9 Clever Customer Engagement Examples to Ponder in 2024

Is there any difference between an average customer and an engaged customer? Yes, and it’s clear-cut. The first one will buy something from you and forget about who you are. But the latter will keep interacting with your brand via email, social media, and other digital channels to stay on top. Besides, there is a great chance an engaged user will buy from you again, bring their friends, and recommend you to others. I bet, you would rather go the extra mile for the second one.

If you’re with me here and need some customer engagement examples for inspiration, you are exactly where you have to be. We’ve covered every little detail on that matter in this post and provided some innovative customer engagement ideas to fuel your strategy. Let’s get it started! 

What is customer engagement?

Customer engagement is a marketing strategy used to foster lasting customer relationships and loyalty by anticipating and meeting clients’ needs. In other words, it is all about encouraging users to interact with you via different communication channels, buy more from you, and share their thoughts. 

The process of customer engagement is more like an emotional connection that starts with the very first interaction and extends beyond the final purchase. And once you polish your customer experience well enough, it will reflect on your income – it will grow. Don’t trust my words, but numbers. 84% of firms that invest in better customer experience generate 4 to 8% higher revenue than their counterparts. 

The whole point is to give people something more except for your products or services. How to identify if your company can brag about strong customer engagement? Tick the right boxes:

• People like and comment on your social media
• Your campaigns, promotions, contests, or quizzes are popular 
• Customers enjoy and reap benefits from your loyalty programs
• You get positive reviews on third party sites
• People recommend you to their peers
• They read your blog, watch videos, and download interactive content

For you to have a bird’s eye view, we’ve come up with 9 customer engagement examples you might want to adopt in your business. Check them out!

9 great customer engagement examples 

Good examples of customer engagement can inspire business owners to find new ways to heighten the client’s interest. Hopefully, our striking selection will help you do the same and stand out from the competition.

#1 Provide omnichannel customer engagement 

Clients want to take total control over their purchasing decisions today. They prefer buying stuff on their own terms, whenever they want, and via a method they choose. Of all things, delivering seamless customer service is half the battle. Now it’s all about how you track and avail of the user journeys. The greatest way to succeed in this is by providing omnichannel customer engagement.

Such an approach blends live chat, email marketing, and social media with one another giving an opportunity to manage them from the one unified console. Speaking of which, HelpCrunch, an omnichannel customer engagement platform, helps automate onboarding, reach out to clients with proactive messages, and convert more leads under the same dashboard. It’s a win-win situation for both customers and support agents as they communicate within the platform and don’t have to jump between various channels.  

So, let’s say you want to provide omnichannel customer engagement with the help of HelpCrunch, what’s next? Once you’ve installed the tool and placed the live chat widget on your website, allow other messenger apps to be displayed as an alternative communication channel. This way, visitors can choose where they feel more comfortable chatting with you.

The best part, no matter what channel they decide to go with, it won’t change anything for your customer support team. Each message from any communication channel, including email, will get to the unified inbox in the HelpCrunch dashboard. From there, agents can see the conversation history, track users’ information, respond, exchange files, leave private notes, tag, and assign chats easily. That’s what omnichannel customer engagement can look like.

#2 Send warm welcome messages

Have you heard that 74% of customers expect a welcome email as soon as they subscribe to your product? Not meeting your clients’ expectations is definitely not the right way to make them happy or engage better. Thus, even a brief welcome message can quickly turn things in your favor.

How come, you may ask? Welcome emails have an average of 50% open rate, which is 86% more effective than usual newsletters. This way, you can express your appreciation for the customer, guide them through the installation process, and even offer other deals. 

There’re lots of techniques to use when you say hi to your new customer. But the best way to be memorable is to be unique and authentic in a way. Here is a great example of a welcome email by Harry’s, an American company that sells shaving equipment and men’s personal care products. Have a look at their email. 

It’s actually hard to stick out from the crowd, but this message is something you might want to try as well: original minimalist illustration, quick hello, and an interesting fact.

#3 Leverage chatbot capabilities to engage customers

Needless to say, support agents can’t be there all the time welcoming new visitors, inviting them to chat, or offering special deals. Even when a client asks a question in a live chat widget, it can happen that agents are busy to answer in just 40 sec, which users expect btw. Consequently, it can push clients away from your product or service. And that’s when a chatbot takes the stage. 

This automation tool is the fastest-growing communication channel to engage customers with a market size increasing by 92% just over a couple of years. Chatbots can reduce the users’ frustration by providing immediate answers to visitors, suggesting relevant FAQ articles, or transferring the requests to live agents if it’s needed. 

For example, have a look at the customer engagement tactic used by PVR Cinemas’ chatbot. This is one of the largest movie theaters in India. On their website, you will see a proactive message from a chatbot asking you if you want to book a ticket, check offers, or whatsoever. With chatbot help, visitors can quickly book movie tickets, view offers, and leave feedback.

#4 Create personalized content

The necessity of applying personalized content is easiest to grasp when you think of your own experience as a customer. When you visit or come across a brand’s social media channels, app, or website, what you expect is personalized and relevant information. And it’s not just you, 91% of consumers prefer to shop with brands who provide them with personalized offers and recommendations.

Put plainly, customers are usually gravitating toward brands that recognize them as individuals at every step of their experience. So meeting those expectations is in the best of your business interests.

You can do it in a few ways. One of the options is to make feedback requests a part of your product design. For instance, the American language-learning platform Duolingo is famous for its personalization patterns to enhance mobile customer engagement. From the moment a user signs up in the app until they hone their language skills, Duolingo asks related questions. By answering them, the app is able to provide a tailored experience that meets the exact customer needs. 

For instance, if you learn a language for travel, you’re about to master your geography. If it’s all about career, be ready to train the vocabulary that’s connected to money, personal growth, and business. Besides, Duolingo gives an opportunity to choose a goal: how much time you can devote to studying the language. 

This is pure customer engagement, actually, as it’s all aimed at boosting the overall user experience and helping reach their goals.

#5 Design an exclusive loyalty program

Acquiring new clients is way more costly than retaining existing ones. That’s why a well-thought-out loyalty program can be the way out. In fact, 23% of businesses use various rewarding campaigns to re-engage clients. 

An excellent customer engagement example comes from Nike. More like a progress motivator, the NikePlus Membership program uncovers plenty of benefits for its users: 

• Rewards for successful workouts
• Exclusive playlists on Apple Music
• Personalized promotions (such as product discounts)

The more people believe they’re about to achieve their goal, the more committed they’re to struggle for it. With several training programs from Nike, people can workout and receive badges for their milestones. It’s a vivid example of how progress can encourage engagement as customers always link to the person or brand that made the difference.

#6 Process customer feedback continuously

When it comes to fine-tuning your customer engagement strategy and clients’ opinions, you shouldn’t lose a chance to hear about them straight from the horse’s mouth. Apart from taking some data into account and accessing what works and what doesn’t for your metrics, listen to what people say. You can realign your improvement endeavors according to their expectations and drive enhanced engagement. 

By collecting customer feedback, you make clients feel special and important. Besides, if you assure them that their thoughts are paid attention to, you can win them over and over again. For instance, make use of exit-intent popups to target those visitors who are about to leave your website.

Just look at this amazing example of customer engagement. Such a popup is a perfect way to show that a company has serious intentions to satisfy the customer’s needs even if they are willing to leave. Plus, you can get valuable insights and process them to perfect your engagement effort. 

Apart from the feedback, you also ask for their email address in the popup which gives you a chance to get back to this particular user later with a much better offer.

#7 Add gamification

Why don’t you add a little fun to your customer engagement? Gamification is what you need if you want to offer enjoyable experiences. I bet your clients will stick around this way. 

Gamification is about gaining momentum right now, so you should adopt it to engage better. If you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet, consider these fruitful tricks:

• Run a contest on social media: for instance, invite followers to record a video and say a few things about how they like your product or service. The winner is going to get a lucrative discount. 
• Create a quiz: test visitors’ knowledge on a particular subject while generating more leads with the help of quizzes. They instantly add a pinch of entertainment. 
• Incorporate games: this can be everything your fantasy is capable of.   

Trailhead‘s gamification from Salesforce is probably one of the best customer engagement examples I’ve seen recently. FYI, it’s a series of online tutorials that help developers how to code for the Salesforce platform. 

Look at a perfectly designed landing page, eye-catching headings, exclusive mascots, and clear content that illustrates what Trailhead is all about and what perks you’re going to get after you start with it (it’s also possible to explore several certifications from Salesforce at the end!).

#8 Lean on social media

The Internet is a big draw today. Social media is on the rise which means new opportunities for brands. Probably, it won’t be a surprise to you that 55% of consumers learn about new brands through social media channels. Moreover, 78% of consumers will make a purchase from the brand after a positive experience with them on social. 

So, make sure to introduce your product across different platforms where users spend the most time on. As a result, not only customer relations are improved but also special offers don’t go unnoticed.

One of the most effective examples of customer engagement on social media is encouraging user-generated content. It’s a powerful way to engage your target audience, tackle the power of social proof, and source great content – all while using minimal resources. And, the stronger following you have on social media, the more chances are that your community includes people who can create fan-made content, so it’s also important to know how to get more followers.

Check out an example from Apple. The tech giant has an ongoing social media marketing campaign “Shot on iPhone” that aims to promote its line of smartphones. Creating the hashtag #shotoniphone on Instagram allows the brand to publish high-quality user-generated content and engage customers in the movement. 

So far, the hashtag has over 25 million posts – keep in mind, that this is an immersive brand exposure that the company hasn’t had to pay for directly.

#9 Go the extra mile for a customer

As customers are getting more and more demanding these days, it’s harder to find ways for going the extra mile for them. But still, it’s worth it! By doing so, you can keep clients loyal and happy along the way. Plus, be ready to enjoy positive word of mouth and increased sales. 

Speaking of good customer engagement marketing examples, there’s one that needs to be highlighted at this point. A Pizza Hut client who ordered pizza on a regular basis has suddenly gone missing. The restaurant chain was concerned about its loyal customer and called him to ask if he was OK. The client was completely surprised when Pizza Hut offered him a ‘welcome back’ pizza. That’s what I call going the extra mile for a customer!

Bottom line

The need to connect with customers emotionally is never-ending. And as you can see, it can turn out to be advantageous if done correctly. But you should always do your best to wow clients, be active on social media, and improve your strategy. Hopefully, our customer engagement examples will induce you and stir you into action. Sign up for HelpCrunch to cater to the clients’ needs to the best extent and build bridges.