It’s not enough to assist your customers only when they are having issues with your products. You must engage with them throughout the various phases during their journey as a user to ensure the best customer experience.
In the PWC study in the United States, more than 54% of customers in the U.S stated that the customer experience in the majority of companies required to be improved. The speed, the ease of use, how helpful employees were, and the level of customer service were deemed to be essential factors, with each one being “important” for 70 percent of consumers.
The study revealed that businesses who understand the importance of customer satisfaction prioritize technologies that improve the customer experience. An customer Engagement Platform (CEP) could be an instance of a technology solution that will help you improve your customer experience.
This article will take a look at the ways in which Customer Engagement Platforms can benefit SaaS businesses. We also discuss how to select the right platform for your business and the essential features to have for the most effective customer engagement tool.
TL;DR
A platform for customer engagement (CEP) is a program that is used to track and analyze the customer’s behavior within the product, as well as communicating with them.
Platforms for customer engagement assist Saas companies communicate with users more effectively, which leads to greater customer success and satisfaction. This means lower turnover and increased overall growth.
They also aid in reducing demand for customer service by offering self-service support for customers through resources centers and interactive walkthroughs, guides and onboarding processes.
Finally, a better customer satisfaction by using CEP gives companies an advantage in the market competitors due to more satisfied customers.
To select the most effective customer engagement system You must understand the customer journey and the stages of interaction between customer and product; you should also establish the model of customer engagement and understand the different kinds of interactions that are beneficial for your customers.
The essential features to have for a successful CEP include channels and functions with advanced segmentation capabilities and advanced personalization capabilities automated triggered by behavioral factors analytics and tracking integrated A/B testing easy setup with no code and support that is mixed (self-serve and human) and the capability to integrate with third-party integrations
What’s a platform for customer engagement (CEP)?
A platform for customer engagement (CEP) is a software that’s used for analyzing and tracking the behaviour of customers using the product, as well as communicating with them. In simple terms, you employ CEP software to monitor and enhance the user experience during the user journey.
It gives companies the ability to manage customer interactions. Through the tracking and analysis of information about customers, it enables companies to design experiences which increase engagement of the product along the user’s journey.
For example, a customer engagement platform helps you to:
Implement onboarding flows once new users sign up
Create a customized greeting message to a new user registers
Use interactive walkthroughs to assist users to achieve a certain goal.
The announcement of the debut of a brand new feature to users who are relevant.
Share a link with the new user to install an app for mobile for their device
What makes customer engagement platforms crucial for SaaS?
1. Growth in revenue
Every business wants to see growth in revenue without spending more money on customer acquisition. This is why customer engagement platforms can be beneficial.
Through helping your customers become engaged by engaging them, you can unlock greater value for your customers. This results in increased products, more frequent upgrades and more sales.
Research conducted by Gallup has proven the fact that clients who have been engaged enjoy an increase of 23% in terms of the share of wallet, profitability revenue and overall relationship growth.
Additionally, the research suggests that companies who are able to successfully engage with B2B clients achieve less churn of 63 and 55% more proportion of wallet and 50% greater productivity.
2. Reduces customer support demands
However, no matter if the SaaS product is easy or complex, customers will likely to seek assistance at some point during their journey as a user.
Helping customers through their entire user journey is more crucial to the success of a product today as it has ever been.
Walker’s study on 2020 revealed the 86% who purchased from Walker’s study rated excellent customer service. In addition that, they were willing to spend more money for it.
In addition, a study conducted by SuperOffice in 2021 revealed that 90% of businesses do not acknowledge receipt of emails from customers.
Customer support duties can get overwhelming. One of the major reasons why most businesses do not respond to emails from customers is due to the huge amount of emails they get.
For SaaS businesses, it could be even more difficult when customers have questions throughout their journey.
Customer engagement platforms assist in reducing some of the costs associated with support by allowing you to create onboarding processes including interactive guides, support centers, and tools that can be used by native users to help customers to get the answers they need themselves.
Users who receive guidance by a guide ask fewer questions and write fewer emails. As a result, SaaS companies are able to cut down on customer support calls and expenses. This is all while making sure that customer satisfaction is more efficient in a large scale.
3. Gain competitive edge
More than two-thirds (63%) of marketing professionals responsible in customer service compete exclusively by focusing on customer experience as per the findings of the Gartner Customer Experience in Marketing Survey. Additionally, by the year 2019, over 81% are are expected to compete primarily by focusing on the customer experience.
SaaS businesses that don’t focus on customers’ experience will lose a significant amount of competitive advantages. Customer engagement platforms assist you to create the best customer experience. This results in happier customers and gives your business the edge it needs to outdo your competition.
We now know why a platform for customer engagement is beneficial for the SaaS business, how can you pick the right CEP?
What are the best ways to choose the best customer engagement platform?
In order to select the best customer engagement tool to engage your customers it is essential to understand the various ways that your customers interact with your staff. You must know what they expect to gain from these interactions too.
Understanding the user’s journey can help you determine the most effective customer engagement system that will be most suitable for your customers.
Consider the kinds of interactions that are most beneficial to your customers in helping them move along the path beginning with that “AHA instant” to becoming advocates for your product.
Answer the following questions because it will assist you in understanding what kind or customer-engagement platform will best suit your needs.
Do you find that your SaaS tool has a lengthy learning curve? It could be that you require on-site training
Do you require holding the hand of your user? Automated onboarding tools are exactly what you need.
What stage of the process do you require to communicate with customers? Consider the Pirate the metrics model here, and the stage that you want to make an impact on
What’s your preferred method of acquisition? – in-app or email, web etc.
For help in selecting the right customer engagement platform to use with your SaaS Here are the important features you must have that should be included on your list.
1. Channels and functionalities
The choice of the best customer engagement software will be based on the features you’d like it to offer as well as the channels you require assistance for.
To comprehend the essential functionality and channels, it is essential to have a clear understanding of all the points of contact in the customer journey and also your objectives.
A platform for customer engagement which combines every type of communication channel onto one platform is not the ideal solution. Because in the event that it tries to handle all things, it’s not likely to be able to do it all well. Thus, it is best to select the platform that is able to support only one or two channels efficiently and seamlessly integrates into your technology stack.
Here are a few examples:
Do you want to automate your email? Do you require an automated email tool
Do you require to interact with visitors on your site Do you require chatbots
Do you require personalization of your user’s onboarding? You require an in-app tool for onboarding and possibly an automated email tool.
2. Advanced segmentation capabilities
Separating your users into smaller and more distinct categories can help you customize the way you communicate. It lets you deliver the correct message to the appropriate group at the appropriate date and time.
Your platform for customer engagement needs to be able to perform advanced segmentation which group customers according to:
Demographics of the customer – size, browsing habits and location,
User persona – who clients are, and the goals they’re trying to accomplish
Analytics on the user journey – at what is the customer journey
The use of the product – how they’re using your product
By using advanced customer segmentation, instead of broadcasting a single message to all customers like the radio that is broken it can be helpful to various groups of customers.
Sending them relevant, relevant, and personal messages at different stages of their journey can enhance their experience.
3. Advanced personalization capabilities
A lot of people believe that personalization means the inclusion of a customer’s name in every message or email. It’s not.
Personalization is the process of making communications more personal according to the user’s requirements and preferences.
In the final analysis, categorize your customers by the things they’d like to do. Therefore, you can help them accomplish the things they’ve set out to achieve.
4. Automating triggered by behavioral cues
While implementing basic automation based on time such as sending reminders or confirmation emails is laudable but it’s not going to change the direction when it comes to the engagement of customers is concerned.
A good customer engagement system should be able to assist you in creating advanced automation that will support:
A) Contextual communication
This basically means that you send an appropriate message at the right moment to the user who needs it, by using the appropriate method.
The basic principles of contextual communication demonstrate that you must provide information that is:
The right tone is struck.
Customers are looking for or want
The dispatch is made at the perfect time
It is sent using the correct channel and device
B) The use of behavioral messaging
Behavioral messaging is the process of distributing relevant and user-focused content to users instantly when they complete certain actions that trigger certain events within your SaaS.
What are the reasons you should make sure that your message is in line with the actions that users take within your application?
Create content that is appropriate to the user experience
Confirm that communications are contextual and precise
Send your messages on time – they are delivered to users at the exact moment at the time they’re likely to perform a certain decision
In a nutshell: make sure your platform for customer engagement supports behavior-based and contextual messaging.
5. Analytics and tracking
If you don’t have analytics on your customer engagement platform you’re flying blind. In the end you’ll definitely be crashing.
If you are able to access the customer journey analysis, you take data-driven decisions. Analytics lets you gain details to design the most optimal customer experience for your SaaS.
It is possible to see how your customers use your application through various channels in the course of time. You will learn about which features work and what don’t.
