It’s been close to a year since covid-19 has become a part of our daily lives, and we see ourselves surviving and making do with daily tasks in our day to day lives. From studying at university/school, going out for groceries, watching matches at the local sports centre, meeting up with friends or hugging your loved ones – this pandemic has truly altered and digitalized our lives. Businesses, large or small, are struggling to maintain customer engagement and this is greatly affecting the revenue of not only the CEOs but also the working-class folks. With everything coming to a standstill and an impending economic recession at our heels, we need to look at how this pandemic has affected the global customer engagement practices. Firstly we need to understand what customer engagement is, and then explore how we can use methods to enhance and build upon it. Fundamentally, customer engagement is a way by which a business can have interactions with the customers. With the advent of digital marketing, it has become a sure-fire way of bringing businesses close to the customers in ways where the people can openly interact with and develop an emotional attachment to the brand. Due to how covid-19 has impacted human interactions, customer engagements within the realm of digital marketing have skyrocketed.

1. 1. Tell a story

One of the best ways we can keep the audience engaged is knowing how to tell a story. Adding awe-inspiring visuals, catchy one-liners, witty tag lines, and being culturally relevant is a great way to make sure your audience continues to think about your brand long after they’ve seen your posts. The topic of your content needs to have a connection with brand, so make sure it is relevant and interesting enough to keep your customers engaged. The best type of storytelling always starts off with catching your emotional attention, evoke some sort of reaction and conclude with a call-to-action.

2. 2. Always be available

For the best sort of customer engagement, you need to make the customers feel like the brand is always a phone-call or a message away. It makes the brand seem more reliable and helps in proving to the customers that it is all about them. Offering a sincere apology or even just listening to the customers will help cement a brand’s reputation as being immersive and in-touch with their audience. Brands that exhibit a friendly behaviour always emerge at the top of the chain because customers subconsciously look for emotional connection and support from the brands they tend to consume.

3. 3. Keep it informative

Brands need to make sure they have insight within the masses to know what the people are looking for in their products, so it very important to always be up-to-date with the latest trends. The best way to improve customer engagement in this situation is to make sure you have all the information regarding your brand and product easily available online in the form of web pages, short posts, or even informative videos as to how your product works and how to troubleshoot if needed. Since we do live in the digital age, we must make our online presence known as customers are more likely to go online on a brand’s website to find answers to their queries instead of dialling the helpline. Customers really need to know the brand is looking out for them and anticipates the problems they can face on a daily.

4. 4. Get a fan following

One way of adding exclusivity to your customer engagement experience is to offer exclusive perks for your most loyal customers. Add discounts, and bonuses that only selected people can get based on their loyalty to the brand to give it a luxury feel. We can even use these services to increase our customer base by asking said loyal customers to share brand referrals for further discounts, sharing social media links etc. This way, as a brand, we not only retain our loyal customers but also begin to attract potential customers through these types of activities. It’s a win-win situation both ways.

5. 5. Inspire the people

Covid-19 has been an outright depressing time for some people, so why not spread some positivity? Sharing positive ideas, feel-good stories, or even advertising some charitable things your brand has done in the recent months really helps brighten up your image. As humans, we enjoy positivity and treasure optimistic thoughts, so if a brand is providing you with such feelings on a daily basis, you are more likely to enjoy being their customer. Don’t be shy – tell them more! Conclusion At the end of the day, customer engagement and its role in creating a strong and stable foundation for a business truly sets up good business from the bad ones. As times are changing and we find ourselves amidst a global pandemic, we must realize that we are more than just a business. We are becoming support-systems for our customers, and as we continue helping the world through our communication, sooner or later we’ll emerge at the top of the chain even after the pandemic is over.   Javeria Shoaib Officer, Employer Branding ibex. Pakistan