Expert Harps on Customer Engagement to Drive Profit in Organisations
The Regional Manager, Africa, Zoho Corp, Andrew Bourne, has stressed the need for organisations to focus more on customer engagement in order to further drive quality engagements among millenniums that will enhance profitability in organisations.
Bourne described the term ‘customer engagement’, as arguably one of the biggest buzzwords in today’s business landscape.
According to him, customer engagement entails actively engaging with an audience through messaging that interests, educates or helps them, as well as encouraging two-way communication with business.
He said it may appear to be a simple and straightforward task, he however said: “In today’s world, where the majority of a business’s customer base is composed of the digital-native ‘millennials and zoomers’, the consumer has little patience for complicated processes in the name of customer engagement. So what does this mean for you as a business, and how can you adapt to this new market reality and ensure that your engagement techniques are actually engaging.”
According to Bourne, mobile phone use has surpassed laptop use, and today’s target audience is more likely to look something up on their phones or tablets than on other device.
According to the GSMA’s The Mobile Economy sub-Saharan Africa report, the mobile market in sub-Saharan Africa will reach several significant milestones over the next five years: including half a billion mobile subscribers in 2021, 1 billion mobile connections in 2024, and 50 per cent subscriber penetration by 2025.
“Over the next five years, the number of smartphone connections in sub-Saharan Africa will nearly double to reach 678 million by the end of 2025, representing a 65 per cent adoption rate. It is, therefore, no longer an option to provide a mobile-friendly website or customer support portals - it is now a requirement, “it said.
Considering the connected generation, Bourne said being accessible to current and potential customers, remained the most important aspect of customer interaction. This, he added, is particularly challenging in today’s setting, where time and geography are no longer important and the customer expects businesses to be reachable at all hours of the day and night.
“While the advent of chatbots has eliminated the need for businesses to hire additional employees to cover multiple shifts, bringing developers onboard to build bots that can meet multiple requirements can end up being costly too. Instead, try thinking along the lines of using a sales engagement software that provides easy-to-use features like drag-and-drop chatbot builders,” Bourne said.
He explained that although chatbots were invented to free up staff from mundane tasks so they can focus on the more complex ones, he however said research showed that customers find it harder to get issues resolved by AI chatbots, while stressing on customer engagement.
“A customer engagement strategy is critical to the success of any business. Customers who are actively engaged not only spend more money, but also become a company’s best brand advocate and recommend the business to their friends, colleagues, and family,” Bourne said.