How businesses can effectively engage customers in APAC

Think about the alerts that an average consumer receives in a day. Chances are, they aren’t just personal messages or emails, but also push notifications from brands reminding them of an upcoming sale or an item they’ve left in their shopping cart.

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These notifications are just one of the many ways that businesses reach out and connect with customers. In an increasingly digital and mobile-first world, users are saddled with copious amounts of information about new products or services in the form of pop-ups across the different platforms they use.

In the face of this information overload, effective customer engagement is now more important than ever. Brands need to cut through this noise and keep users engaged, marking an important first step in creating positive experiences for customers and retaining them for the long term.

“Think of customer engagement as a commitment to building relationships with your customers, no matter where they are,” says Ranya Arora, strategic consultant for customer engagement platform Braze. “It’s the kind of experience you as a brand create and the kind of relationship you build with your users. When a customer engages with a brand’s digital assets, how do they feel? What kind of messaging is sent to them? How relevant is it? Does it add any value?”

Consumer behaviors have changed in recent years. As Southeast Asia becomes increasingly digital, especially in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, brands will need to keep up with new developments and meet their customers where they are.

Engaged across channels

According to the Braze 2022 Global Customer Engagement Review, Asia Pacific scores highly on its use of cross-channel engagement, something which Arora says is extremely important for the region’s mobile-first population.

With the number of smartphone users skyrocketing in the region, mobile platforms are prime avenues for cross-channel engagement. A couple of years ago, the interaction between consumers and brands would involve a single channel like a website, or take place at a specific time. Nowadays, a single smartphone creates plenty of communication opportunities via SMS, emails, in-app messages, push notifications, social media, and more.

“Just reaching out to a customer through one channel is not going to move the needle,” Arora says. “You need to understand where exactly your customers are engaging with you, and build that cohesive brand experience for them across multiple touchpoints.”

Ranya Arora, strategic consultant at Braze / Photo credit: Braze

For instance, in-product channels like in-app messages operate within an app or website to help brands reach active users, while out-of-product channels like email or push notifications can connect with customers outside of a brand’s own digital environments.

Braze research says that using these different channels in combination and incorporating cross-channel engagement lead to stronger marketing outcomes and drive up sales. When both in-product and out-of-product messages are combined, the likelihood of a purchase increases by 3.1x, compared to a single-channel approach.

Not only does this approach allow companies to remain top of mind as they continually connect and engage with consumers across different channels, but it also helps create a consistent image of the brand across its platforms.

Connecting to the anonymous

Another growing area of interest in the field of customer engagement is zero-party and first-party data.

First-party data refers to information collected on a platform with the consent of customers, such as purchase history and website activity, allowing firms to better understand user behavior.

Zero-party data, on the other hand, is information that a customer willingly shares with a company. It is also a relatively new term: Coined in 2020, it was born out of the eventual phasing out of third-party cookies.

Because users voluntarily offer it, zero-party data is usually more accurate and trustworthy compared to when such information is obtained from other sources. This enables companies to create more personalized customer experiences and content, leading to more engaged users.

Even if users don’t end up creating accounts, first-party data allows them to be identified as anonymous users, which can make up a large part of a business’ customer base.

“Just because these users chose to remain anonymous doesn’t mean they don’t have any value,” says Arora.

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In fact, the Braze Global Customer Engagement Review found that 57% of new users on platforms in 2021 did not log in, often opted to “continue as guest,” and as such were not given an official identifier. Nonetheless, engaging with these anonymous users resulted in a 5.3x increase in likelihood to buy. The likelihood of these users making a repeat purchase also shot up by 64%, showing that a little data given willingly can do the trick.

Arora explains that “brands should leverage in-app or web surveys and other tools for direct polling of customers” in order to gather actionable zero-party data. She adds that brands should also make sure that they have software development kits and application programming interfaces that “can support the ongoing collection of meaningful customer data.” Brands need to be clear about how they will use the zero-party data and how it can benefit customers so that they share relevant and helpful responses.

The power of cross-team collaboration

While the Braze report indicates that companies in Asia Pacific are on the right track with their customer engagement strategies, there are areas where they can still improve. In particular, Arora believes that they should make cross-team collaboration a key focus.

“Having strong collaboration across teams will help ensure a single view of each customer and ensure more successful campaigns going forward,” she says. “This allows you to see how your customer performs throughout the [purchase journey], and having that will help inform your marketing campaigns, creating better results.”

For example, a marketing team may be further divided into customer acquisition, campaigns, or brand marketing. While these sound like individual operations, team members have to communicate and ensure cohesion across different functions in order to get the most out of their efforts.

Other teams such as product and engineering are crucial to effective customer engagement as well. To that end, Arora encourages firms to put in place processes to ensure greater alignment and collaboration between teams, whether it’s on a strategic level or for data sharing in real time.

“Coordination and collaboration are your best friends,” she says. “The more coordination you have within your marketing programs, the better and more impactful the customer experience will be for your user base.”

Keeping up with customers

As the digital economy in Asia Pacific continues to grow, so will the demands of the region’s users.

Cross-channel communication will become increasingly important, in the face of an ever-growing mobile-centric population that makes transactions almost entirely on their smartphones. Zero- and first-party data will also remain a vital element for success, as users become more aware of the value of their personal data and their rights around data protection and protection.

The road ahead remains full of possibilities. New developments in technology could open up new avenues for customer engagement, such as targeted recommendation engines and mixed-reality experiences.

To that end, Arora advises brands to continually keep an open mind and be willing to experiment in order to engage their customers effectively in the long run.

“Every business is unique, and every business’ customers are unique. You have to keep testing to develop the right strategy,” she concludes.

Braze is a leading comprehensive customer engagement platform that powers interactions between consumers and brands they love.

Download Braze’s 2022 Global Customer Engagement Review and see where your company stands on its Customer Engagement Index here.

This content was produced by Tech in Asia Studios, which connects brands with Asia’s tech community. Learn more about partnering with Tech in Asia Studios.