Customer engagement is the single most driving factor of a successful business. An engaged customer understands why your product or service is useful to consumers and uses that knowledge to drive sales in three ways.
First, the customer makes a purchase. When delighted with the service that first purchase provides, the customer will be eager to return to your business. With the customer’s continued satisfaction comes referrals which further boost sales.
An engaged customer is someone who has chosen your brand and thus plays a significant role in the overall business growth. In fact, a Walker study found that by the end of 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. Also, 85% of consumers will pay more for a better customer experience.
Achieving customer engagement should be easy. Focus entirely on the customer and give them exactly what they want. In reality, it’s a little more complicated. You already have a company that provides a useful service. Employees must be able to effectively communicate the usefulness of this product or service to engage customers authentically. To reach such a lofty goal, every department within the company must be able to communicate during each point of a sale.
Internal communication describes how the employees within a business work together to share the company mission. Effectively sharing this mission spreads enthusiasm to current and potential customers.
5 steps increase customer engagement via internal comms
Effective internal communication allows a customer to seamlessly move through each point of the sales process with a minimum amount of difficulty. Departments that communicate, pass information that improves a customer’s experience and builds confidence in your brand. There are five main ways internal communication can improve customer engagement to help boost sales.
1. Increase Understanding of the Customer’s Needs
Your marketing team uses many targeted strategies to attract customers. When a customer first shows interest, the marketing team is the only one with an understanding of the exact needs of this potential customer. A marketing team who has the ability to pass this information to the sales team can lead the customer to a confident salesperson who already understands exactly what is important to this particular customer. A company where every employee has a deep understanding of a customer’s unique needs is in a position to provide a positive customer experience.
2. Personalize Each Customer’s Experience
Each step of the sales process allows your staff to gain important knowledge about your customer. This is important because no two customers are exactly alike. No one wants to be treated like a number to increase profits. As each department gains knowledge about a customer, a quality internal communication system will allow this information to be passed forward. Whether you need to pass along data or immediately access the last person your customer spoke with, the right system can allow you to engage the customer immediately instead of taking them on a wild goose chase. A personalized experience shows empathy and makes the customer more likely to develop loyalty to your brand.
3. Provide Purpose
Even as children, the human species relies on the answer to one important question to make a decision: Why? In any business, providing the answer to this all-important question means a unified answer that describes why consumers should choose your brand instead of your competitor’s to meet their needs. A quality internal communication system will allow you to post real-time news and updates to reach all employees no matter where they are located. This transparency allows all departments to have a unified view of your brand story and company mission.
4. Control Crisis
Crisis strikes every business at some point. Workplace injuries, PR issues, or even violent encounters affect every employee at a company. Employees who aren’t appraised of the situation are left feeling betrayed and confused, or worse, put in danger. No matter what constitutes a crisis to your company, your employees need to have a way to access all of the information. A proper internal communications system will offer up-to-date policy and procedure information that can be accessed immediately by all employees. Additionally, employees can communicate real-time events to help keep things under control.
5. Keep Your Brand Promise
Your brand promise or company mission is the one thing that distinguishes you from your competitors. Ineffective internal communication is the easiest way to break this promise. It isn’t only the job of marketing to understand your company’s brand promise. In fact, 41% of consumers look to employees for credible information about a business. Engaging a customer is only the first step of the process. A salesperson who doesn’t have the information to deliver the brand promise could quickly lead to unsatisfied customers who share their dissatisfaction through bad reviews and social media posts. The transparency provided by a quality internal communication system makes all information easily accessible, eliminating the problems created by a lack of verbal communication.
Technology to Provide Seamless Internal Communication
It’s no secret that smartphones, computer apps, and personalized software add convenience to almost every aspect of everyday life. Bringing this convenience to everyday business tasks is a no-brainer. Mobile phones and digital platforms make internal communication faster and more convenient than email dependency. Email has become a cumbersome process to deal with at work. Statistics show the average employee using email for communication spends 28% of work time reading and responding to email. Since only 42% of these emails are relevant, it’s easy to see how emails might be missed or ignored altogether.
A 2015 survey showed 44% of workers sought wider use of internal business communication tools. As millennials enter management roles in every industry, the expectation for faster, easier communication has only increased. After all, why shouldn’t business communication have the same ease and convenience as personal communication? Effective communication increases productivity, builds employee engagement, and helps eliminate misinformation. It’s no surprise these improvements lead to customer engagement.
To revolutionize the internal communication system in your business, consider the benefits of a business intranet. If you are looking for a thriving digital workplace communication system that promotes transparency, book a FREE DEMO with IC today. We will be more than happy to help you create your corporate intranet communication system.
Also, do not forget to try our complimentary internal communications assessment and see how your internal comms strategy is performing!
