17 Effective Strategies to Boost Customer Engagement and Drive SaaS Growth

To boost customer engagement for your business, you must place a high value on customer experience.

A strong customer engagement strategy can help you develop long-term relationships with customers and drive product growth.

This article discusses all you need to know about customer engagement, including effective customer engagement strategies for driving growth.

TL;DR

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What is customer engagement?

Customer engagement is the ongoing process of building relationships with customers across various touchpoints to create positive experiences for them.

A strong customer engagement strategy focuses on identifying prospective customers, determining their needs and preferences, and satisfying those needs at the right time.

Benefits of a successful customer engagement strategy

Engaging customers through their journey can give your company a competitive edge in a world that never runs out of options.

Some of the benefits of a strong customer engagement strategy include:

  • Improve customer satisfaction: Engaging customers will likely increase their positive experiences with your brand. It will make them feel seen and heard, increasing customer satisfaction levels.
  • Drive customer retention: Customer engagement reduces churn. When your customers repeatedly engage and derive value from your features, they are more likely to stick with your product.
  • Nurture customer loyalty: Engaged customers will likely feel connected to the brand, and ultimately become advocates for the brand.
  • Increase the customer lifetime value: Customers who feel engaged will likely make additional purchases and upgrade to products and services of higher value.

Customer engagement metrics to measure success with

Tracking customer engagement metrics is critical to the customer success rate of any business.

Let’s examine six engagement metrics that can help you measure success:

  • Activation rate: Activation rate measures how many users experience the value of your product by completing specific actions along their customer journey.
  • Feature adoption rate: This metric measures how many customers engage with features of your product. A high feature rate indicates users are deriving value while using your product, which minimizes the likelihood of churn.
  • Active users: Active user metrics measure the number of users interacting with your product within a specific period. It indicates the level of product usage.
  • Stickiness rate: Stickiness is the ratio of daily active users to monthly active users. It measures how many users return to a SaaS app.
  • Product engagement score: This metric measures stickiness and provides insight into how many users consistently return to your app.
  • Trial to paid conversion rate: This measures the number of trial users who became paying customers after their trial. You can calculate it by dividing the number of paid sign-ups by the number of free trial users.

17 effective customer engagement strategies for driving growth

To develop and incorporate an effective customer engagement strategy, you must understand what customer engagement means to your target customers.

Here are 17 customer engagement strategies you should implement that can help you improve your customers’ experience:

1. Send a welcome message to set customer expectations

A welcome message is a brief and simple form of communication extended to users when they first land on your page.

It allows you to create a good first impression, remind users of the product’s value proposition, and prompt them to engage with your onboarding content.

You can also use a welcome message to collect customer data to offer personalized services to your users.

Carefully craft your welcome message to create a positive first impression.
Carefully craft your welcome message to create a positive first impression.

2. Personalize the customer journey according to user needs

Customers feel appreciated when their journey is customized according to their needs.

Segment customers based on when they signed up, their purchase history, and demographics to trigger onboarding flows tailored to their preferences and jobs to be done.

Personalizing customer experiences helps businesses build stronger relationships with customers. It also increases the likelihood of engagement as the experience is relevant to their specific use case.

Create segments in Userpilot to personalize the customer journey.
Create segments in Userpilot to personalize the customer journey.

3. Invite users to a demo call with a customer service representative

When your product is complex or requires data migration, setup, and implementation, invite users to a face-to-face call to demonstrate how your product or service works.

A demo call allows you to help customers understand any unclear information or any information you may not have provided.

Invite users to a demo call to show how your product or service works.
Invite users to a demo call to show how your product or service works.

4. Engage users right from the start with onboarding checklists

An onboarding checklist guides users through the essential tasks and actions they need to complete to experience value.

Checklists are successful because they employ the Zeigarnik effect, which suggests that there is a tendency for incomplete tasks to be recalled better than completed ones.

Place the checklist prominently on the users’ dashboard with progress bars reminding them of the tasks they are yet to complete.

You can engage your customers with an onboarding checklist that guides them toward product adoption.
You can engage your customers with an onboarding checklist that guides them toward product adoption.

5. Replace long product tours with interactive walkthroughs

Product tours can feel patronizing and overwhelming for users, and they do not prompt immediate action.

One way to boost customer engagement is to replace generic product tours with interactive walkthroughs that teach users by doing.

Interactive walkthroughs are more engaging as they provide real-time guidance based on the actions of your users.

engagement-strategies-brand-loyalty
Create interactive walkthroughs code-free with Userpilot!

6. Use video tutorials to engage customers in the onboarding process

Videos are more engaging than texts and images as they load a lot of information into a smaller package, making it easier for users to follow and replicate.

Embed your customer onboarding videos in-app to make for a smooth and uninterrupted user journey while training users on how to interact with features of your product.

Userpilot video library.
Userpilot’s video library.

7. Offer self-service support options to elevate customer experience

Friction creates a negative experience that can cause users to abandon a product or even leave poor reviews.

By empowering customers to help themselves while using your product, you will be reducing the friction points and obstacles they experience.

Self-service options that can be included in your resource center can range from chatbots to documentation, and videos.

Whatever self-service options you provide, ensure they are always optimized to align with your product offerings.

Create your self-service center code-free with Userpilot!
Create your self-service center code-free with Userpilot!

8. Use tooltips to drive feature discovery and encourage engagement

Tooltips draw user attention to specific features, provide contextual information, and prompt customer engagement.

You can trigger tooltips when users first land on a specific feature of your product or when they finish interacting with an on-screen element.

This way, you can help users settle nicely into your product and adopt its features.

Tooltips are interactive elements that can prompt engagement and help users discover your product’s value.
Tooltips are interactive elements that can prompt engagement and help users discover your product’s value.

9. Implement gamification to increase customer engagement

When an activity includes incentives or rewards, users look forward to the outcome and are happy to participate. The competition and feeling of achievement can give users a dopamine boost, with a sense of fulfillment when they receive the reward.

Gamification also gives users a sense of control over the product usage. It gives them a feeling of satisfaction as they realize that the company is ready to do what it takes to offer quality customer experience.

Some forms of gamification that you can implement to boost customer engagement include fun animations, celebratory modals, and badges.

Gamification gives users a feeling of accomplishment and boosts engagement.
Gamification gives users a feeling of accomplishment and boosts engagement.

10. Reward engaged users to turn them into loyal customers

Appreciating customers who engage with your products and making them feel valuable to you will encourage them to continue interacting with your brand.

Offer rewards that drive ongoing engagement. For instance, you can offer customers access to exclusive features, mission-based programs, and a points program that allows customers to redeem a certain amount of points for a special discount.

Rewarding customers provides a valuable incentive for them to interact with your business.
Rewarding customers provides a valuable incentive for them to interact with your business.

11. Introduce new features to existing customers with in-app announcements

Feature blindness happens when users instinctively focus on the features they are used to and neglect others.

Announcing new features in-app helps you communicate about a product update to existing customers. Introducing customers to new and available features in-app eliminates feature blindness.

Depending on how big the new feature or release is, you can use a modal or slideout to announce new features in-app.

An in-app announcement created with Userpilot.
An in-app announcement created with Userpilot.

12. Collect customer feedback and act on it to boost engagement

Measure customer sentiment through the customer lifecycle to evaluate their thoughts and feelings about your features, products, and brand.

When customers reveal how satisfied or unsatisfied they feel, collect qualitative feedback to understand the reasons behind the scores.

Act on customer feedback and data to improve the quality of your customer engagement.

repeat-customers-customer-feedback
Gather feedback through different stages of the customer lifecycle with Userpilot.

13. Improve customer engagement with A/B testing

Run experiments to gather valuable data that can help you determine which version of a page helps you reach your engagement goals faster.

You can use A/B testing to test how customers feel about different design elements, such as buttons, layouts, color schemes, font styles, and even texts.

Use A/B testing to find out which type of content resonates best with your audience and drives engagement.
Use A/B testing to find out which type of content resonates best with your audience and drives engagement.

14. Implement loyalty programs to strengthen customer relationships

Customer loyalty programs keep users invested in a brand which reduces the likelihood of churn. They also encourage customers to return, as it motivates them to earn more rewards.

What’s more, a customer loyalty program can also be used to encourage customers to drive word-of-mouth referrals for you. When they do, reward them for their advocacy, making for a win-win situation for both sides.

You can use loyalty programs to build brand loyalty and attract new customers.
You can use loyalty programs to build brand loyalty and attract new customers.

15. Analyze user behavior to identify gaps in your engagement strategy

Monitor your conversion funnel to identify drops in engagement and fix them.

UX research can also help you further investigate the reasons for the drop-off. It can help you determine whether the friction and drop-off were caused by poor UX design, slow loading time, or a bad user interface.

Identify gaps in your customer engagement strategy with Userpilot.
Identify gaps in your customer engagement strategy with Userpilot.

16. Use social media to stay connected with your target audience

Being present in the digital spaces that your customers are in is one way to increase engagement.

Create content for different stages of your marketing funnel, starting with the awareness stage.

Your social media content should also drive your target audience back to your SaaS app, and motivate customers to adopt your product.

Create social media content to increase customer engagement for your brand.
Create social media content to increase customer engagement for your brand.

17. Send re-engagement emails to inactive users

Track product usage patterns and feature adoption rates to identify disengaged customers.

When you do, send them win-back emails to remind them about the benefits of your app, share educational content, and offer help.

Ultimately, you will be able to either re-engage inactive customers or clean up your list to let go of those who don’t want to be there.

Use re-engagement emails to reactivate inactive users and draw customers back to your door.
Use re-engagement emails to reactivate inactive users and draw customers back to your door.

How Userpilot can help you boost engagement

Userpilot can help you improve your customer engagement strategy with functionalities like analytics dashboards for metric tracking, code-free feedback collection and analysis, and personalized onboarding experiences.

Userpilot can also help you discover which customer segments are most willing to upgrade based on their engagement patterns.

You can create contextual user experiences using different UI elements to personalize in-app experiences for your customers.

Userpilot enables you to design contextual customer experiences using different UI patterns.
Userpilot enables you to design contextual customer experiences using different UI patterns.

Userpilot analytics lets you track users’ behavior, and make informed decisions to improve your customer engagement strategies.

Track user behavior and see how customers engage with features of your product on Userpilot.
Track user behavior and see how customers engage with features of your product on Userpilot.

Register for a Userpilot webinar to find out how you can improve your user engagement and turbo-charge your onboarding.

If you cannot attend the webinar, you will be added to our list of on-demand webinars that can help you improve your customer engagement marketing strategy.

boost-customer-engagement-customer-experience-strategy
Find out how you can take your user engagement to the next level by registering for Userpilot’s webinar.

Conclusion

Customer engagement is essential to nurturing healthy customer relationships and offering quality customer experience.

Engaging with your existing customers as well as potential customers across multiple channels can help you build a loyal customer base and increase revenue for your brand.

Book a Userpilot demo to find out how you create an effective engagement strategy and increase customer retention.

Try Userpilot and Take Your Customer Engagement Strategy to the Next Level

About the author
Sophie Grigoryan

Sophie Grigoryan

Content Project Manager

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