Customers have gone digital (well, most of them). For just about any business, that means providing a digital customer experience must be par for the course.
But to create a true digital customer experience, you can’t just add a customer support form to your website and call it a day. You need a multi-channel, cross-departmental approach that reaches your customers wherever they want to interact with you. Marketing, sales, and support communications can all take advantage of these important digital channels.
READ MORE: Improve Your Customer Experience Metrics With Digital Rewards
Using email to communicate with your customers is a no-brainer these days, the bread and butter of almost every sales, marketing, and service interaction. That’s not likely to change anytime soon, considering it’s a free and widely used part of the digital customer experience. The trick, however, is finding a way to make your emails stand out among the countless messages we all get every day. Personalization, compelling subject lines, and digital reward offers can all help you get more email engagement.
Younger generations have led the fast growth of using social media to interact with brands. The latest Sprout Social Index shows that the most memorable thing brands can do on social media is respond to customers, cited by 51% of users. In addition, in the past three months, 23% of Gen Z users and 18% of millennials have contacted a brand for customer service by direct messaging them on a social platform, according to HubSpot’s Global Social Media Trends Report.
When creating that digital customer experience, text messaging is another channel option that has been made far more popular by the younger generations. But with nearly all Americans owning a cellphone (97% of them, in fact, according to the Pew Research Center), it’s fair to say that text messaging has reached the masses. Just consider the engagement potential:
Whether done with a live agent or artificial intelligence, chat use grew exponentially during the pandemic and continues to be a successful channel, particularly for offering instant customer service. According to Zendesk, chat has the second-highest customer satisfaction rate (85%) when ranked among other channels; only phone (91%) is higher.
Online communities offer a number of great opportunities for interaction during a digital customer experience. Integrate rewards into your community platform to incentivize referrals, brand advocacy, product training, and feedback surveys. Provide exclusive content or deals for frequent participants. You can even help cut costs on customer service by leveraging user-generated content to answer others’ questions.
Take a look at our Product Tour to see how BHN Rewards can help you build a multi-channel, digital customer experience, thanks to email and SMS delivery, as well as integrations with top community, marketing, and CRM platforms.
Hannah is a reformed journalist who has more than 15 years of experience and now focuses on content marketing for innovative tech companies.
Hannah is a reformed journalist who has more than 15 years of experience and now focuses on content marketing for innovative tech companies.
