All Career Growth Customer Care Customer engagement models: Optimize your Customer Care strategy

Choosing a customer engagement model is a must-do for brands today.

Because your approach to customer care impacts every corner of your business.

That said, customer care is a balancing act that brands understandably struggle with. Customer needs are rarely one-size-fits-all. Meanwhile, there are more channels than ever to monitor.

Being everywhere at once when it comes to service is easier said than done. Adopting the right customer engagement model can provide comprehensive care and help you build brand loyalty.

Below we break down how to choose the right model to optimize your customer care strategy.

What is a customer engagement model?

A customer engagement model describes the approach brands take to engaging customers. This includes choice of service channels, frequency of engagement, level of personalization and the overall quality of care you provide customers.

Customer engagement models are typically defined as high-touch, low-touch or hybrid:

• A high-touch engagement model involves one-on-one interactions with a support team for personalized service. In this model, a dedicated customer success manager (CSM) team might be assigned to specific customers.
• A low-touch engagement model focuses on self-service tools (FAQs, knowledge bases or chatbots) to provide seamless service on-demand.
• A hybrid engagement model combines pieces of high-touch and low-touch models by balancing personalized support with self-service tools.

These models can also be applied to specific tasks such as onboarding or customer retention.

For example, high-touch onboarding involves someone personally guiding a new customer through setting up a new product. On the flip side, low-touch onboarding involves onboarding through tutorials or educational content. High-touch retention might involve one-on-one check-ins with customers while low-touch is more hands-off.

Note that these models don't solely apply only to current customers. The customer engagement cycle also includes prospects and churned customers.

Why a customer engagement model is important for your business

Most businesses clearly understand the value of customer engagement and stellar service.

That said, many don't necessarily have a specific model in mind when conducting customer care.

Here are a handful of reasons why choosing (and sticking to) a customer engagement model matters so much:

• Prevent customer problems from snowballing out of control. Customer engagement shouldn't be totally reactive. The ability to predict and anticipate customer challenges means less stress for your CSM or service team. Not to mention, it means a better customer experience.
• Improve customer retention. It might be cliche, but acquiring new customers requires a much bigger investment of time and resources than retaining the ones you have. Building brand loyalty through effective customer care means long-term retention.
• Increase customer satisfaction. Your customer engagement model should foster happy customers, simple as that. Strong customer care goes hand-in-hand with more referrals, positive reviews and word-of-mouth.
• Consistency for your customers (and internal teams). Although every customer is different, the customer experience shouldn't be night and day from person to person. Providing consistent experiences is much easier when you stick to an engagement model as a sort of roadmap. Consistency is also a bonus for the sake of onboarding and training new customer service team members as they have a plan to stick to.
• Gather ongoing customer feedback. Adopting an engagement model encourages you to make consistent touchpoints with your buyers. This can translate to both qualitative and quantitative feedback that encourages you to optimize your customer service strategy over time.

How to immediately improve your customer engagement model by starting with social

Embarking on a customer care strategy can seem daunting, but starting with social media customer service is a strategic and effective approach.

Social media platforms offer a direct line to your customers, allowing for real-time interaction that's both personal and immediate. This immediacy not only enhances customer satisfaction but also builds stronger relationships and fosters a sense of community around your brand.

Utilizing social media for customer service allows you to implement various engagement models, from high-touch, personalized support to low-touch, self-service options-and even a blend of both. This flexibility ensures that you can meet diverse customer needs and preferences, enhancing their overall experience with your brand.

Also, effective social media customer service can significantly boost your brand's reputation. Customers who are happy are more likely to stay loyal, leave good reviews‌ and recommend your services to others. This will help you grow your customer base organically.

To streamline and optimize your social media customer service efforts, implementing a robust social media customer management software is crucial.

Sprout Social's Customer Care software is designed to simplify and enhance this process. With Sprout's Case Management, you can easily organize and manage customer interactions on social media. This will make sure that your team provides timely, relevant‌ and efficient support.

Sprout's integration of AI and automation tools, like AI Assist and Inbox message sentiment analysis, helps your team to always give high-quality responses that are both timely and relevant.

Starting your customer care strategy with Sprout Social's case management system not only sets a strong foundation for all customer engagement models but also positions your brand as responsive and customer-centric.

Embrace Sprout Social to transform your social media platforms into powerful hubs of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Start improving your customer service on social media today with Sprout Social and watch your customer relationships and brand reputation flourish.

The phases of customer engagement

Below are the phrases of the customer engagement cycle:

• Awareness. This is where customers become aware of your brand and offerings. Here you're conducting outreach, building relationships and introducing yourself to prospects.
• Consideration. This is where customers are researching your brand versus competitors to make an informed decision. Here you're speaking to their challenges, nurturing them and educating them through content.
• Purchasing. This is where customers decide to buy. Here you're overcoming sales objections and ultimately preparing them for success and onboarding.
• Loyalty. This is where customers are actually using your product. Here you're providing guidance, timely recommendations and resources to empower them.
• Advocacy. This is where customers go out of their way to promote and represent your business. Here you're building referrals and a sense of community among buyers.

Again, your engagement model touches pretty much every aspect of your business and the customer journey from A to Z.

How to select the ideal customer engagement model for your brand

Picking a customer engagement model requires some serious reflection and research.

After all, there are a lot of variables to consider:

• The size of your customer success team
• Your ICP
• Your product
• Your industry
• Your tech stack

Every model has its respective strengths and drawbacks. There's no one-size-fits-all answer in terms of what's "best." For example:

• High touch is ideal for complex products that require ongoing support. This model is common for enterprise software or addressing high-value customers. That said, this model typically requires a very involved and larger support team.
• Low-touch is more scalable and cost-effective to cover a larger customer base. While service is less personal, smaller teams can cover more ground. What you lack in personalization you make up with efficiency.
• Hybrid is a balance of both where your priority customers get VIP treatment while self-service options are also available for customers. Expectations and levels of care are determined by your customers' service tier.

Customers come in all shapes and sizes. Some demand a lot of hand-holding and ongoing attention. Others are hands-off and prefer not to be bothered, accepting that they can help themselves as needed. These are some points to keep in mind when choosing a model.

Here are the qualities of an effective customer engagement model regardless of your team or industry:

• Multichannel. Consider everything from social to email to in-person and beyond. You need to be able to make multiple touchpoints and be consistent about it.
• Personalized. Treating customers as more than numbers should be a priority. Even with low-touch models, there are opportunities for personalized care through product or pain-point-specific resources.
• Data-backed. You can measure the effectiveness of your customer care through a variety of metrics. This includes NPS scores, response times and social engagement. Your model should encourage you to gather these sorts of data points to optimize over time.
• Sustainable. Your team needs to be able to keep up with the demands of your model long-term. For example, you can't expect to implement a high-touch model with a single employee. The right tools are crucial regardless of the size of your team. Chatbots, social media management software or help desk software can all help here.
• Predictive. Through tracking engagements and making them consciously, you can more effectively predict and identify customers at risk of churning.
• Flexible. Rigid requirements rarely gel with great care. You need to be able to adapt your approach to customer engagement based on behavior, trends and hard data. Don't sacrifice the customer experience for the sake of sticking to a model.

These qualities should be part of any customer engagement model framework and any tools you use to support it.

6 customer engagement model examples

So, what does all of this look like in practice? We're glad you asked!

To wrap things up, let's take a look at some engagement model examples in action.

NZXT

NZXT takes a unique hybrid approach with a combination of self-service tools coupled with a dedicated service hub on Reddit. The brand's subreddit has 130,000+ subscribers and serves as a place for the brand to offer shout-outs and support to its community.

Source: Reddit

The company has a dedicated rep who responds on Reddit and helps route service tickets to speed up care. This is a shining example of improving customer service efficiency. The brand takes high-visibility tickets and makes them a high priority.

Source: Reddit

Meanwhile, NZXT has a dedicated on-site chatbot to respond to anyone who prefers self-service support tools.

Chewy

Chewy is notable for its customer engagement model's focus on retention. The company's customer-centric marketing is based on customer-first care. It responds with personalized gifts, hand-written cards and rapid responses to their followers on social media.

The brand gets constant shout-outs and UGC thanks to their attention to detail and consistency in this department.

Source: Twitter

This highlights how brands that go above and beyond can see actual business impact from their efforts. Likewise, Chewy illustrates why social media should be integral to your customer experience strategy.

HubSpot

Like many SaaS companies, HubSpot takes a hybrid approach given that they have so much ground to cover. Between enterprise customers, smaller accounts and free users, each of these tiers warrants varying levels of customer care from high-touch to low-touch. Establishing customer service tiers is crucial when customers' needs vary so much.

For example, enterprise customers get dedicated CSMs to help handle issues. The company also has a massive community portal where both employees and advocates can answer questions from fellow customers.

Additionally, the company boasts a massive knowledge base and onboarding hubs to help new and current customers alike. HubSpot also has chatbots on-site to help route customers to the right answers.

Sweetwater

Sweetwater is a prime example of a high-touch customer engagement model. When they buy with Sweetwater, buyers are assigned a dedicated sales engineer and rep upon purchase. These team members are assigned to customers based on their preferred products. For example, some reps specialize in DJ equipment while others are experts on acoustic guitars.

These reps offer regular follow-ups both digitally and over the phone. The brand uses autoresponders coupled with personal interactions such as check-ins over the phone and via text. This shows how a multichannel approach is key to reaching modern customers.

Canva

Canva illustrates how low-touch customer engagement can serve SaaS companies well. The company's knowledge base is extensive and is broken down by specific use cases and product features. Given how many free users Canva has, this approach makes perfect sense to provide support to a massive user base.

Salesforce

Meanwhile, Salesforce offers a ton of onboarding materials in a variety of formats. This includes YouTube playlists in addition to other video and written tutorials. This flexibility helps customers get started at their own speed and shows how a low-touch model can be done right for specific tasks.

Try Sprout Social: Transform your customer experience today

Sure, the idea of implementing a customer engagement model might seem daunting.

The good news? You probably already have the makings of a proper model but just need to bring those pieces together. It's a matter of filling in the gaps with the right strategy and tools.

Either way, providing top-tier social customer service is so important for the sake of growing and building word-of-mouth for your business. The more comprehensive your care, the better.

If you haven't already, we invite you to take a trial of Sprout Social to see how you can improve your company's customer experience and build meaningful brand loyalty.

• All Career Growth
• Customer Care
• Customer Experience
• Social Media Engagement

Brent Barnhart

Brent Barnhart is a professional writer and content critic. When he's not battling the latest buzzwords, you can often find him strumming the nearest guitar. Feel free to bug him on Twitter or check out his website (brentwrites.com)

Read all articlesby Brent Barnhart