Companies investing in digital customer engagement gain higher return on investment (ROI) because of positive impacts on customer trust and retention.
Many companies are fueling their investments to move quickly towards digital transformation. However, this movement involves rapid and drastic changes, technological implementations, and learning curves, affecting digital customer engagement and impeding a company’s digital survival and success.
Despite the digital transformation efforts of business-to-consumer (B2C) companies, customers feel less satisfied and expect more from brands they deal with, as shown in Twilio’s 2022 State of Customer Engagement Report.
State of Customer Engagement Report
Twilio has recently released its latest State of Customer Engagement Report. The report shows that Singaporean B2C companies have remarkably spurred their advanced digital strategies geared towards digital transformation, averaging 6.8 years.
About 97% of B2C companies noticed revenue growth related to digital customer engagement efforts. Moreover, companies with digital customer engagement investments have grown their total revenue to 61%. With these findings, it’s clear that B2C companies must prioritize creating effective customer engagement strategies to boost sales and overall business revenues.
The findings of this report were based on the two surveys conducted by Lawless Research from December 2021 to January 2022. There were a total of 4,500 consumers and 3,450 business leaders surveyed across 12 countries worldwide, including Australia, Singapore, and Japan in the Asia Pacific region.
By prioritizing digital marketing efforts toward improving customer experiences, B2C companies reap the biggest rewards of consumer trust and retention. But how can APAC companies improve their digital customer engagement to accelerate their return on investment?
Find out the growing problem in digital customer engagement based on the State of Customer Engagement Report and the recommended expert solutions below.
A Growing Problem
Digital fatigue is a growing consumer problem caused by inconsistent digital brand interactions. While B2C companies implement different digital marketing strategies and attempt to connect and engage with customers online, consumers find their efforts lacking and generic. In short, consumers don’t feel valued or special.
Consumers are seemingly tired of seeing the same digital marketing content or tactic. Hence, B2C companies must think of fresh and out-of-the-box web content ideas to create an impact. In addition, consumers hate too many advertisements and tend to become more receptive to organic and raw digital content.
Despite 90% of surveyed companies in Singapore believing in the importance of personalization in creating customer engagement strategies and increasing revenues, the study shows surprising gaps. While 75% of companies say they provide excellent personalized customer experiences, 53% of consumers disagree and report average or poor personalization.
Lee Hawksley, Twilio’s APAC Senior Vice President and General Manager, said that the research shows that companies prioritizing digital customer engagement gain the biggest rewards. However, it’s difficult to deliver personalization nowadays because of technological changes, high consumer expectations, and the declining value of third-party cookies.
How to Overcome The Problem
B2C companies can overcome the problem associated with digital fatigue and personalizing consumer experience by shifting to first-party data and increasing the quality of personalized customer interaction to eradicate trust issues.
- Personalisation
The delivery of a competitive brand experience would require personalization. Providing personalized customer experiences appeals to customers, thereby establishing trust and brand loyalty. On the other hand, there are negative business impacts of not providing personalized customer experiences.
In Singapore, about 81% of consumers expect brands they patronize to provide them with personalized experience, compared to 61% global average. Otherwise, they’ll stop patronizing them.
Hence, consumers tend to find similar products or services elsewhere if a brand provides ‘generic’ or ‘ordinary’ experiences. On the other hand, a brand that provides ‘personalized’ or extraordinary experience wins more customers, driving their sales and total revenues.
Personalized customer interaction is a must. However, businesses must invest in advanced and reliable communication tools with monitoring features. B2C companies must drive engaging interactions to build customer loyalty.
Using the right tool to keep customers engaged in any channel is the key to attaining success in digital customer engagement. An excellent communication tool can be integrated with customer relationship (CRM) software and other business systems.
As a result, B2C companies can seamlessly track interactions and provide better customer experiences. If B2C companies can add a personal touch to their communications, they’ll better understand their customers’ needs, preferences, and behaviors.
- Adopting Cookieless or First-Party Data
The Twilio study also shows that 88% of Singaporean consumers prefer companies adopting cookieless data. However, 73% of companies in Singapore are still using third-party data for their marketing strategies, creating trust issues and jeopardizing customer retention and loyalty.
Based on these findings, B2C companies should find ways to protect consumer data privacy and practice data usage transparency. Because consumers choose brands that don’t use third-party data, APAC companies must stop relying on it and embrace cookieless or first-party data gathering for marketing purposes.
The benefits of first-party data in the cookieless world cannot be discounted. Brands need to partner with publishers or media agencies that can establish trusted professional relationships with advertisers. Marketers and advertisers must create more effective strategies to personalize narrating brand messages and stories to their target audiences.
