Brenda Linhares - Partner & CMO @Insight Sales
Unsurprisingly, the Information Age has shifted our time and attention to tasks.
A study published by the Technical University of Denmark confirmed this suspicion about global collective attention being diminished due to the amount of information we have access today. That is, we now have many more scenarios to focus on, but often we focus for very short periods of time on each task.
When we talk about user engagement levels, this also goes into the statistics.
As a result, SaaS companies are losing thousands of customers because of the lack of engagement with their tools.
This means that you will have to prioritize customer acquisition and retention actions through more attractive content and more advanced engagement techniques.
To do that, let's dig deeper into how to keep your users more engaged to lower your Churn rate.
What is User Engagement?
User Engagement is an important metric that shows customer satisfaction with your products or services.
An engaged user of your tool is a valuable asset that translates into higher conversion and higher retention rates for your business.
Investing part of your workforce to have a more engaged user translates into more satisfied and loyal returning customers (which is always critical for any business) and higher subscription levels, thus staying ahead of the competition, and providing an excellent user experience.
User engagement is a metric that defines the number of users who remain actively engaged with your product over a given period of time. It measures whether users see value in your product or not.
The user engagement rate can be measured using the following formula:
User Engagement Rate = Total active users in a cohort during a given period / Total users in the cohort
Why is user engagement important to improve customer retention?
Simple: the absence of this engagement results leads to a reduced product usage, leading to customer churn.
In addition, data from Invesp shows that your current customers are 50% more likely to try your company's products and spend 31% more compared to new customers. In other words, by increasing user retention rates by 5%, you could see profit increases from 25% to 95%.
Doing so, the main task of a user engagement strategy is to build strong relationships with users, understanding deeply how they interact with the product. The process must involve multiple communication channels, must be measurable and respond to customer needs.
Other reasons to invest in user engagement are:
Improve the customer journey
The user experience with the product is related to the customer journeys that occur within the product itself. The collection of feedback and the implementation of functionality should always start from the analysis of the customer's routine use of your product.
Generate brand loyalty
Through more frequent interactions with your product, it is easier to become part of users' routine, creating a personal connection with the solution. This increased user engagement number turns them into loyal advocates for your brand.
7 actionable strategies to increase user engagement
Below, is a list of effective strategies to increase user engagement:
1. Simplification of the integration phase
A more complex integration can alienate many potential customers who do not have an IT team available to proceed with the task. If it is not possible to simplify the task, have an IT team trained to go through this integration phase in the most didactic and patient way possible.
The onboarding process can be simplified by offering comprehensive product guidance, in-depth tutorials, and sending emails to welcome the user with quality information.
2. Invest in live chat support
This is one of the best ways to ensure quick customer responses and decrease dissatisfaction. Live chat is the champion of user engagement tools because of its faster response rate, which can lead to fewer customer service tickets, higher loyalty and better conversion rates.
Studies reveal that 90% of consumers expect and consider an immediate response as a very important factor in becoming loyal customers. (We wouldn't need a study to prove this, after all, we've all been through situations where the lack of immediate solutions to our problems left us frustrated.)
Remember to collect customer feedback after each live chat session to measure the level of satisfaction they have with your brand and actively work on gaps in your product.
3. Improve the User Experience (UX)
User Experience (UX) is how people interact with your product or service.
And providing a top-notch user experience is what sets the less professional companies apart from today's leading brands. In a competitive market, where everyone presents similar products, valuable experiences are what make a company achieve true success.
When your customers have more positive experiences with your product, they will feel more connected to your brand. Therefore, it is interesting to hire a professional to evaluate the UX of your SaaS solution.
4. Use gamification
The term “gamification” emerged in the early 2000s, and since then it has become a favorable way to retain customers and increase revenue. Gamification is based on viral tools that motivate users to stay active on your platform for a longer time. In this way, gamification transforms the consumption of a service or product into a game, with steps and "prizes" for each completed step. And games have always been a successful way to drive user engagement through the engagement cycle.
An engagement cycle consists of actions that users take over a period of use of the tool. You can be following these steps to build a better user experience:
- Motivation: The user needs to have the right motivation to interact with the software. Could it be knowledge evolution or even a discount on the monthly fee.
- Incentive: Surprise the user with some bonus content, a special reward or new opportunities for easier use adoption. They won't miss the opportunity to complete a special task and move on to a more surprising next step.
- Reward: With each step taken, professionals must understand whether the amount of time spent is worth the efforts of users to win the competition. Otherwise, there won't be many people willing to participate.
Also, brainstorm simple ideas such as “loyalty card”, “spin and win” or “scratch off card” that can be integrated into product usage to increase user engagement.
Make sure rewards are relevant to customers and easily attainable.
5. Create interactive and interesting content
Optimize the user experience by offering educational content that is beautifully designed, simple and straight to the point.
Focus on creating case studies, customer testimonials and success stories to improve user engagement and incentive the user to achieve their own success.
6. Be Omnichannel
You have to understand that your users have different personalities, with different communication preferences. So a one-size-fits-all approach no longer works in the marketplace.
By using an omnichannel approach, you can interact with users on their preferred channels, whether through the platform itself, via email, messaging, or wherever else they choose. It is important to maintain this unified communication in a CRM so that this dialogue does not dissipate.
7. Use Deep Linking
Direct linking or deep linking is one of the best ways to re-engage users who got lost along the way. For example, if users don't complete a registration, you can redirect those users to the correct link. See an example:
Listen to your customer!
Clearly, user engagement is one of the most important factors to prioritize in the SaaS process. While gaining new customers is a sign of business growth, losing them is simply too costly. And avoiding churn at your company starts with actively listening to what customers are saying about their experience.
The math is simple: more engaged users leads to a more personal connection with your product, turning them into lifelong customers.
