Best customer engagement platform

Customer engagement encompasses the art of cultivating and nurturing relationships with your clientele across a multitude of touchpoints and channels. It entails comprehending their unique needs, preferences, and behaviors, and then furnishing them with tailor-made, pertinent experiences that not only engage but also strengthen their loyalty.

The question arises: How do you adeptly navigate and orchestrate customer engagement tools in this intricate and dynamic business milieu? How do you ensure a uniform and seamless service delivery across various platforms and devices? Moreover, how can you methodically gauge and refine the outcomes of their customer success or engagement initiatives?

This is precisely where a Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) emerges as an invaluable asset. In this guide, we shall delve into the intricacies of what constitutes a customer engagement platform, how it operates, the myriad benefits it extends, key features to seek in a CEP, distinctions from CRM systems, and a rundown of some of the leading customer engagement platforms poised to make an impact in 2024.

What is a customer engagement platform (CEP)?

A CEP is a software solution that helps you create, manage, and improve customer engagement across the entire customer journey. This platform empowers you to reach out to your customers through various communication channels, including email, chat, phone, social media, web, and mobile app. This ensures a seamless and versatile interaction experience. It also helps you collect and analyze customer data, feedback, and behavior, and use it to optimize your customer engagement strategies and campaigns. A survey conducted by MoEngage found that 20.6% of marketers used CEP as their primary customer engagement stack.

How does a customer engagement platform work?

A customer engagement platform works by connecting various components of your customer service ecosystem, such as:

• Customer data sources: These are the sources that provide you with information about your customers, such as their profile, preferences, history, feedback, etc. These include your CRM system, marketing automation system, analytics tools, etc,.

• Customer communication channels: These are the channels that enable your customer service teams to interact with your customers, such as email, chat, phone, social media, web, mobile app, etc.

• Customer service tools: These are the tools that help you provide better service to your customers, such as knowledge base system, ticketing system, live chat system, chatbot system, self-service portal, etc.

• Customer engagement analytics: These are the tools that help you measure and optimize your customer engagement efforts and outcomes, such as:

  • Customer satisfaction score (CSAT),

  • Net promoter score (NPS),

  • Customer effort score (CES), etc.

In essence, it aids businesses in comprehending the evolving patterns of customer behavior.

Now let’s understand by connecting all these tools how the customer engagement system works with a scenario:

Imagine you're the owner of an e-commerce platform specializing in personalized fitness equipment. 

Let's walk through how a customer interaction triggers a series of events through the engagement platform:

1. Personalized email invitation:

   - A new user, Sarah Smith, creates an account on your website to explore fitness products. She provides her email address during sign-up.

   - After Sarah's account is confirmed, you send her a tailored email. This message not only welcomes her but also recommends downloading your mobile app for a seamless shopping experience.

2. Order placement and contact information sharing:

   - Sarah decides to make her first purchase through the desktop site. She selects a set of dumbbells and provides her mobile number for smooth delivery coordination.

3. Feedback and response:

   - Following the delivery, you prompt Sarah to share her experience. She rates her purchase with four stars but mentions a slight delay in delivery time.

   - Recognizing the importance of prompt response, you immediately send an apology message. Additionally, you offer Sarah a discount coupon for her next purchase, which is conveniently placed in her dashboard for easy access.

4. Encouraging mobile app adoption:

   - Despite the positive resolution, Sarah doesn't place another order that week. Knowing that mobile app users tend to shop more frequently, you decide to take proactive action.

   - Leveraging the engagement platform, you send Sarah an SMS message, encouraging her to download your mobile app. Recognizing the convenience, Sarah promptly installs the app.

In this scenario, a series of customer interactions, both inaction and action, serve as triggers for subsequent events. These interactions span across various channels, including email, SMS, and the mobile app. The engagement platform seamlessly integrates these channels, allowing for a cohesive and personalized customer journey.

By employing a customer engagement software, you consolidate these interactions within a unified platform, eliminating the need for multiple apps. This orchestration ensures that customer data isn't compartmentalized, leading to a cohesive and streamlined experience for Sarah and other customers.

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Benefits of using a customer engagement platform

Utilizing a Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) brings forth a multitude of advantages that can significantly elevate your business operations:

1. Elevated customer experience 

The implementation of a CEP revolutionizes how you interact with your customers. By facilitating quicker, more seamless, and highly accessible services, it transforms their experience.

2. Heightened operational efficiency

With a CEP in place, you embark on a journey of process refinement and automation within your customer service framework. This not only expedites response times but also minimizes human errors, rework, and associated costs. The result? Markedly improved operational efficiency, translating into heightened productivity and ultimately, bolstered profitability.

3. Facilitated business expansion

A well-implemented CEP plays a pivotal role in customer experience management which leads to customer acquisition, retention, and expansion efforts. It empowers you to not only retain existing customers but also to allure new ones. Furthermore, the platform equips you to cross-sell and upsell your array of products and services.

CEP vs. CRM

A CRM (customer relationship management) system is a SaaS software tool designed to oversee and manage customer data and information. CRM software facilitates the storage, organization, and accessibility of customer records, including profiles, transaction history, and other pertinent details. It operates as a subset within the broader framework of customer engagement software.

A CEP, on the other hand, is a comprehensive multichannel software solution tailored to enhance customer engagement throughout the entire customer lifecycle. It empowers businesses and contact centers to communicate, assist, and interact effectively with their customers across diverse touchpoints and channels.

The principal distinction between a CRM and a CEP lies in their primary focus. While a CRM centers on the storage and utilization of customer data, a CEP is primarily concerned with orchestrating and managing customer interactions and experiences.

The best customer engagement software in 2024

Here are some of the best customer engagement platforms for 2024 that you can consider for your business:

1. Freshworks Customer Service Suite

Freshworks Customer Service Suite—a powerful and comprehensive customer engagement platform seamlessly blends AI-driven chat capabilities with ticketing functionalities. This innovative suite empowers businesses to orchestrate, optimize, and enhance customer engagement throughout the entire customer journey. 

It facilitates seamless interaction through various channels. With a focus on personalization and proactivity, it enables businesses to provide tailor-made services that resonate with their customers. Moreover, it leverages customer data, feedback, and behavior to refine engagement strategies and campaigns.

Key features and capabilities of Freshworks Customer Sevice Suite

• Omnichannel self-serve support: Deliver self-serve support across channels—all from a unified dashboard.

• Personalization: Tailor services based on customer context, preferences, and behavior. Segment customers for targeted, personalized messages and offers.

• Automation: Integrate seamlessly using rich app integration via Apis with existing systems for automated data exchange and synchronization.

• Analytics: Gather and analyze customer data, feedback, and behavior.

• Scalability: Adapt swiftly to changing business needs and handle high volumes of customer interactions without compromising performance or quality.

• Security: Safeguard customer data from unauthorized access or misuse, ensuring compliance with relevant data privacy and security regulations.

Perfect for

Freshworks Customer Service Suite caters seamlessly to the needs of small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises aspiring to deliver outstanding customer service across diverse channels and platforms.

Tailored for various industries, including e-commerce, education, healthcare, travel, and more, it stands as an ideal choice. 

Why do people love Freshworks Customer Service Suite?

1. User-friendly setup: Freshworks Customer Service Suite boasts an intuitive interface and swift setup, allowing for easy customization to suit your specific business requirements.

2. Omnichannel seamlessness: With support for multiple communication channels and platforms, — ensures consistent service delivery across all, all from a centralized dashboard.

3. Automation boosts efficiency: Leverage rules, triggers, and workflows for automating and streamlining customer service tasks.

4. Proactive analytics: Real-time reports and dashboards empower users to collect, analyze, and leverage customer data, feedback, and behavior.

5. Scalable and secure: Flexibility to scale according to business needs, handling high volumes of interactions without compromising performance.

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2: Twilio Engage

Twilio Engage, the latest offering from Twilio, empowers businesses to craft and expand personalized omnichannel campaigns in response to real-time customer interactions. This platform seamlessly merges Twilio's robust communication channels with the unparalleled data and analytics capabilities of Segment.

Key features

Here are some of the standout features of Twilio Engage:

• Real-time data: Gather and integrate customer data from diverse sources, such as your website, app, CRM, among others, culminating in centralized customer profiles.

• Omnichannel campaign: Twilio Engage allows users to monitor their campaigns across multiple channels.

• Integrated platform functionality: Oversee, evaluate, and expand cross-channel campaigns directly from Twilio Engage.

Pros and cons of Twilio Engage

Pros

• Real-time data integration: Capture and consolidate customer data from diverse sources like your website, app, CRM, among others.

• Easy set up: Twilio is easy to use and set up, with a user-friendly interface and documentation.

• Unified platform functionality: Manage, evaluate, and expand your cross-channel campaigns from the same platform.

Cons

• Cost consideration: Twilio Engage is a premium product accompanied by a higher price point. Costs are associated with both Twilio's communication channels and Segment's data platform.

• Technical complexity: Twilio Engage requires a degree of technical proficiency to be used effectively.

• Availability and stability: As a relatively new product still in the beta stage, Twilio Engage may not be accessible in all regions or for all customers. It also experiences occasional bugs or issues that require attention and improvement.

3. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is a cloud-based customer service help desk solution. By harnessing the power of automation, Zoho Desk aids businesses to streamline and optimize their customer service operations. This platform is engineered to simplify customer service tasks and enhance the efficiency of support agents.

Key features

Here are some key features of Zoho Desk:

• Streamlined ticket management: Handle customer support tickets from a unified dashboard. Track customer requests across various channels, departments, and more.

• Seamless Omnichannel support: Provide consistent service via email, chat, phone, social media, and web platforms.

• Analytics insights: Gather and analyze customer data, feedback, and behavior. Engagement metrics and outcomes with real-time reports.

• Self-service capabilities: Zoho Desk provides a knowledge base, community, and self-service portal.

Pros and cons of  Zoho Desk

Pros:

• Efficient ticket management: A unified dashboard for managing customer support tickets for tracking requests across various channels, brands, products, and departments.

• Omnichannel support: Multiple channel support, including email, chat, phone, social media, and web.

• Workflow automation: Automate customer service workflows using rules, triggers, and workflows. Integrate with existing systems for data exchange and synchronization.

Cons

• Cost: Zoho Desk is a paid product with pricing plans based on the number of agents, features, and channels used.

• Complexity: Effectively utilizing the Zoho Desk may require technical skills and knowledge.

• Availability: Zoho Desk may not be available in all regions or languages and may have occasional bugs or issues that require attention.

4. Zendesk

Zendesk is a customer service software designed to assist businesses in delivering support across various channels and platforms. It handles customer support tickets, engages in meaningful communication, tailors services, automates workflow, and gathers and analyzes customer data.

Key features

Highlighted features of Zendesk include:

• Omnichannel support: Extend support through all channels. The transition between channels preserves context and information.

• Personalization: Services based on individual customer context, preferences, and behavior. Segment customers for targeted messaging and offers.

• Automation: Create workflows with rules and triggers.

• Analytics: Gather and analyze customer data, feedback, and behavior using integrated analytics. Real-time reports and dashboards.

Pros and cons of Zendesk

Pros

• Omnichannel facility: A unified platform to manage customer interactions across various channels.

• Powerful automation: Zendesk offers automation capabilities, allowing businesses to streamline workflows.

• Comprehensive analytics: The platform offers analytics tools that enable businesses to gather and analyze customer data, feedback, and behavior in real-time.

Cons

• Learning curve: Mastering Zendesk may require some technical skills and training. New users may need time to become proficient in utilizing all features effectively, which can be a challenge for less tech-savvy teams.

• Downgrading issues: Zendesk requires a 60-day notice for downgrading your subscription. This extended notice period can be a drawback for businesses looking to adjust their subscription plan quickly.

• Customer service concerns: Some users have reported challenges with Zendesk's customer service, describing it as virtually non-existent.

5. Oracle Service

Oracle Service is a cloud-native customer service software designed to assist businesses in delivering support across various channels and platforms. It facilitates the management of customer support tickets, enables client communication, personalizes service delivery, automates workflows, and analyzes customer data.

Key features

Oracle Service encompasses a range of essential features, including

• Omnichannel support: Extend assistance to your customers via various avenues.

• Personalization: Captures context, preferences, and past interactions. 

• Automation: Oracle allows you to automate your workflow by integrating with your existing stack. Analytics: Analytics tools to gather and dissect customer data, feedback, and behavior patterns.

• Self-service capabilities: Provides knowledge base, community forum, and a user-friendly self-service portal.

Pros and cons of Oracle Service

Pros:

• Customer service features: Oracle Service Cloud offers customer service features like omnichannel support, knowledge management, chatbot functionality, analytics, and more.

• User-friendly: The platform is user-friendly and flexible.

• Scalability: This system is designed to scale based on customer requirements.

Cons

• High cost: Oracle Service Cloud has a substantial cost involving high licensing and maintenance expenses. Certain features and integrations may also incur additional fees.

• Complicated UI: The platform can be intricate, requiring a steep learning curve and potentially posing technical challenges for reps.

• Slow updates: While offering a robust suite of features, it is not innovative, displaying slower update and enhancement cycles. It may lack some functionalities present in market leaders like Freshworks.

How to choose the right customer engagement platform

When selecting a customer engagement software for your enterprise, numerous factors warrant careful consideration, especially business needs.

1. Comprehensive Omnichannel support:

An adept CEP should seamlessly integrate and support various communication channels and platforms. Furthermore, it should ensure uniform and uninterrupted service delivery across this extensive network.

2. Robust personalization capabilities

A proficient CEP should be able to furnish tailored and pertinent service to your clientele, considering their specific context, preferences, and behavioral patterns. Additionally, it should facilitate customer segmentation based on varied criteria to engage customers.

3. Streamlined automation functions

A proficient CEP should empower you to automate and refine your customer service operations and workflows through the astute utilization of rules, triggers, and predefined workflows.

4. Analytical capabilities

An effective CEP should proficiently amass and dissect critical customer data, feedback, and behavioral insights. It should further equip you with the tools to quantify and optimize your customer engagement metrics and outcomes, supported by real-time reports and intuitive dashboards.

5. Scalability and flexibility

A resilient CEP should demonstrate the capacity to adapt to your business's evolving needs and demands.

6. Stringent security protocols

An adept CEP should prioritize the safeguarding of your customer data and sensitive information against unauthorized access or misuse.

Omnichannel customer engagement platform

For those seeking a comprehensive omnichannel solution for customer engagement, Freshworks Customer Service Suite is the answer. Elevate customer service across multiple channels and platforms while enhancing operational efficiency and productivity.