7 Things Ecommerce Businesses Should Do to Maximize Customer Engagement

Maximizing customer engagement is a core goal for any ecommerce website. You want to make as many sales as possible in as little time as possible. 

In a world where consumers are doing most of their shopping online and looking to ecommerce websites for solutions to their problems, you need to make sure your customer experience makes it easy for them to stay engaged. No matter what industry you operate within, customer engagement should always be at the top of mind. The more engaged your customers are, the more likely they’ll be to convert and make a purchase.

Here are 7 things you can do to increase customer engagement on your ecommerce website and help grow your business.

1. Post Content Regularly

A well-defined, consistent content strategy is important, even for an ecommerce website. Make sure you’re posting valuable, helpful content on a regular basis to keep your audience engaged and coming back for more information. Keep your content on-brand, and make sure it’s consistent with your brand’s personality. Producing regular content is also helpful for your SEO strategy, so you can bring in more online traffic to engage with.

2. Engage With Your Customers on Social Media

Use social media to create a community for your customers and fans. Interact with and encourage conversations with your customers when they leave comments on your social media posts or send you direct messages. People notice when you don’t seem to care what they think. This is an easy and effective way to provide exceptional customer service and let your customers know that you value them.

3. Implement Social Sharing Buttons

Give your customers the option to share their favourite products on their own channels by placing social sharing buttons on the pages themselves, as well as within all of your content. Not only does this give you great, free word-of-mouth marketing, but it lets them provide value within their own networks. If a customer absolutely loves a product, they will naturally want to share it with their friends and family.

4. Include Product Reviews

Include an option for customers to leave reviews on your product pages. This is a really helpful way for your customers to learn more about the products from the people who actually use them – not just from your promotions or sales-driven content. The majority of online shoppers will check reviews before they purchase a product (and many won’t make the purchase at all without any reviews). Including your reviews on the product pages makes it easier for them to find that information to make a purchasing decision faster.

5. Use Chatbots and Live Chat for Immediate Customer Service

Integrating a chatbot on your ecommerce website can help you increase engagement with your customers and improve customer service by providing immediate answers and information at any time of the day. Surveys and statistics indicate that the majority of millennials and Gen Z prefer live chat options instead of traditional customer service methods (like phone calls or emails). A chatbot can help you provide those live chat options for commonly asked questions when your customer service representatives aren’t available immediately.

6. Nurture Leads Through Email Campaigns

Email marketing campaigns are a great (and inexpensive) way to keep your customers in the loop and inspire them to keep coming back to your site. Send out exclusive promotions to your contact list to make them feel special, let them know about upcoming sales or campaigns, and provide them with valuable content that they’ll actually want to read. This helps keep your brand at the top of their mind and can lead to a higher percentage of long-term customers.

7. Offer a Loyalty Program or Points System

You’ve seen many brick and mortar locations putting out loyalty programs and rewards systems, and they can easily work for ecommerce websites as well. If you have the development team to do so, create a system that rewards customers who purchase items on your site, inspiring them to come back and purchase multiple items. You can also implement a referral system to encourage people to share your products with their friends.