pick as far as online customer listening tools are concerned.
Interactive Polls: Instant and ready-made feedback is available to companies through startups, which is made public. Dealing with them appropriately can lead to instant customer redressal and thereby alleviate the company’s brand image as well. Soulweaves, a handmade luxury sari brand, often floats polls through their stories on Instagram for certain decisions. “For example, a poll to choose option A or B bag for packaging. We will finally produce the bags that have more votes,” said Swati Kapoor of Soulweaves.
Surveys: Opinion matters, and there are several platforms where customers can easily chip in with their view of your product or service. However, the key to constructive feedback is to ask the right questions. “We regularly send out surveys via email to gather insights directly from customers about their experiences with our products or services,” said Deepti Sharma, Director of ThinkerPlace.
Social Media Listening Tools: Several social media analytics tools help to understand the thought processes of a potential customer or an existing one. In the digital sphere, we closely monitor KPIs (key performance indicators) such as returning customer rates and retention rates. These analytics serve as quantitative benchmarks, offering insights into the efficacy of our products and customer engagement strategies, said Akanksha Sharma, co-founder and CEO of CITTA. A vibrant community helps some other companies touch base with customers. “We make a concerted effort to actively listen to our vibrant community, comprising over 2,500 members, including top-tier company executives, industry experts, learners, and our dedicated research team. This collaborative effort allowed us to pinpoint major improvement areas and craft a course that uniquely equips individuals for the challenges of both today and tomorrow,” said Harkunwar Singh, co-founder, and CEO of Novatr. A data survey by Nosto found that 61% of consumers—out of which 65% were Gen Z consumers—were more loyal and more likely to buy from a brand if they were invited to take part in a customer advocate community.
Reviews: Reviews, especially positive ones, definitely help in bulking up a company’s brand image, but some of the reviews also end up giving perspective. “Keep track of reviews on platforms like Google My Business or specific industry-related review sites. Positive reviews indicate satisfaction and loyalty,” said Bhawna Sethi, founder of Let’s Influence. A survey carried out by BrightLocal showed that 98% of people read online reviews for local businesses. The survey also showed that 87% of consumers will use Google to evaluate local businesses.
Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors Based on Their Customer Service Experience Worldwide as of May 2022
Post Purchase Feedback
Following up with a customer after a purchase forges a long-lasting connection with the latter.
Since our customers are parents, a feedback call helps us to build a connection and shows our concern and care towards them. This personalized approach ensures that we not only capture quantitative data but also delve into qualitative insights, said Sharma from CITTA.
But there is more to following up with customers after a purchase than merely ticking the box of a marketing practice.
A statistical chart titled ‘Attitude of Consumers Worldwide Toward Personalization and Customer Experience Provided by a Company‘ reported that 88% of consumers feel that the experience a company provides is as important as its product or service.
Another survey of 300 customers across different nations by Twilio in March 2023 showed that consumers say they will become repeat buyers after a “personalized experience.”
At times, it can help you understand the drawbacks and, thereby, go ahead and improve your product or service.
After an offline purchase, we may follow up with customers via calls or emails to gather feedback about their experience, said Sharma of Thinkerplace.
Offline Feedback
Although online platforms have made it easier for companies to collect feedback, the classic traditional modes of feedback can never go out of fashion.
We also ask them directly through old-school methods like surveys, face-to-face chats, and group discussions. This mix helps us see the full picture of what customers feel about us in different situations, said Rajan Gupta, Director of 10x Make it Happen.
Former Managing Director of HDFC Bank Aditya Puri was feared within his company for making surprise visits to his branches so he could get feedback from the customers themselves and check if the bank processes were followed on the ground.
Another ex-HDFC Bank executive, Ruby Jain, who is now chief executive officer and founder of Vyaparify, resonates with the offline mode of communication.
Whatever we have learned is from the market. Sitting in the office, one will never get the idea. Going down to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, talking to the local business owners, and understanding what they feel is one way to earn their trust. They should feel that they are one of us. But at the same time, they should feel that you know slightly better than them, or else why would they listen to you? said Jain of Vyaparify, a one-stop platform that provides digital solutions to local businesses.
Founder of kids health supplement brand Kiddoze, Nonita Mehta, talks of various offline modes of accumulating feedback.
“We regularly gather input from parents, healthcare professionals, and customers through surveys, reviews, and direct communication. This helps us refine formulations, improve flavors, and ensure our vitamin supplement meets the needs and preferences of both kids and parents. Additionally, we stay abreast of nutritional research to enhance the effectiveness of our products.”
Conclusion
Customer feedback is what a company not only thrives on but also survives on. However, it is essential to complete the feedback loop and implement it into the product cycle so that you put the user and customer experience before anything else. Like Steve Jobs said, “You’ve got to work with the customer experience first and then backward with the technology. You can’t start with the technology and then try to figure out how you are going to sell it.” Making use of technology and various online channels can strengthen your product development cycle, yet keeping a close eye on ground feedback remains equally important.
The success of any organization relies heavily on customer satisfaction. To enhance customer engagement and satisfaction, it is crucial to promptly respond to and support any customer queries. This is where the help desk comes into play—a suite of software tools designed to provide information and assistance to customers regarding their concerns, complaints, or inquiries about products or services. The help desk serves as a centralized platform, integrating queries from various customer-facing support channels such as live chat, email integration, web contact forms, phone, mobile, and social media.
By employing help desk or support desk software, the time taken by support agents to resolve customer issues is significantly reduced. Instead of sifting through endless emails, voicemails, messages, texts, and posts, the software organizes tickets from different platforms into one easy-to-use system. This organized approach allows support agents to provide above-and-beyond customer service efficiently and effectively.
In this blog post, we will delve into the world of help desk software and explore the top contenders for the title of “Best Help Desk Software.” Whether you are a small business owner looking to provide stellar support or a large enterprise seeking to optimize your customer service infrastructure, this guide will serve as your compass in navigating through the multitude of options available.
How to Choose SaaS Help Desk Software?
It can be difficult to choose the best help desk software for your company when there is a plethora of options available. To help you make your choice, here are some features to consider when making your decision:
Ease of Ticketing: Most importantly, you’ll want to determine whether the process of creating, routing, adjusting and closing tickets is on par with what your business needs and expects. You should be able to create a ticket for a customer and route that ticket to the appropriate team or individual who can best address it. You should also be able to make modifications to the ticket as you gain more information on the customer’s situation. And, once the problem has been fully resolved, you should be able to close the ticket and save it in your records as a resource for future inquiries.
Variety of Channels: You could adopt a separate help desk for each support channel you use, but that would be incredibly inefficient, confusing, and wasteful of funds. Rather, you’ll want to find one software that can support all of your communication channels, including email, social media, SMS messaging, and VoIP.
Self-Service Portal: Some questions are so fundamental that customers waste time contacting your support team for an answer. This is where it’s helpful to have a self-service portal that gives users get quick answers to simple questions. And, a self-service portal doesn’t just help your customers. It can also be used as an internal help desk, offering agents step-by-step guides to complex inquiries that can be easily copied and sent to customers. Rather than spending time rewriting the same troubleshooting steps, your reps will have a canned response ready to go for almost every service request.
App Integrations: Help desk software that can integrate with other apps like scheduling, project management, and internal messaging, is significantly valuable to your organization. Information that’s gained through the help desk should be stored and available on every app that you use. Additionally, all data gained externally should be uploaded to your help desk so that your information is stored in one location.
Best Help Desk SaaS Platforms
Help desk software lets you manage customer queries, faster. Support is always a key to business success, and choosing the right helpdesk solution can turn frustration into happy customers. It leads to better customer satisfaction. It also helps your support team to handle issues, queries, and feedback promptly. Let’s explore the following available support desk solutions.
FreshDesk is a customer support solution to boost the productivity of your support team. Make your customer happy and satisfied by leveraging the benefits of Freshdesk. Some questions are repetitive and time-consuming, provide FAQs and a knowledge base to customers and empower them to solve their queries. Bots are assigned to manage the repetitive task and provide the appropriate articles from a knowledge base. Some queries may need discussion with the team. collaborate effectively with the team on any ticket and provide the accurate answer within the specified time.
Its intelligent ticket assignment system assigns the ticket to the agent based on their skill and workload. Also, whenever you make any reply to an open ticket, the software notifies the customer with an email.
Features of FreshDesk
Categorize and prioritize the tickets to the right agent and make the workflow smooth.
Track all the messages from different channels and manage them in one interface.
Agent collision detection to ensure every employee works on the unique ticket.
Its thank you detector prevents reopening the ticket when a customer says thank you.
Assign different customized statuses to the ticket based on their progress.
All types of businesses and Customer Experience Management
Zendesk – Best Support Desk Software
The customer support solution by Zendesk is dedicated to enhancing the experience of both the customer and thesupport team. Seamless connectivity of multiple channels of communication empowers customers to raise their queries and get help on any communication channel they are comfortable with.
Easy to create a dedicated help center with relevant FAQ questions and a community forum. This help center will significantly reduce the workload on an employee by answering the most asked questions. It helps to reduce the response time so that your customer doesn’t have to wait.
Features of ZenDesk
One workspace to manage queries from any communication channel.
Bots are available to answer basic queries and provide appropriate solutions from the knowledge base.
Make the conversation run fast by assigning the tickets to agents based on their workload and availability.
Automated questions to gather information about the query and push it to the appropriate agent.
Intercom is a comprehensive Customer Service solution that offers a smooth customer experience through automation and human support, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and cost reduction.
Intercom provides a customizable design that allows you to align your brand and business needs. It also helps engage customers in-context and encourages action throughout their journey in the Intercom Messenger. The ticketing system enables handling complex customer requests through asynchronous tickets designed for cross-functional collaboration.
Features of Intercom:
The system can quickly generate responses, summarize conversations for other agents, and produce new help articles.
Colleagues can collaborate easily to solve complex problems and customers can track progress in real time.
View all support conversations in a centralized location.
Collaborate effectively with colleagues in real time.
Increase productivity by utilizing live dashboards, reporting, work management tools, and other optimization techniques.
Spiceworks provides a cloud-based helpdesk solution that efficiently manages IT tickets and tasks. Because your help desk is stored in the cloud, there is no need to be concerned about server procurement, backups, or maintenance.
Using Spiceworks, agents are able to efficiently track IT incidents, respond to tickets, make private comments, and promptly close them. It is possible to create custom fields to track additional information that is relevant to your business. A customizable user portal has been created for employees and customers to track the progress of their tickets.
Spiceworks also offers inventory management functionality, allowing your team to access information about current orders. This helps the staff inform customers if their order will be shipped late.
Features of Spiceworks:
Tickets are assigned to agents automatically and progress is tracked.
Collaborate with your team members by sharing support tickets and resolving issues more efficiently.
You can generate reports and easily view team performance metrics.
Monitor new tickets and determine the time it takes for your initial response.
Customers have the opportunity to share questions and ideas with others on the Spiceworks community forum.
Pricing Plans
Spiceworks is available free of cost for all users.
HappyFox provides a centralized system for managing customer queries and issues from various channels, such as email, live chat, social media, and more. It incorporates a ticketing system that organizes customer requests, allowing support agents to efficiently track, prioritize, and resolve issues.
Happyfox is loaded with amazing ticketing features that make the task of resolving the ticket much easier. Prioritize the unresponded tickets in the list and ensure timely replies to make customers happy. SLA (service level agreement) is easy to create for your agents to ensure a timely reply and other objectives by setting targets.
SLA will help to maintain a consistent workflow with targets such as time to first response, time to reach, changing status, and many more conditions. The robust dashboard of Happyfox gives a quick insight into agent activity reports, performance reports, and inflow reports.
Features of Happyfox
Classification of tickets into predefined categories.
Solve the customer ticket through collaboration with a team.
pre-fill the required and essential information in the ticket with the ticket templates.
LiveAgent is a robust and versatile help desk software that empowers businesses to deliver exceptional customer support across multiple channels. It is a comprehensive customer service platform that integrates various communication channels into one centralized system, allowing organizations to effectively manage and respond to customer queries.
It empowers your support agent with its never-ending features. Omnichannel ticketing, SLA management, and custom fields are just a small portion of the features provided by this software.
It is Fully-focused software that caters to the needs of businesses in terms of providing the best support to its customers. The interface is easy to use and most of the things are customizable.
Features of LiveAgent
Enjoy flexibility with a cloud-based call centre feature.
200+ other tool integration and 130+ ticketing features.
Agent ranking feature to monitor the efficiency of agents, customers can easily rate the service provided by the agent.
Audit log that keeps a record of every activity undertaken by the agent.
Zoho Desk is a customer service software that delivers its services to help your support team and manage the queries of customers in a much more efficient way. The insightful dashboard of Zoho Desk gives proper insight into ticket traffic and customers’ happiness rating. By monitoring and analyzing the charts on the dashboard, you can easily predict the performance of your support team.
With Zoho Desk, users can easily make custom changes to various aspects of the system. They have the ability to rename tabs, create new departments, customize email templates, define business hours, and establish help folders, all of which contribute to a personalized and efficient support environment.
Features of Zoho Desk
Automatic assignment of support tickets to the right person in the right department to fast forward the process of solving a customer’s problem.
Jira Service Management, formerly recognized as Jira Service Desk, is an IT service management solution that leverages the renowned Jira platform. The Jira Service Management was introduced in 2013 by Atlassian that delivers its customer support services to businesses. In the year 2020 Jira service management was launched and merged Jira service desk into it. Now Jira Service Management has features of a service desk along with the additional capabilities of ITSM.
Ticketing, SLA, knowledge base, and help widgets are the common features, on top of that it provides more IT business-centric support. It is focused on delivering the best software for IT service management.
Features of Jira Service Desk
Empower the business team, Dev, and IT ops to deliver a smooth customer service experience.
Categorize the queries based on their department.
Focused support solution.
Dedicated templates to streamline legal, HR, Facilities, and General service management.
Kustomer is a customer service software solution that offers varieties of features in this domain. Connect with customers and solve their problems on any channel. The task of managing customer interaction is much easier with a timeline view. All the previous interaction is placed in chronological order to deliver the best customer experience.
AI chatbot is available to reduce the workload from support staff and knowledge base to answer the FAQs. Have a quick insight into the performance of your team and individual agents with the robust dashboard of Jira.
Features of Kustomer
Direct integration with social media such as Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter for instant replies to messages and comments.
Actionable data insights like order details, status, and more to serve the customer quickly.
Natural language processing detects the customer’s intent and suggests shortcuts to agents.
Gorgias is e-commerce-focused support software that helps to solve e-commerce-related problems. Communicate with the customer and solve their query by having all your customer data in front of your screen. Manage the orders, refunds, subscriptions, and many things without switching to different tabs.
As an e-commerce-centric software, it fetches your e-commerce data from your e-commerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, or big commerce and integrates it with the helpdesk. Alignment of all the previous conversations from different channels at the same interface will help you to know the customer’s perspective more efficiently.
Features of Gorgias
80+ integration options are available to increase the software capabilities.
Each ticket is categorized properly based on the channel it comes from, Like email, live chat, social media, SMS, or voice.
Automatic response to common questions like order tracking, refund status, and cancellation.
Gauge customer satisfaction with feedback and rating.
Hiver is the firstGmail-based helpdesk that makes it unique from any helpdesk software. It brings simplicity to your business and promotes human-to-human conversation by eliminating chatbots. Focused on providing the user with the best problem-solving experience, it leverages the power of Gmail and its features.
Since live chat is used widely by customers to ask questions, Hiver has integrated it into Gmail to maintain a seamless workflow. Agents do not need to switch between tools to solve problems. Team collaboration is made easier with features like transcript sharing. It helps other agents know the chat history and context of the problem.
Help Scout helps to provide support to your customers by utilizing itsintuitive interface and features. Loaded with all the primary and essential features, it also offers some additional functionalities like instant notification on the browser, custom CSS, custom domain, article suggestions, and much more.
Providing customers with the best support experience is the primary focus of any help desk software, this tool offers all the essential features to hook the customer throughout the problem-solving journey. It suggests the knowledge base articles to users based on the page URL. In simple words, it offers all the features you need to provide the best customer experience.
Features of Help Scout
iOS and Android apps to manage queries on the go.
Search and insert the knowledge base article link without leaving the chat screen.
Organize your inbox and assign different tasks to different teams in their inbox.
Chat when your team is online and provide other options when they are not.
Effectively managing customer support is always a challenging task. However, with the assistance of a cloud-based helpdesk solution, achieving customer satisfaction becomes more attainable. In today’s market, numerous tools are available, making it overwhelming to find the right one. Instead of being swayed solely by the features of different tools, it is essential to focus on their functionalities and determine if they align with your specific needs.
To gain insights into a tool’s performance, reading user reviews and evaluating real-life scenarios can be immensely helpful. Additionally, taking advantage of free trials offered by vendors allows you to experience the tool firsthand before making a final decision. By following this approach, you can carefully select the perfect tool that suits your requirements and embark on a successful customer support journey.
FAQs
What is support desk software?
Support desk software is a software product that customer service and IT teams use to serve employees or customers. Its core functions are to help service teams systematically manage support requests, provide self-service options, track and report performance and more.
What are the best Support Desk Softwares?
The following are the Best Support Desk Software
Freshdesk
Zendesk
HappyFox
Intercom
SpiceWorks
LiveAgent
Zoho Desk
Jira Service Desk
Kustomer
Gorgias
Hiver
Help Scout
What are the benefits of Support desk software?
You can organize support requests, collaborate with customers and teammates, automate repetitive tasks, improve overall customer experience Customize and rebrand to suit your business.
Who can you Support Desk Software?
Support Desk Software can be used by both big organisations as well as small firms. Support Desk Software helps you to manage customers in one place and Manage your customers in one place.
This article has been contributed by Sanjay Kalirona, CEO and Co-founder, Gizmore.
In the rapidly evolving business landscape, the rise of direct-to-consumer (D2C) and e-commerce models has revolutionized the way companies connect with their customers. These digital platforms provide unprecedented opportunities for businesses to engage with their target audience directly and create lasting relationships.
However, with intense competition and an abundance of choices available to consumers, it has become more important than ever to implement effective strategies for customer engagement and retention. The success of D2C and e-commerce ventures hinges on their ability to engage customers effectively and retain their loyalty, ultimately driving growth and profitability.
Loyalty programs are an effective tool for customer retention. By providing incentives and rewards for repeat purchases, businesses can foster a sense of loyalty and encourage customers to continue buying from them. Loyalty programs can take the form of points-based systems, tiered membership levels, additional discounts, pre-booking of smartwatches at exclusive pricing, or exclusive benefits.
To design an effective loyalty program, businesses need to ensure that the rewards and incentives offered align with their target audience’s expectations. Customers should perceive the program as valuable and worthwhile. Additionally, the program should be simple and user-friendly, ensuring easy participation and redemption of rewards.
Seamless Customer Service
Exceptional customer service is a cornerstone of customer engagement and retention. Businesses must prioritize providing prompt and effective support across multiple communication channels. Customers should be able to reach out for assistance easily and receive timely responses to their inquiries or concerns.
Offering live chat support, responsive email communication, and dedicated customer support phone lines is essential for building strong relationships. Additionally, employing chatbots and automated systems can ensure 24/7 availability and provide immediate assistance for common queries.
Social Media Engagement
Social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat have become powerful tools for customer engagement. Businesses can actively engage with their customers through these channels, respond to comments and messages, and address customer queries or issues publicly. Social media also provides opportunities for running contests, polls, and interactive campaigns to encourage customer participation and foster a sense of community around the brand.
By maintaining an active social media presence and engaging with customers authentically, businesses can create a positive brand image and build strong relationships.
User-Generated Content
User-generated content plays a significant role in building trust and credibility in the D2C and e-commerce space. Customers trust the opinions and experiences of their peers more than any advertisement. Encouraging customers to share their experiences through reviews, testimonials, and public posts can generate valuable content that showcases the brand’s value and authenticity.
Businesses can actively seek customer reviews and testimonials, leveraging them on their websites and social media platforms. Providing incentives or running campaigns to encourage customers to leave reviews can help increase participation. By highlighting positive customer experiences through UGC, businesses can attract new customers and reinforce loyalty among existing ones.
Email Marketing
Email marketing remains a powerful tool for customer engagement and retention. By regularly communicating with customers through personalized emails, businesses can provide updates on new products, exclusive offers, and valuable content. Segmenting the email list based on customer preferences and purchase history ensures that the messages are relevant and targeted.
An effective email marketing strategy involves crafting compelling subject lines, designing visually appealing templates, and delivering valuable content that resonates with the audience. Personalizing the emails based on the customer’s past interactions and preferences can significantly increase open rates and click-through rates. By staying connected through email, businesses can nurture customer relationships, encourage repeat purchases, and drive engagement.
Post-Purchase Follow-up
The post-purchase phase provides a valuable opportunity to engage with customers and foster long-term relationships. Sending a personalized follow-up message to express gratitude, check for satisfaction, and gather feedback demonstrates that the business values the customer’s experience beyond the transaction. It also provides an opportunity to address any potential issues or concerns the customer may have.
Asking for reviews and ratings is an effective way to encourage customers to share their experiences and provide social proof. By actively engaging with customers after a purchase, businesses can reinforce loyalty, resolve any concerns, and gather insights for continuous improvement.
Continuous Improvement
To ensure long-term customer engagement and retention, businesses must continuously seek customer feedback and act upon it. Analyzing customer data, conducting surveys, and listening to customer suggestions are vital for understanding evolving needs and preferences. By actively seeking feedback, businesses can identify areas for improvement and make necessary adjustments to their products, services, and overall customer experience.
Demonstrating a commitment to continuous improvement builds trust and shows customers that their opinions matter. Communicating the changes made based on customer feedback reinforces the value placed on their satisfaction. By consistently striving to enhance the customer experience, businesses can retain customer loyalty, attract new customers through positive word-of-mouth, and differentiate themselves from competitors.
Summing Up
In the D2C and e-commerce landscape, customer engagement and retention are critical for success. Engaging customers on a personal level, providing exceptional support, and leveraging digital platforms for interaction are key to building brand loyalty.
By incorporating these strategies, businesses can not only increase customer retention but also foster brand advocacy, drive revenue growth, and establish a competitive edge in the D2C or e-commerce space. Embracing customer-centric approaches is crucial to navigating the ever-evolving digital landscape and creating a strong foundation for long-term success.
This article has been contributed by Prof. Aakash Kamble, Faculty of Marketing, FLAME University.
Consumers interact with brands through multiple channels in today’s digitally driven world. The distant concepts of online and in-person shopping are intertwined today due to rising trends like buy-online-collect-in-store. A shift is seen in customer expectations as they may research the products and services on the website, visit a store for product demonstrations, and finally purchase through mobile apps.
Customers expect a seamless and consistent brand experience across their preferred channels; social media, websites, mobile apps, or traditional stores. All this culminates in omnichannel marketing, which acts as an integrated approach for providing customers with a seamless and consistent experience across multiple channels like social media platforms, websites, mobile applications, emails, and traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Businesses that leverage each channel’s strengths through consistent messaging and branding can effectively reach and engage customers. Creating a seamless and positive customer experience may reduce churn and build a positive brand reputation.
The Power of Omnichannel: Key Ingredients for Success
Before diving deep into understanding omnichannel, businesses need to realize that omnichannel is different from multichannel marketing. In multichannel marketing, companies employ various disconnected channels for customers to use independently. As against this, omnichannel provides an integrated and seamless experience across multiple customer touchpoints. Businesses need to understand that, under an omnichannel approach, customers move fluidly between channels and touchpoints. Companies may use the five key ingredients to ensure fluidity between channels under the omnichannel strategy.
Convenience: As customers are time-strapped, convenience becomes a central requirement for a strong customer experience.
Consistency: When building businesses, keeping a unified brand presence and consistent messaging is prime, as it will create customer trust and loyalty.
Relevance: Localized, personalized, and real-time interactions are some of the key expectations of customers. Tailoring businesses around these aspects enables them to reduce churn and retain customers.
Empowerment: Brands today must empower customers by providing detailed information about their benefits, thus resulting in loyalty and a higher return on investment.
Agility: Brands need to understand changing customer preferences and behaviors, market shifts, and technological advancements to leverage them to stay relevant. Businesses must adapt their approach to adopting opportunities when markets present them.
Key Components for Reaching and Engaging Customers
Omnichannel marketing involves several key components that contribute to its effectiveness in reaching and engaging customers across multiple channels. Integrating data, consistent branding, personalized messaging, and a customer-centric approach are essential for effectively reaching and engaging customers in today’s omnichannel landscape.
Customer-centric approach: Businesses need to understand customers’ tastes, needs, preferences, and behaviors by placing them at the center of their business endeavors. Collecting data from different channels and analyzing it to gain insights and create personalized experiences helps businesses achieve this.
Consistent branding and messaging: A consistent and strong brand identity across channels, from visuals to logos to color palettes to messaging, helps build brand recognition and trust.
Seamless integration: Channels must be interconnected for smooth customer transition between various touchpoints without disruptions.
Personalization and targeting: Delivering personalized experiences and targeted messaging across channels will increase relevance and customer engagement.
Effective Strategy for Omnichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing enables businesses to create the right message for the right customer at the right moment, thus driving sales, increasing brand reputation and trust, and resulting in a positive customer experience. While it may sound simple, strategizing for profitable results requires precision planning and implementation across customer touchpoints.
Mapping the Customer Journey
Businesses need to understand the customer journey based on their interactions with the brand and its shortcomings. One needs to start by identifying customer demographics, customer pain points regarding the brand, where they hang out, and how they make purchase decisions. This enables businesses to track the customer journey and helps them create insights, thus influencing their purchase decisions.
Create a Consistent Brand Presence
Though it may look like a small part of omnichannel marketing, it is crucial. As discussed earlier, all the touchpoints and channels must bear the same logo, color palettes, and similar branding and marketing messages. Businesses need to be consistent with their branding efforts, not perfect, as every channel carries a certain unique set of characteristics that are difficult to emulate across all channels.
Cross-Channel Communication
Businesses must establish consistent messaging and communication strategies across channels. Customers must receive the same brand experience regardless of the channel or touchpoints they engage with. For example, if a customer adds an item to the cart through the website, they should be able to make payment through the mobile app and collect the product from the store.
Channel Optimization
Every channel has unique characteristics, strengths, and limitations; hence, businesses need to optimize them to deliver a seamless experience. Social media platforms can be excellent channels for customer engagement and brand awareness, whereas email is employed for targeted promotions and personalized offers.
Get the Context Right
Context is the most crucial part of an omnichannel marketing strategy. Sending the wrong and distorted messages to the wrong audiences can spell disaster. The insights gathered through data will enable businesses to understand users’ active time and accordingly send targeted and personalized messages, thus resulting in better conversion.
Continuously Measure and Refine
Businesses must track the performance of their strategies across channels. Based on the data insights generated through measurement, they must refine and realign their approach based on what best resonates with the customers.
Conclusion
In today’s cohesive era, businesses must embrace omnichannel marketing to create a personalized, interactive, and unified customer journey and experience. By leveraging the strengths of different channels and being present at various customer touchpoints, businesses can improve marketing efficiency, build brand recognition and trust, and create loyal and engaged customers.
Ultimately, businesses must develop a strategic plan to build a coherent and aligned experience across multiple channels. Companies are realizing the potential of omnichannel marketing and are thus embracing it to reach their customers. By understanding customer preferences, maintaining consistent branding, integrating channels seamlessly, and personalizing interactions, businesses can provide a superior and cohesive customer experience. As technology advances and consumer expectations evolve, embracing omnichannel marketing will be essential for businesses to stay competitive and build long-lasting customer relationships.
Companies providing consumers with similar products often pose a stiff challenge to businesses, so one must find a tactic to set them apart from the rest. Thanks to the birth of the internet, the technological upgrades pushed the competition way up. It is due to all of these that the enterprises have now been brainstorming to be equipped with unique ways that would help them offer their potential consumers the best products and services.
Any entrepreneur would know that an effective advertising campaign is crucial for a business’s rapid growth and survival in a competitive market, and promotional items are a popular form of advertising. Giving away branded items, whether they are pens, flash drives, or caps, never fails to boost brand awareness. Promotional pens, as per statistical records, have been the most popular promotional business giveaways. Over 89% of the promotional product owners have revealed that they have received promotional pens. Drinkware comes second as promotional items, followed by t-shirts, bags, hardware, and more.
Common Promotional Products
Businesses can reap the benefits of continuous exposure through promotional products, which only require minimal investment when compared to other advertisements and marketing strategies for promotion.
How Will Giveaways Help Your Business?
Giving away promotional items is a strategy for creating brand loyalty and attracting customers. Free products are valued by people and are appreciated due to their usefulness in their daily lives. So, freebies never fail to show promising results for any scale of business.
The inclusion of promotional items is not something new in trend. The promotional goods now have their own league, which is also expanding along with driving the companies towards growth. The promotional products industry was last valued at over $23 bn when last discovered in 2019. Here’s looking at the annual sales revenue of the promotional products industry in the US:
Annual Sales Revenue in the US of the Promotional Products Industry
Here are some significant ways that promotional giveaways can benefit your business’s engagement:
1. Inspire Customer Loyalty
Some businesses tend to become focused on attracting new clients that they sometimes forget to nurture their existing customers continuously. With a reasonable amount of investment, promotional gifts like giving out branded pens from steel-city.co.uk and other items, help you let your customers know how important they are for your business and how much you value them. Business models offering special prices to new customers will never manage to instill loyalty in such a manner.
You’ll be at an advantage over your competitors who don’t reward customers for their loyalty. Let this strategy allow you to retain precious clients who may stick with you through your business’s ups and downs. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider offering promotional items to prospective new customers to win their trust. This simply implies you must reward those who have maintained their partnership with you.
2. Generate More Leads
Despite the many strategies that entrepreneurs use to generate leads, unfortunately, some don’t yield satisfactory results. Promo items, on the other hand, provide you with numerous opportunities to get quality leads, which may eventually convert to sales.
Branding a mug, apparel, or writing material with a logo may increase sales. Freebies are appreciated by your customers, no matter how big or small they are, as long as they’ll be helpful for daily use.
3. Build Relationship With Clients
Relationships and a solid market network are essential to the success of businesses, and when you take the time to build strong connections with your target market, they’ll likely refer your brand to others. Word-of-mouth strategy will always remain effective no matter what industry your business belongs to.
Establishing credibility and positioning your brand as an authority in your niche will help you build your brand. Learn about the needs and preferences of your target customers through research. Social media platforms can also be used to host contests and giveaways. Also, a user-generated content approach like this is a surefire way to increase engagement.
4. Increase Brand Recognition
Popular Promotional Giveaways to Improve Customer Engagement
A strong reputation is crucial for businesses wishing to compete successfully. Companies can use promotional products for advertising their brand by having their logo branded on an essential item people can use every day. The recipient is continuously reminded of the brand while having the giveaway placed or displayed on their desks, homes, or cars. This encourages them to recognize the business, especially when it’s time they need your product or service.
A brand visible on an everyday object strengthens the marketing message eventually. Some people increase their perception and view toward a specific product because of the frequency or duration it became helpful to them.
5. Make You Stand Out
One strategy to keep yourself unique from your competitors is to take advantage of giving away high-quality promotional items. Instead of having ordinary bags and t-shirts, you could try making attractive eco-friendly bags and t-shirts with witty and smart designs. It’s all a matter of creativity that’ll set you apart from the rest of the market players. Distributing the perfect promotional items is essential for your business no matter what campaigns you’re partaking in.
You can also customize your merchandise depending on your target age group. When you apply these valuable tactics, your attendees will continue to check your brand out in your booth or whether you have a physical or online store, hoping to get a hold of your promotional items.
Of course, when you join a marketing expo, your booth should be strategically located, so your customers can see you easily. Word-of-mouth marketing usually takes care of the rest, so make sure to wear or use your items to promote your highly prized stuff when walking around the crowd. Be sure not to bring too much, so if they get intrigued, they’ll come right to your booth to claim their freebie.
6. Build an Affordable Advertisement Strategy
A promotional product’s most significant advantage is it’s an affordable advertising medium. You can use them to market your business for several months at a lower cost than other advertising methods. You don’t need to spend a fortune to create a winning marketing strategy since promotional merchandise serves a similar purpose as business cards. The key is to find an item that’s unique, useful, and cost-effective.
Advertising is effective, but it can be expensive for small businesses hoping to expand locally. Promo items provide long-term marketing opportunities for your business because they advertise your brand all over the locale. As a result, your product will be known to more people without you shelling out a ridiculous amount of money.
Conclusion
Promotional products must be appropriately integrated into your advertising campaign to reap their benefits. Business owners can take the time to understand what their customers need and provide them with a gift to make their lives better. It’ll help people follow your page or become potential customers if you distribute items they love and need.
If a product is trendy and famous, it’ll eventually make a good giveaway, and it’s a great way to differentiate yourself from the competition. Have fun devising the best promotional strategy, and expect to gain positive responses soon!
FAQs
What is customer engagement?
Customer engagement is referred to the interactions that the brands have with their customers via numerous channels in order to keep them aware and updated on their own journeys and with the future products and services as they launch them.
Why is customer engagement important for a business?
Customer engagement is really important for the businesses of today in a list of ways. Here are some of the most prominent ways in which customer engagement helps a brand/business:
Keeps customers aware and updated on their journeys
Helps them get updates on new products and services
Offers the customers crucial help and support
Helps increase brand awareness and visibility
Promotes marketing
Helps acquire new customers
Strengthens employee retention
Provides insights into the customer behaviour and more
What are promotional giveaways?
Promotional giveaways can be referred to as the gifts or freebies that a brand extends to its customers mainly with an aim to promote the company.
Do promotional giveaways help engage customers?
Yes, promotional giveaways or gifts that are distributed to the customers, play a significant part in engaging the customers by helping them realize how much they are valued.
What can be included as promotional giveaways?
From smaller branded swag items like pens, notepads, notebooks, to digital tickets, gift cards, jewellery pieces, and flower bouquets, all can be added to the list of promotional giveaways that would enhance the customers’ engagement with the brand.
When given a chance to interact with your customers, would you use the same messaging to communicate with people who’ve made their first purchase and repeat customers? Well, you wouldn’t. It is because they are entirely different audience segments. While the former has just been introduced to your brand, the latter knows your brand better.
Businesses often refer to the latter category as VIP customers because they have made a significantly higher number of purchases or they have a high lifetime customer value attached to them. They have probably contributed more to your bottom line than any other customer. Hence, as a business, you naturally gravitate more towards them and make extra efforts to retain them.
Crafting well-planned and personalized nurturing email sequences is one of the best ways to keep your VIPs engaged 365 days of the year. If you pull this off correctly, you can generate a whopping 4,200% ROI on your email marketing efforts. If you have an email list with a slow dying engagement rate from your VIP customers, try the following ways to gain it back.
Grant VIP Customers Early Access to Sales & New Product Launches
Making people feel special can go a long way in establishing long-term relationships. So if you’re planning to launch a new product or roll out a season-special sale, create an insider segment to inform your VIPs first of these events. Email them a day before or give them early access to sales.
When you execute this step, ensure you make the VIPs know that they are the ones receiving this privilege. Just like Amazon Prime members get early access to certain sale events, you can make your VIP customers get something similar. The more special you make your VIPs feel, the better.
Create Exclusive Survey Campaigns for VIP Customers
Haven’t heard from your VIP customers lately? Fret not! You can reignite the lost engagement rate by sending them engaging emails containing survey forms. Since the VIPs are the ones who have made most purchases, they understand your products better. When you seek peoples’ suggestions, they feel valued.
So planning survey campaigns can have two benefits. The first is making your loyal customers feel heard, and the second is fetching valuable reviews that can be used to better the product, service, and overall business operations. You can use tools like Survey Monkey to design visually appealing and interactive survey forms.
Incentivize VIP Customers for Referring Your Products
Importance of People Referring Your Products
Everyone loves receiving discounts, gift vouchers, free delivery on their next order, or a free sample product from their favorite brands. What if you could use this to generate more sales and make more brand loyalists? Well, it is doable. All you need to do is strategically develop a lucrative referral offer that gives people a reason to share your favorite products in their network.
The incentive can be anything that lures the reader to hit the share button. You can dig into the previous purchase patterns of your VIP customers and see what prompted them to make the previous purchases. Was it a special discount you were running, a BOGO deal, or something else? You can create multiple personalized referral email segments based on their purchase patterns and personal preferences to ensure the campaign has a high engagement and success rate.
If your past email marketing strategy included sending too many sales-oriented emails, you should stop now. People don’t like emails that constantly try to sell them something. Continuing with this method can result in people reporting your emails as spam or unsubscribing from your email list.
To ensure you don’t make this mistake, try sending occasional emails thanking them for their patronage. You can either send them a well-crafted thank you email or choose to add a discount code or gift voucher as a way to amplify your message. If you have VIPs with high lifetime customer value, sending them a thank you note with a bit of surprise is best.
They most probably weren’t expecting such emails, and this move can make them purchase more from your business.
Use Advanced Analytics to Boost Personalization
Email Marketing Effectiveness
You can only generate a spark with your email communications if they are highly relevant to the recipient. Since VIPs belong to the repeat customers’ category, it is easy to predict what they like and expect. Besides checking their customer profile on your business software, you can also dig past emails sent to them on your email marketing tool to analyze which subject lines or email themes garnered maximum responses from them.
Searching for an advanced analytics tool that gives you a better understanding of your VIPs past behaviors can also be done. Ultimately, you want to craft emails that look like they’re directly talking to the recipient and are of interest to them. If you can pull this successfully with the help of analytics, you’re sure to witness visible results.
Conclusion
You can generate more business with your email list. Your email list is your biggest asset that no one can snatch away from you. But it takes proper nurturing to maintain the list. If you have a segmented list of loyal customers, you cannot expect them to remain interested in your brand by sending them the same emails you’re sending to your one-time customers.
Repeat customers expect more from your brand, so you must make extra efforts to keep them happy. While there are endless ways to keep an email list engaged in your brand, not every option might work for you. But to make things easier for you, this guide lists all the possible options to help you make the cut.
All you have to do is try out each option listed above, and see what works best for your business. The more A/B test you conduct, the better.
FAQs
What is customer engagement?
Customer engagement is the process of creating a good relationship between the brand and customers. Customer engagement’s main aim is to create brand awareness among targeted customers and make them loyal to your brand.
How do you engage VIP customers?
Different ways to keep your VIP customers engaged are:
By giving them early access to Sales & New Product Launches
Offer incentives to VIP Customers for Referring Your Products
Send occasional Thank You Emails
Use Personalized emails and offers
What are the best ways for customer engagement?
Some of the best ways for customer engagement are:
Surveys
Chatbots
Emails
What are the types of referral programs?
There are 4 types of Referral Programs for businesses to use:
While surveys can be a very effective tool to obtain data and analyse them, it can be challenging to get people to complete your service, especially on an online platform. There is always a risk of the respondent leaving the survey midway.
Although the probability of such an incident cannot be nullified, it can be significantly reduced by making the survey forms more attractive. Today, there are lot of software and tools to make your service precise and attractive. Here are a few nuances that you should keep in your mind while making a survey form.
While you may be sure about the overall requirements of your company and its various wings, it is vital to have a proper plan with regard to the surveys as well. Brainstorm on the things that you should ask the respondents and in what ways they should reply. Keep in mind the possible feedback that you would receive and how you would take action on it.
Choosing the Right Software
SurveyMonkey Survey forms for different requirement
The overall look and structure of the survey play a very important role in getting more respondents. Depending on the kind of questions that you plan to ask, have a clear idea about the platform you will use to formulate the whole survey form.
There are many websites like the Type Form available for the same purpose. Another alternative of type form websites is Survey Monkey, WordPress, Paper Form, etc.
While each of them has its own pros and cons, it is clearly up to the curator of the survey form to decide the platform through which the entire thing should be made.
Here is a brief insight into making survey forms in WordPress.
Making Surveys Through Word Press
Finding the right tool for a survey is the basic tenet of making a survey form in WordPress. While many third-party surveys allow you to create survey forms, they also store a lot of your data. At this juncture, WPForms becomes one of the best options available in the world. It is very safe and user-friendly. These forms only need to be dropped into the WordPress form builder, enabling you to create any forms. There is also a survey forms addon which makes the entire process easier and gives you beautiful Survey reports. To make use of this, you need to have WPForms pro. These WP forms have redesigned survey templates that significantly reduce the initiation time of curating a survey. All you need to do is to drag and drop the required template to kickstart your process.
They also help you adopt different innovative survey feels like multiple-choice, Likert scale etc. You can also have survey reports inclusive of charts, tables and graphs. These survey results can also be curated beautifully in the WP forms and can be exported in PDF, print or JPEG format. There is no doubt that WordPress forms are a single-stop solution to all types of survey forms or any other forms that one will ever meet. The diversity that they provide saves you from the trouble of using multiple plug-ins.
The steps involved are as follows
Creating a survey form with the installation and activation of the WPForms plug-in on the WordPress site
Customising their survey form depending upon your requirements
Configuration of the survey form settings to edit various variables like name, form description et cetera
Addition of the survey form to the concerned website using facilities like embed, add a form, or by using WB forms widget
You can start viewing the survey form reports after people fill the survey by visiting WP forms.
There is absolutely no doubt that the beauty of a survey form lies in its brevity and simplicity. The more brief your survey is, the more attempted it becomes. People will not make an effort to attend a survey form that is elaborate and complex.
Customisation For Target Audience
Depending upon your target audience, you can make changes to the entire structure of the survey form. For example, you can add visual illustrations when necessary if the surveys or for children. The same technique can be applied to the surveys meant for the adults if you think such visual representations will make the questions more straightforward and more engaging.
Conclusion
Survey forms are meant to be informative and not entertaining. One needs to ensure that all the questions are right to the point and elicit independent answers. The questions have to be carefully framed to prevent any personal bias from entering into the form. While using the available websites, make sure you go through their privacy policies and be aware of the data that might be in their hand. Amidst the chaos, WordPress is a safer option. There are other websites to which can be used after careful observation. However, there is no tool that is perfect. The most important thing is to get around the drawbacks and find a solution for them as ideally as possible. Surveys being a very important component that determines the future endeavours of a company should be considered seriously, and every nuance of the survey forms should be carefully addressed.
FAQs
What is a survey form?
A survey form is a set of questions designed to gather information about customers’ feedback, preferences, and requirements.
What are different types of Surveys?
Different Types of surveys are:
Online surveys
Paper surveys
Telephonic Surveys
One-to-One interviews
What is the most popular online survey tool?
Survey Monkey is the most popular online survey tool.
Rishi Mundra
