The new customer experience offline vs. online has completely blended into a singular journey. Trends across every sector of business show that there is no going back from the imperative of having a strong digital customer engagement strategy in place—one that breaks down barriers to enable customer interactions anytime, anywhere, and through any channel they choose. 

But many businesses and organizations still lack a full understanding of customer engagement online—how does it impact brand interactions? How does it grow business?

A live intro to all-digital Communications

Part of our mission at Polcode is to educate our clients (and potential clients) about their options when it comes to customer engagement technologies. Together with Twilio and our client Bonzo, we’re holding a webinar on July 14, 2021 for digital marketers looking to explore their customer engagement options: Turning customers into fans, where we’ll show some of the latest customer engagement technologies and how digital marketers apply them. You can book a spot by going here.

(If you’re reading this after the live event, you can download the session on our webinar page.)

The imperative of digital engagement

Businesses shortened their timeline for digital transformation out of necessity during the pandemic, either by adopting emerging communications technologies, or developing new solutions for customer engagement.

As for customers, interacting online was essentially the only way to engage with a brand. The average customer now uses at least 10 different channels to communicate with companies, meaning an omni-channel strategy is particularly important for a modern approach to customer care. 

A recent Prosper Insights & Analytics survey found that 41.3% of consumers working from home said their smartphones accounted for nearly all spending. 

To meet these new demands, Twilio, the company that provides easy access to Communications APIs, found in their State of Customer Engagement Report 2021 that companies sped up their digital strategies 2 to 4 times faster in the initial weeks of lockdown.

Source: Twilio, State of Customer Engagement Report 2021

To do this, they tapped into their IT resources and deployed new technologies that allowed them to engage customers on entirely new channels:

Source: Twilio, State of Customer Engagement Report 2021

Communication APIs make it possible

Just as SaaS has made it easier to access a full suite of software with a simple cloud integration, CPaaS (cloud communications platform as a service) is making it extremely easy for digital brands to launch full customer care centers at the flick of a switch.

With Communication APIs, all size companies can build a care center from the cloud, that is:

1. Easy to build, develop new features & maintain support
2. Fast to launch new communications channels
3. Innovative with chatbots, personalization and insights
4. Rich with data to build out customer profiles
5. Lead-generating and after-sales relationships.
6. Available on social media, SMS, in-app, voice and email
7. Funneled into a single engagement platform.

Revealing customer journeys

Digital marketers hear a lot about understanding the customer journey, but are often in the dark about how to actually see that journey from beginning to end. Customer engagement platforms are not just about talking to the customer, they provide a way to holistically understand multiple touchpoints in a customer’s journey. 

For example, instead of the traditional method of optimizing a single touchpoint (like checkout), a customer engagement system can expose issues during more nuanced interactions, like reaching out through social media to ask questions about a brand’s product or service. With greater visibility into which channels customers are choosing to interact, brands have tighter control over every access point to their brand.

Customers still want live agents

Most customers still want live agents to handle their queries, according to recent surveys in the UK, where 52% of consumers polled wanted to talk to a human when they need a solution. 24% of respondents noted that they still want to talk to a live agent with simple questions or tasks.

Communication APIs make it possible to run live customer care centers on the cloud, minimizing the traditionally large expenses that it takes to run a dedicated call center.

Get a glimpse into the future of customer engagement

Don’t forget to join us on July 14, 2021 for a live webinar with 3 experts in building customer engagement solutions for digital marketers!

Each webinar guest will have the ability to schedule a free 1-on-1 consultation with our experts to pinpoint their specific customer engagement needs and ideas for how to implement them within their existing infrastructure.

Learn more about the webinar and register by visiting: https://webinars.polcode.com/customer-engagement-webinar

Happy engagement!