Nobody could deny that customer engagement is of the utmost importance for any business. For decades – centuries, even – company owners and their customer-facing teams have struggled to find ways to keep their clientele engaged, excited, and switched on to what’s going on with their business. Why? Because they know that engaged and interested customers are loyal customers. Loyalty is key to any business, as such customers bring more revenue, introduce their friends and family to the business, and remain faithful to their services for longer.
The 21st century has brought with it no shortage of new ideas when it comes to boosting business and increasing engagement. However, possibly the most effective and rewarding of all has been the introduction of the app market – something which has helped businesses enjoy a deeper connection with their customer base, and establish the kind of engagement which previous generations of business people would have given an arm and a leg for. If you have a business of your own and have been considering getting a custom app, there’s never been a better time to get on board. Indeed, all over the world, businesses are seeing a fantastic ROI from their apps, due to the customer engagement and increased customer activity that these apps result in.
Here at Messapps, we’re hugely excited to continue seeing all the developments that business apps bring to companies across the globe. Every month seems to introduce exciting new ideas for customer activity and engagement, and the public’s demand for apps and a deeper level of involvement with their favorite brands is driving this ever further forward.
Notifications for Re-Engagement
Customers nowadays are faced with a vast amount of choice when it comes to almost everything they consume. From supermarkets to clothes shops, from cafes to fishmongers, and from insurance brokers to car wash centers and everything in between, there’s a massive range to choose from.
As such, you can hardly blame them if they come to your business, download your app, and then well, get a bit distracted, and put your products and services to the back of their mind. That’s where a custom app can really make a difference: regular push notifications informing your customers of your products, special offers, or new services will remind them why they loved your business in the first place, and get them clicking through to your website or stepping through your door once more.
Notify Customers About Upcoming Specials and Sales
Back in the analog era (remember that?), you’d only find out about special offers, sales, or discount events either from watching a TV commercial for a local business (remember them?) or wandering past a shop window which would be filled with garishly-colored signs.
Now, with a custom app, it’s incredibly easy to keep your customers updated with all the big news about your business. You can either send push notifications to really get the message across, or you can add it to your news feed or social media integration. It’s easy, effective, and your customers will love the engagement and communicative aspect!
Post Interesting, Shareable Content
If your business isn’t making the most of regular blog posts, Insta-updates, and other social media content, you’re really missing a trick and in dire need of a catch-up. Your best customers will always be interested in hearing about what’s going on with your business, and interesting content (viral-style videos, fascinating blogs, news about events) can be shared on their social media profiles via your app, and send out to their wider networks. It’s easy to establish a network with massive numbers of people, and obtain an enormous, natural, organic online reach with some simple good app practices and this level of engagement is vital for heightened customer activity.
Let Them Know When They’re Close
Your app should have an inbuilt map and location service, which customers nowadays absolutely love. On the one hand, they’ll be able to find your business location if they’re in another town or away from home, and on the other (and this is where the customer activity levels really go through the roof), you’ll be able to send them a notification when they’re in the vicinity of one of your stores or service centers.
That’s seriously impressive, and the kind of thing that sends a clear message to your customer base that you really care about their presence and custom. Boosting loyalty in this way is becoming increasingly popular, and it’s really not difficult to see why.
Send Your Customers Holiday Greetings
Want to really put a smile on your customers’ faces, and let them know you value them? One of the simplest (yet most effective) ways is to send out holiday greetings and personalized messages via your app. Whether it’s for Christmas, Diwali, Eid, or a birthday, sending out a message to your clients not only boosts activity and engagement (as they’ll again get a notification which should snap them out of complacency), it also creates the kind of personal, friendly, and open connection and channel of communication that modern consumers love. The more you can establish the idea that your business and its customers are one big, happy family, the more activity and engagement you’ll get in return.
Personalized Discounts
We can go on and on about engagement and activity being boosted through all kinds of means and methods, but we all know that customers love one thing most of all: discounts and bonuses. A custom app makes this easier than ever to facilitate, as your app will track their purchases, and offer discounts based on your customers’ favorite items or regular purchases. With this kind of action, everyone’s a winner: the customer is delighted that you’ve offered a personalized discount based on their preferences – and therefore is more engaged, and their loyalty will increase – and you benefit from further sales and revenue.
Loyalty Points and Other Bonuses
The idea of the loyalty card or points system is nothing new, but a custom app helps to take it to another, more streamlined, more personalized menu. The old loyalty cards may have worked pretty well, but how many times did you go to the store or coffee shop, and find that you’d left your card in another bag, or it had just gotten lost? Having an inbuilt loyalty or bonus points system in your app removes these kinds of difficulties, and ensures your customers get the discounts or loyalty bonuses they deserve. Few things increase activity and engagement more, and it has been proven to be a winning strategy that brings great results time and time again.
