The rapid penetration of smartphones and the internet means that the e-commerce industry has become more viable to the general masses. 

According to a Periscope survey, industries that once sold their goods online, their consumer packaged goods transactions now regularly happen on the internet.

More and more retailers are now going digital and setting up their e-commerce stores. As the e-commerce market grows, so does the competition among them.

With the market increasingly growing and saturated with almost similar offerings, many online course selling companies realized that to set themselves apart from the pack. They needed to offer something that had a much better price or a different product altogether. That's where customer engagement comes in.

What is E-commerce Customer Engagement?

How do you boost your eCommerce conversions? Customer engagement is the emotional connection between a brand and its consumers by delivering an exceptional buying experience. 

It lets customers become engaged to buy more and become more loyal to your brand in the long run. The key to this is to provide an excellent consumer experience. 

Customer experience is often the key differentiating factor for many brands today. Many customers are willing to pay for customer experiences that blow them away.

Why is it Important?

As mentioned, because of the competition, your product's price and quality are merely secondary differentiators. 

To stand out, you need to have a well-executed customer engagement strategy that keeps customers coming back for more. According to a PwC report, e-commerce businesses benefit by making substantial changes to their customer engagement strategy. 

That's because a better engagement allows customers to have a more personalized experience in your brand, affecting impulse purchases on their part.

How to Boost Ecommerce Customer Engagement?

Now that we've talked about customer engagement and why it is necessary, we'll walk you through the ways how you can boost your e-commerce customer engagement: 

1. Collect customer feedback

Your customers are the heart and soul of your e-commerce business. If you don't know how they think about your products and services, you won't gain maximum customer engagement. 

One of the most effective ways to improve customer engagement is to let your buyers share genuine feedback and reviews on your online stores. You can do it via video form, or you can also try transcribing audio to text and presenting it in a blog format. Make sure that you're listening and aware of it as well.

Let's say that you're one of those businesses that sell courses online, where you sell online courses from your website. When you gather feedback but do not respond, it will only give your customers the impression that you're using this as some hard-selling strategy when you don't care. 

2 . Maintain an Effective Communication

Maintaining effective communication with your customers is one of the keys to having a successful e-commerce engagement strategy. See to it that you have a well-defined communication in your site. Doing so will allow you to maintain proper communication with your buyers. 

You might also want to build a listening center where you can listen to buyers and solve their problems and issues. 

3. Offer a loyalty program

Do you know that loyalty programs are one of the biggest catalysts for customer loyalty and retention?

The goal isn't just to let customers buy from you but to keep them returning in the future for more purchases. Many training and course selling companies are using loyalty programs to win users' trust.

That's why one of the easiest ways for your e-commerce business to reach this objective is to make your customers feel valued. You can do so by offering rewards for every subsequent purchase through a customer loyalty program. 

Loyalty programs not only provide your customers a reason to shop and buy more than they normally should. While you can create any form of a loyalty program, it generally manifests itself in a point-based system. 

Customers are usually rewarded with points for every purchase they make, along with benefits they gain, special discounts, premium access, etc. In the long run, it also consolidates their purchasing power. 

4. Effectively utilize social media

According to Statista, there will be approximately 4.41 billion users on social media in 2025. 

Ideally, you want your business there to be there too. Just remember, though, that having just a social media presence isn't enough to build customer engagement. 

You also need to use these platforms as engagement-building tools for people to like and follow your pages. This is evidence that you've successfully gained trust through the customer engagement strategies that you use. 

You might also consider running a contest and social media. The possibilities in these contests and giveaways are practically endless. You can also boost your social media visibility through hashtags and shares that will place your e-commerce business on the radar of your prospects.

Creating this digital community will develop a sense of loyalty among your customers. 

5. Practice cross-selling

Cross-selling is also a great way to improve customer engagement. It simply means that you're offering shoppers more options rather than letting them go. 

This can be in the form of: 

• Product recommendations related to the product
• Best-selling items
• Items that go with the item that they've previously viewed
• The "what other customers bought" section

6. Send personalized discounts and coupons

It's also worth noting that 80% of your sales come from 20% of customers. So, treat your customers right, and they'll always keep coming back.

You might want to include a personalized coupon or discount code as this will affect the customer's buying behavior with every purchase they make with your e-commerce store. 

Make sure that the discount amount you're offering is relevant to the amount they're spending on your store.

7. Offer great customer support

An excellent customer support service is also essential. Whether through chatbots or live communication, your e-commerce business should have excellent customer care service.

For instance, live chat allows your customers to skip the waiting queue. It will enable your customer support team to offer a personalized service to consumers and form an emotional connection with them in the process.

Keeping your customers happy shouldn't just be the responsibility of the help desk. Instead, everybody should take responsibility for it.

8. Create tutorial videos and infographics

As an e-commerce store, infographics and tutorials are one of the most critical aspects of customer service. What it does is that it shows, not just tell shoppers, that you genuinely care about the value that they get from your product. 

You might also want to come up with little explainers that show customers how to care for specific items and how you'll help these last longer. 

9. Retarget customers with cart abandonment emails

One of the biggest obstacles in an e-commerce business is cart abandonment. Fortunately, not all is lost whenever your customers do it.

If you look at it more positively, it's an excellent opportunity to retarget your customers by sending them customized emails if they abandoned their carts. 

Sending them personalized emails gives the impression that you're tracking their actions and that they're essential to you. You can send customized emails with product images in their carts and use strategies such as: 

• Offering product discounts.
• Sending emails that put personalization into good use.
• Include social proof of abandoned products. This can be in the form of a customer rating review and so on. 
• Give them feasible options like related items.

So, while overall cart abandonment rates are high, not all hope is lost, especially if you can entice them to come back to complete their purchase. Just make sure that you use this tactic sparingly to avoid impeding your customer's privacy.