All you need to know about co- browsing

Co-browsing, in context of web browsing refers to joint navigation through the world wide web by two/ more people accessing the same web pages at same time. Complete co-browsing supports automatic synchronization of the browsers’ state and content, including frames, portlets, or even content of the form fields and controls. Various tools are employed for this purpose some of which can even identify complex media objects such as audio and video players and offer capability of synchronous playback with start/pause/stop functionality.

Co- browsing
Co- browsing

Co browsing is a short form of collaborative browsing. It is a software-enabled technique that allows someone in an enterprise contact center to interact with a customer by using the customer’s web browser to show them something. In case of a B2B scenario, it can actually be used ease out the complex purchasing process for the customers. For instance, a B2B customer facing difficulty placing an order could call a customer service representative who could then show the customer how to use the ordering pages by sharing screen on the desktop or whatever device is being used. Collaborative browsing may include e-mail, fax, regular telephone, and internet phone contact as part of an interaction.

B2B co- browsing
B2B co- browsing

Co-browsing has so far evolved to support a full user web experience. It has come up as a great tool for customer service and support teams. You need to keep the following points in your mind while considering a co- browsing solution for your business:

i) co-browsing solutions must be offered in a seamless manner irrespective of the communication channel the customer initiates the conversation from.

ii) solutions that cannot share critical information that exists outside of the browser will inhibit the experience your customers expect.

iii) co-browsing technology that mandates tagging each and every page that a customer may want to share may be a technical challenge and, in many cases, not feasible.

iv) co-browse solutions that share a browser experience may help with simple web page based content but are not capable of extending to view the rich content on every web page, so make sure that all viewers are seeing the same and synchronized content

Co browsing solutions
Co browsing solutions

 

 

Your guide to omnichannel customer service

Omnichannel refers to a cross-channel business model that companies employ to increase customer experience and improve the quality of customer service. This approach has verticals in healthcare, government, financial services, retail and telecommunications industries, including channels such as physical locations, FAQ webpages, social media, live web chats, mobile applications and telephone communication. Companies that utilize omnichannel contend that a customer values the ability to be in constant contact with a company through multiple avenues at the same time.

Omnichannel
Omnichannel

Previously customers expected to receive service from an organization on the channel of their choice. Thus companies employed multi-channel customer service technique which made use of voice, email, SMS/text, web, mobile or social media. Omnichannel customer service takes the multi-channel customer service to the next level as with an omnichannel solution that integrates channels to provide a consistent customer experience.

Multichannel customer service
Multi-channel customer service

As far as the customers are concerned, channel is the least important matter of concern for them. What’s important for them is finding an answer to their question or a solution to their problem. For this purpose they may reach out via voice, mobile website or over a social media channel like Twitter. In today’s era, as more consumers adopt mobile devices, the lines between channels tend to blur. As a result, customer expectations for the convenience of starting a conversation in one channel and then continuing in another, become even higher.

Customer query resolution
Customer query resolution

Omnichannel self-service is a solution to such high end expectations of the customers. It empowers the customer to initiate an activity in one channel, and seamlessly transition to another such that a conversation that begins on Twitter can be continued via text message or phone call with all of the relevant context preserved across channels. Omni-channel solutions don’t require implementing every possible channel  and it also ensures the service level, responsiveness, and quality of service received on individual channels and across channels would be exceptionally high.

Contented customers
Contented customers

 

Strategies for generating B2B leads online: II

1. Content Marketing:

Content marketing refers to the marketing focused on creating, publishing and distributing content to online targeted audience.It is a crucial element for B2B lead generation. It is often used by businesses in order to attract attention, generate leads, expand their customer base, generate online sales, increase brand awareness or engage an online community of users. While pursuing content marketing, the main focus of the businesses should be the needs of the prospect or customer.

Once a business has identified the customer’s need, information can be presented in a variety of formats, including news, video,white papers, e-books, infographics, email newsletters, case studies, podcasts, how-to guides, question and answer articles, photos, blogs, etc. The appropriate type of content for any business will depend on the business’ goals and target customer.

Content marketing
Content marketing

2. Search engine marketing:

Search engine marketing includes both paid search results (using tools like Google Adwords or Bing Ads, formerly known as Microsoft ad-center) and organic search results (SEO) and plays a crucial rule in B2B lead generation. It includes the following steps:

  • Keyword research and analysis: It involves ensuring the site can be indexed in the search engines, finding the most relevant and popular keywords for the site and its products, and using those keywords on the site in a way that will generate and convert traffic.
  •  Website saturation and popularity: It means how much presence a website has on search engines, can be analyzed through the number of pages of the site that are indexed by search engines (saturation) and how many back links the site has (popularity).
  • Back end tools: These include Web analytic tools and HTML validators which provide data on a website and its visitors and allow the success of a website to be measured.
  • Whois tools: They reveal the owners of various websites and can provide valuable information relating to copyright and trademark issues.
  • Google Mobile-Friendly Website Checker: This test will analyze a URL and report if the page has a mobile-friendly design.
Search engine marketing
Search engine marketing

 

 

Strategies for generating B2B leads online: I

In the previous post we talked about B2B lead generation and its components. Now let’s take a look at the strategies that can be employed to generate leads online:

1.Email marketing:

It refers to sending a commercial message to a group of people (typically potential or current customers), using email. It basically inculcates the use of email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. Email marketing can be carried out using:

  •  Transactional emails: These emails are usually triggered based on a customer’s action with a company. To be qualified as transactional or relationship messages, these communications’ primary purpose must be to confirm a commercial transaction that the recipient has previously agreed to enter into with the sender, along with a few other narrow definitions of transactional messaging.
  • Direct email: It involves sending an email solely to communicate a promotional message (for example, an announcement of a special offer or a catalog of products).
  •  Mobile email marketing: It develops large amounts of traffic through smartphones and tablets.
Email-Marketing
Email-Marketing

2. Social marketing:

This type of marketing involves leveraging social media to generate leads online. Businesses can use it to generate and nurture millions of dollars worth of leads. As a matter of fact, one of the most obvious ways to generate B2B leads from social media is using LinkedIn. Since social media is an integral part of content marketing, and to some extent, search marketing, so, your blogging or info graphics can be extremely successful if you are active on social media platforms.

In order to integrate social networks into their marketing strategies, companies have to develop a marketing model. One such model includes the following steps:

  • Selection of the correct social networks to use
  • Setting out a financial plan for hiring social media brand managers or consultants
  • Designing organizational structures to manage the social network in the companies’ market
  • Selection of target markets
  • Selection of the products, services, brands or company messages that you plan to promote
  • Performance measures for the social media strategy such as evaluation, data analytics, etc.

 

Social marketing
Social marketing

 

 

Top factors that cause cart abandonment: II

1. Costly products:

Extremely high cost of products is also a reason for cart abandonment. If your products are costly, people will not buy them. In other words, if you are driving up the prices, the users may look elsewhere or consider buying it for less elsewhere.

High costs
High costs

2. Discount coupons

Discount coupons may not always lead to sales because when a website has discount coupons or promotional offers, the users go in search of the coupon code and come back only if they find one.

Discount coupon
Discount coupon

3. Forced registration:

It is true that the more information you have about a client, the better you can market and deliver your products to them. moreover, registered users are more likely to visit the site again and develop loyalty. However, many commerce stores try to get this information through a forced registration. Not all are willing to register, so, the sites that do not allow the users to buy goods as guest visitors see a high rate of shopping cart abandonment.

Forced registration
Forced registration

4. High or late listed shipping prices:

In today’s era, people buy online so that they can get the goods delivered at their doorstep and also get a discount at the same time. But high shipping costs increase the price and may even drive the customers away. In many cases, websites try and get the customers interested in a product and once they have placed a product in the shopping cart, they cleverly add the shipping cost to the total cost.

High shipping prices
High shipping prices

5. Complex checkout process and lack of payment options: 

As a matter of fact, the checkout process is required to be as simple, smooth and quick as possible. Making a user fill out too many forms will make him/ her abandon the cart and leave. On the other hand, there are customers who want to buy products but are forced to abandon the carts because the e-commerce website doesn’t make provisions for their convenient method of payment.

Simple vs complex checkout process
Simple vs complex checkout process

 

 

Tips to increase conversion rate: II

1. Provide transparency:

Today’s consumers know when you’re being transparent and when you’re covering up for a defect with colorful or manipulative language. So, if you wish to increase your conversion rate, instead of trying to sugar coat things to sell your product, be straightforward about it. Mention precise, honest bullet points about the uniqueness and advantages of your product. The more honest and upfront you are, the better the transparency that you provide to your customers and higher the level of their trust in you.

Transparency
Transparency

2. Develop trust:

Once you provide transparency to your customers you have already developed some amount trust in your customers. Another means of increasing website credibility is by providing third-party support which includes citations, testimonials, articles in well-known publications, source material etc for the information you present, especially if you link to this evidence. This is a way of showing confidence in your material. Further listing a physical address, posting a photo of your offices or listing a membership with the chamber of commerce, making your contact information clear are some other techniques of increasing website credibility. Moreover, you can make your site easy to use by avoiding ads on your site. If you must have ads, clearly distinguish the sponsored content from your own. Also, try to keep your site fast, up and running.

Building trust
Building trust

3. Keep it simple and enticing at the same time:

Researchers have proved that sight is the strongest sense, so, instead of writing about your product, include a video or image-based demonstration of what it is and how it works. Visuals always make it easier to sell, so, leverage the power of visuals to increase your sales. But you need to avoid aggressive popup ads, flashing lights, or tons of exclamation points to make a good case for conversion. These things may drive the users away. You need to know that the simpler your design and offers are, the more likely your customers will be willing to convert.

Visual demonstration
Visual demonstration

 

 

 

Inbound marketing strategies to grow your business: II

1. Email opt-ins:

An email list is an important aspect of inbound marketing and one of the most crucial factors in building a business and growing it thereafter. Opt-in email is a term used when someone is given the option to receive email and is some sort of mailing list, newsletter, or advertising. Without obtaining permission before sending email, the email is spam. Email opt-ins are categorized as:

i) Unconfirmed / single opt-ins:

Someone first gives an email address to the list software, but no steps are taken to confirm that this address belongs to the person submitting it.

ii) Confirmed opt-ins:

A new subscriber asks to be subscribed to the mailing list, but in this type of opt- in steps are taken to confirm that the address provided belongs to the person submitting it.

Opt- ins
Opt- ins

2. Personal branding:

Personal branding refers to the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. Personal branding is essentially the process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the mind of others about an individual, group, or organization and often involves the application of one’s name to various products. When someone starts a business, it’s virtually impossible to separate oneself from that business. So, a personal brand can actually be used to build that business. Brands such as Tim Ferriss’s and Ramit Sethi’s depend almost exclusively on the power of their personal brand.

Personal branding
Personal branding

3. Free guides and reports:

You can actually create advanced guides and give them away for free. You just need to make sure that the guide is relevant to your business. So, you are required to keep your guide as specific as possible, because you are using it to gain a certain type of visitors such as the ones who will convert to become your customers. These guides can actually be used to showcase your expertise in your work and to provide other marketers with valuable information that can help them in growing their business.

Free guides and reports
Free guides and reports

 

Inbound marketing strategies to grow your business: I

Inbound marketing refers to the technique of drawing customers to products and services via content marketing, social media marketing and search engine optimization. Inbound marketing provides information, an improved customer experience and builds trust by offering potential customers the valuable information they desire via company sponsored newsletters, blogs, and entries on social media platforms.

Inbound marketing

We have mentioned a number of inbound marketing strategies to grow your business:

1. Leverage the power of keywords:

In order to rank higher in SERPs you need to identify the most relevant keywords and optimize your content accordingly. This will help you to successfully gain traffic for relevant keywords if you use those keywords on your site. So, you need to focus on keywords, specifically long tail keywords that are important. Having a quality website and content optimized for SEO ensures that Google’s web-crawling technology is able to identify and index your site’s content to have it appear for free to people searching and rank higher in the search results.

Keyword optimization
Keyword optimization

2. Social media interaction:

This is an era driven by social media. These days, potential customers find companies, follow those companies, and interact with those companies.Since there are real people behind every like and share, so, in order to connect with those people, you need to ask questions, answer questions, respond to tweets, and be a presence. Each of these social mentions provide an opportunity for your business to interact with the mention, thereby increasing its brand image and its reach into other social networks as well.

Social media engagement
Social media engagement

3. Use guest blogging:

Guest blogging is a new way to promote your web blog or website. In this strategy you may post your article or blog on others blog by getting their permission. Guest Blogging is used by bloggers to increase traffic for their blog by posting published blog on other blogger’s blog.

Guest blogging
Guest blogging

How to leverage PPC for lead generation: II

1. Ensure relevance between your PPC ad and landing page content:

When online users have queries related to a particular topic or want to know more about a product or service, they search the required information using specific keywords. Also, if your ad is focused on the desired certain keyword or topic, it is expected that your landing page would provide more information about that particular keyword or topic. The users would definitely be turned off if your landing page content talks about everything else except what’s mentioned in your PPC ad. Therefore, your content should be optimized in such a way that it entices landing page visitors to become a lead or a customer.

PPC ads in accordance with content
PPC ads in accordance with content

2. Employ convincing tools to support your ad claims:

For effective lead generation support your PPC advertising campaigns with evidence. This will help you gain the trust of your target audience. You may employ convincing tools such as customer testimonial, slideshows, white papers, and eBooks. these tools could support your claim as a reputable product or service. You can also feature prominently trusted seals from organizations or agencies that will increase your credibility, gain your targeted audiences’ trust, and convert them into long-term customers.

ebooks
ebooks

3. Entice your visitors with giveaways:

You may entice your visitors by including rewards and offers that you would give them in exchange for their sign-up information to a blog or newsletter. These giveaways may include webinars, ebooks, videos, presentations and more. Make sure that these rewards and offers are well-designed to give your web visitors something of value that will tempt them to know more about your brand, product or service. Also, it is suggested that you place your offers near your lead generation form, with customized graphics and text that will convince people to make a response to a particular call-to-action.

Free webinar
Free webinar

Tips for an effective online chat: II

1. Transfer chat sessions when required:

Since individual agents may have different areas of expertise, so, provide them with a list of other agents and their levels of expertise. This helps in cases where a chat agent is involved in a conversation that has got to do nothing with his current level of expertise. Such that, without much ado, he quickly transfers the chat to another agent ensuring that the customer is aware of the transfer.

Chat transfer
Chat transfer

2. Make use of typing indicators:

Your live chat software should include typing indicators. It should enable the agents to see a customer’s words as they type, and issue an alert when the customer has hit the “send” button. This feature gives the agents insight to what the customers are thinking as they type and also allows the respective chat agent to respond quickly without making the customer wait for long time periods. The alert should be audible, visible, or both such that it lets the agent know that a customer is awaiting a response.

Typing indicator
Typing indicator

3. Program targetted pages to raise chat offer:

As a matter of fact, just raising the offer to chat is enough to convey a sense of goodwill. Allow customers to browse on your site for a time before raising the offer to chat. Identify a list of target pages where you want to increase the conversion rate, and program them to automatically raise the chat offer after a period of 30 – 60 seconds such that the customers get enough time to be oriented for the chat.

Targeted chat
Targeted chat

4. Create a set of professionally designed canned messages:

Customers should be greeted professionally when they arrive within a live chat conversation. Professionally designed canned messages can be employed for this purpose. Carefully worded standardized canned messages can be used to automate parts of the conversation and augment your professional profile in order to greet the customers with courtesy.

Canned message
Canned message

5. Employ CRM tool along with online chat:

All your chat agents should have access to customer sales records. Integrating online chat with CRM tool allows them to update the CRM records at the end of a chat session.

CRM tool
CRM tool

 

 

Tips for an effective online chat: I

These days customers are increasingly using live chat as a communication channel to interact with websites to get instant help in case of any queries. Here are some tips to leverage online chat in order to reassure lead nurturing:

1. Offer a copy of the transcript to the customers:

Customers contact the live chat agents so that their queries are resolved instantly. The whole chat process provides them with valuable information. But, most people don’t record every conversation so this information can get lost or can be rendered futile. So, provide your customers with transcripts at the end of live chat sessions.

Transcripts
Transcripts

2. Include chat button in email campaigns:

This feature allows your customers to provide direct feedback on questions they may have regarding the email they’ve received from you. Emails could be anything from periodic newsletters or follow-ups to individual questions or grievances and embedded chat button along with it provides an ease of instant query resolution.

Embedded chat button
Embedded chat button

3. Provide chat agents with previous chat transcripts:

Providing your chat agents with a chat history for returning visitors allows the agents to come up to speed on issues that the customer discussed previously, and to proactively follow up with any questions. This will hasten up the live chat process and customers will appreciate the fact that they don’t have to repeat their previous problems to newly assigned chat agents.

Chat history
Chat history

4. Initiate an automatic response:

The only way to guarantee a quick response is to accept all incoming chats immediately. Once a customer initiates a chat session, the system should accept the chat automatically and convince the customer that a chat agent will respond shortly. Pre-canned messages can be used to welcome the customer and let him know that action is taking place immediately.

Auto accept chats
Auto accept chats

5. Inculcate pre-chat survey forms:

Pre- chat survey forms allow customers to set the direction of the conversation. They include questions that allow your chat agents the necessary background so they can provide a quick and courteous answer.  The pre-chat survey forms also allow you to quickly route the chat session to the agents who are most qualified to handle the respective conversations.

Pre-chat survey
Pre-chat survey

Tips to enhance the performance of your support agents: III

1. Arrange weekly meetings:

Arrange regular meetings for knowledge sharing. The basic idea is to discuss and understand the overall experience of your support agents with your clients. Try to understand what obstacles they face while they carry out a live chat with the website visitors, what kind of tricky questions customers may ask and how to resolve their queries. Agents can uncover important techniques of live chat support in this knowledge sharing process. This can aid in improving their overall performance.

Meetings
Meetings

2. Club videos with training sessions:

As a matter of fact, humans are visual learners. They tend to learn things more effectively if taught through graphics and videos. You don’t need to spend extra bucks on video tutorials. There are thousands of useful videos available on YouTube which can be utilized for this purpose. This is one of the best customer service training ideas that gives tremendous results.

Videos clubbed with training session
Videos clubbed with training session

3. Help them know their actual roles:

Yet another concept of your training should be to help your chat agents understand the actual role they need to play in building customer relationships. Educate them about the lifetime value of a customer as well as the consequences of a bad customer interaction. Let them know how the quality of customer support impacts on sales conversion, customer retention, and brand image. Once the support agents have this basic understanding, they will be more efficient in providing top-notch service.

Knowing respective roles
Knowing respective roles

4. Train them practically:

Practicing something practically helps you learn it better. Team up all of your agents and assign them different chat scenarios. Encourage them to try their best to deal with those given situations. Give them enough time to understand the whole support process, your products/services and most importantly, how to manage the live chat software. These practical sessions are very important to cultivate a capable workforce.

LIve chat tutorial
Live chat tutorial

Tips to enhance the performance of your support agents: II

1. Review your live chat agents’ performance:

Make it a point to review your live chat agents. Their training should include mock chats, secret evaluation and much more. Apart from that, distribute customer success manuals amongst your agents where all important tips and techniques of online customer support have been mentioned in written format. This will help them to go through the important tips whenever they have any doubts.

Customer support training
Customer support training

2. Inculcate tech support along with live chat:

In order to create a power-packed support environment make use of live chat features such as canned messages and links, the ability to push files and screen sharing and co-browsing. Also, train your agents to go slow and ask short, simple questions to get to the root of problems and to make solving them easier and faster. More important than training your agents to provide tech support is ensuring they have the resources they need readily available. Ensure your tech support agents are provided with canned links for knowledge based articles, how-to tutorials, videos and other resources they need to help customers resolve issues or problems instantly. Make sure the agents know how to find the resources quickly and then send them to the respective customers whenever they need them.

 

Tech Support
Tech Support

3. Help them to be platform experts:

LIve chat agents need to have thorough knowledge of the platform they are working on and the tools they are dealing in. When chat agents are familiar with the tools they are utilizing while assisting customers, they perform tasks with a higher level of confidence. Task your agents providing both a customer and organization friendly experience when chatting. It’s important to be fully trained on all customer and agent facing platform features. For this purpose,  customers might be presented with a pre-chat survey while initiating a chat request, which gives the ability to choose the reason for wanting to communicate.

 

Platform skills
Platform skills

Tips to enhance the performance of your support agents: I

Today’s era is an era of digitization. These days the purchasing decision of any customer is not only based on the quality of your offerings but also on the quality of your customer service and support. Customer support refers to the process of building a healthy relationship with your customers by convincing them that you value them and you are there whenever they need you.Thus, the quality of your support service can improve or destroy your brand image and ultimately your business revenue. So, you need to train your live chat agents with the right customer service skill. Here, we have mentioned some of the customer service training ideas!

Good customer service
Good customer service

1. Good product knowledge:

Educate your support agents about the products and services you provide. Good product knowledge not only improves the support speed but also helps to build a much stronger, long- termed relationship with the customers. If your chat support agents lack the knowledge of products and services you are dealing in, they will tell customers to hold for a while for finding the solution or transfer the chats to a more knowledgeable person, which becomes time-consuming. Therefore having proper knowledge shows confidence and builds trust amongst customers.

Product knowledge
Product knowledge

2. Good writing skills:

Live chat provides instant assistance to anyone visiting your site. Customers utilize the live chat option as it is the fastest way to interact with companies in case they have any queries. A key component of a live chat interaction is the agent’s ability to exercise good writing skills. Utilize the auto spelling and grammar check feature of your live chat platform to ensure efficacious agent communications. Tell them to keep sentences short and to the point. Agents must be able to write as if they were talking on the phone in order to keep the conversation flowing by mixing free form and canned messages. Interject the customer’s name while chatting to personalize the conversation and take care of punctuations.

Chatting skills
Chatting skills

3. Refrain from taking things personally:

There are instances when the customers are not in a good mood and they interact in an unexpected manner. Teach your support agents not to take those things personally. Complaints are gifts from the customers. They contain customer insights and are a great way to know what exactly are their opinions about your offerings and support quality. Tell them not to lie to the customer. If they don’t have the answer just admit it. Ask your live chat agents to spend some more time with the website visitors and dig personal info like customer’s hobbies, liking and disliking and so on. In this way, the conversation will be friendlier and the person on the other side will feel comfortable and relaxed.

Friendly customer service
Friendly customer service

Qualified and unqualified leads

The sole aim of individuals involved in digital and outbound marketing and sales is to segment leads into, one of two categories – qualified leads and unqualified leads. Leads can switch from one category to the other with the aid of nurture campaigns.

A qualified lead is a potential customer who has expressed interest in a product or service and meets general buying criteria.

Qualified lead
Qualified lead

A qualified lead is a person:

i) with need, budget, and purchasing authority.

ii) Working for a company that meets your customer profile for being a customer.

iii) With a buying timeline that falls within the time horizon of the sales representative’s commission plan.

It only takes a few minutes for a true sales professional to qualify a lead. And lead qualification can be done anywhere at a busy tradeshow or on a golf course, provided you have an efficient marketing team.ave completed, or are in the process of

Basically, qualified leads are the ones which have completed, or are in the process of completing your nurture campaign cycle.

Lead nurturing
Lead nurturing

Qualified leads are in control of their own buying cycle, completing self-education research who have brainstormed and listed their exact needs in a solution. They have a clearly defined budget to work with and are researching solutions within their means. In addition to this, they have low churn rates because they close on their own terms.

Buying cycle
Buying cycle

On the other hand, unqualified leads are the ones who have not been nurtured enough to close their sales cycle. They are often unsure of what your company offers and don’t know what they’re looking for in a solution. Unqualified leads may also be the ones for whom your product or service is out of their price range. Though it is possible to convert unqualified leads into customers, the churn rate is comparatively high.

Unqualified leads
Unqualified leads

 

How to increase customer lifetime value : Part III

1. Let your customers know how much you appreciate them:

Fans who show their loyalty every now and then by sharing your content on social media deserve to be rewarded, right? So, you can actually embed social media posts from fans who have shared your content or said something great about your brand to their followers. Put them in the spotlight and let them know how much you appreciate them and their efforts. They’ll make your brand a priority, once they see the reciprocity, The most common example is that of Soda Stream.

Soda Stream
Soda Stream

2. Send surprizes to your fans:

Who doesn’t like surprises? So, make it a point to send surprises to your fans so as to show your gratitude. Take a look at their social accounts to see what kinds of things they are fond of, and then send them something you know they’ll love. They’ll definitely share this experience with their friends, family, colleagues, and anyone else who will listen. Make sure that you do a little research and find something unique or, at the very least, different from what most people are talking about rather than sending something obvious.

Surprizes
Surprizes

3. Provide full experience to active customers:

This means keep your fans updated with your products and services. For example, if you have a product line, send them something they aren’t familiar with. If you have a premium service, give them the upgrade free of cost. This is truly the most effective way of increasing the customer lifetime value.

Service upgrade
Service upgrade

4. Acknowledge your customers’ suggestions:

Convince your customers that their suggestions are always welcomed. For this, always leave room for your customers to make suggestions that you didn’t list, and always offer some kind of incentive for participating in the poll. Even if it’s just a chance to win something small like a gift card or early access to an upcoming feature, it will make a huge difference in the number of people who actually participate.

Customer suggestions
Customer suggestions

5. Help your customers with their interests:

You can help customers do something they love. If possible, you may start “sponsoring” customers’ things that they are compassionate about.

 

 

How to increase customer lifetime value : Part II

1. Manage all communication channels available:

Having multiple points of contact, allows customers to choose the most convenient medium for communication. According to a research, sixty percent of consumers don’t want to be contacted over the phone about special offers, information, and upgrades, while 75 percent prefer contact via email or text message. Social network tools give you the opportunity to connect and engage with your customers at any time of day, as per their convenience.

Managing communication channels
Managing communication channels

2. Offer convenient and affordable services:

Convenient and affordable services make it easier for users to enjoy what they’re paying for. Make sure that your users/customers should spend the least amount of time possible trying to use your product or service, so they can spend the majority of their time making the most out of it.

Affordable services
Affordable services

3. Create brand loyalty:

As per a research, 64% of participants said shared values were the primary reason for maintaining a relationship with their brand. Clearly communicating your brand’s philosophy or higher purpose has become very important to today’s consumers. So, you must choose a technique, which reflects your consumers’ beliefs and demonstrates them through sponsorship, events or anything relevant. Be sure to brand all marketing efforts consistently and keep your product quality high, so consumers keep returning to what’s comfortable.

Brand loyalty
Brand loyalty

4. Be there in your customers’ hour of need:

Being there in customers’ hour of need means holding their hand while the problem is solved, helping them cut through the confusion to find the solution, or getting them directly connected to the person who can help them as soon as possible.

Helping customers
Helping customers

5. Try building long term relationships:

Building and maintaining long-term relationships is a simple, effective method for increasing your CLV. While it may take a little extra time, care and consideration, it’s a great way to leverage your existing customer relationships to boost revenues without simultaneously increasing your expenses.

Long term relationship
Long term relationship

 

How to increase customer lifetime value : Part I

Increasing your company’s customer lifetime value means:

i) increasing customer loyalty

ii) general profitability

iii) marketing allowance

In order to increase customer lifetime value:

1. Always strive for making your product better:

When you want to build your business on loyal customers and brand evangelists, you have to do something that is beyond mass consumer expectations. As a matter of fact, people love to feel like they have the best thing, no matter what that thing is. Once they feel like it’s the best, they’ll do way more than talk about it.

2. Try upselling and cross-selling:

Upselling means persuading a customer to buy something more expensive or an advanced version of a product. You sell a more expensive model, additional features or upgraded version of something. This adds value to the product.

Cross-selling, on the other hand, means selling a new or a different product/service to an existing customer. In other words, you’re selling additional products to the customer.

Both these strategies are highly effective and profitable when trying to boost the customer lifetime value (CLV) for your business, no matter, what scale or size.

3. Differentiate yourself from your competitors:

You need to differentiate yourself from your competitors in terms of features, services, resources, or whatever else your customers will place some value on.

4. Be careful when choosing incentive schemes:

As a matter of fact, choosing the right incentive structure means your customers won’t be the only ones leveraging the rewards. Utilize your rewards system to increase customer retention, and boost your customer lifetime value without compromising your bottom line. Instead of discounts, offer exclusive products or value-added services. This will further increase your CLV by promoting customer loyalty and increasing profitability in the long-term.

5. Resolve customers’ queries:

Make it quicker and easier for your customers to get their questions answered. Go above and beyond your actual product and give them something that makes their life easier on a regular basis. In other words, you need to understand your customers, figure out what would make their life easier, and build it.

Types of sales promotions: II

1. Provide free shipping:

Providing shipping that’s free of cost is one of the greatest and most profitable sales promotions! Free shipping and return instill in the customers a sense of security that they won’t lose out if the delivered product did not meet their expectations and they wanted to return it back.

You can always incorporate the shipping cost into your product if you are worried about your margins. You may even think about offering free shipping when a customer spends over a certain amount.

Free shipping/free returns create customer security and make it hassle-free.

 Free shipping and returns
Free shipping and returns

2. Implement flash sale campaigns:

Flash sale campaigns are a great way to create a sense of urgency for the customers to buy. Many retailers are now adopting this strategy as a way to sell more products and get rid of surplus stock.

The more successful flash sales are ones that don’t last very long and 50% of purchases occur during the first hour of a flash sale, hence, helping the businesses clear the surplus stock.

3. Entice customers with holiday promotions:

Holiday promotions are the most enticing types of sales promotions as customers always like to spend more on the holidays, making it the perfect opportunity for you to get your brand out there and sell more products. You don’t have to overdo your offers, but enticing customers with slight discounts will always work in your favor. It basically requires your creativity to sell out the stock through holiday promotions.

Holiday promotions
Holiday promotions

4. Offer discounts for spending more:

This kind of deal attracts the customer to buy more of your stock. Giving them a discount if they spend more is one of the greatest types of sales promotions. It may further drive them in the right direction. You don’t have to offer a huge discount, but make sure it’s attractive enough to convert visitors into buyers.

Buy more save more
Buy more save more

5. Run a competition:

Running a competition will not only help raise your profile but every person that enters will then become an email contact that you can try and convert into a sale.

Clever way of triggering sales promotions, isn’t it?

Well, if people are entering your competition, chances are they are interested in your products, so running a competition is a great idea for deepening that interest, particularly for start-ups.

 

Types of sales promotions – I

1. Reward your customers:

Customers love discounts and stuff like that. Thus, rewarding your customers will help you build a solid base of loyal, long-term customers and it will entice people to shop more at your online store. Providing great customer service is crucial to the success of your business. These days offering a loyalty point system is a popular form of sales promotions.

In this case, the customer can gain points every time they buy and then use their points to get money off future purchases, or if they buy more, they save more.

Loyalty points
Loyalty points

2. Give away freebies:

Giving away freebies not only gives potential customers the chance to test out your product but also entices people to buy your stuff!

Now, the question arises, what to give away as freebies? Well! Branded keychains, bumper stickers, magnets, pens etc. are some options. Customers will appreciate the gesture, feel valued and will think of you whenever they see their branded gift.

3. Add discount to your products:

Offering your products at a price lesser than the regular one is the most popular sales promotion strategy. Adding a discount to your products is possibly the best type of promotion. Customers love to grab a bargain, so it makes sense to offer discounts every now and then to boost your sales. Always consider your bottom line and be sure to not constantly have a sale, as people will just come to expect this as a norm of your business.

Discounts
Discounts

4. Offer virtual coupons:

Offering digital or virtual coupons is an effective sales promotion technique that will make the promotion seem more exclusive and will give the customers more of a push to visit your online store. You should send coupons to loyal customers who have spent a certain amount. You could also consider sending coupons to visitors who have experienced bad customer service. This may help convert them back to happy customers!

 

Digital coupons
Digital coupons

5. Lowest price guarantees:

Price match promise has become one of the most popular ways to promote your brand these days, particularly if you have a lot of competitors trying to leverage the lucrative market. It allows your customers to shop with you and will be safe in the knowledge that if they can get it cheaper somewhere else, you’ll refund the difference and keep your words. There’s nothing to lose for them and it means that you still get to keep a solid, long-term customer base.

Price match promise
Price match promise