Customer Engagement Software: Everything You Need to Know

You need a product that’s valuable to your customers before they’ll look twice at your business. However, the product may not be the most important factor in your relationships with your customers after all. Possibly even more important is great customer experience — and it’s easier to provide great customer service when you’re using the right tools.

The vast majority of customers say excellent customer experience is a deciding factor in their brand loyalty. When customers are treated well in the customer service interactions they have with a brand, it makes them feel valued and respected. Who wouldn’t rather do business with an organization that makes them feel valued? 

On the other hand, a disorganized, impersonal customer service experience will likely leave customers with a bad taste in their mouths (not a good sign for their loyalty.)

That’s why customer engagement software may actually be some of the most important pieces of software in companies’ tech stacks.

What's Customer Engagement Software?

Customer engagement software, sometimes called a customer engagement management system, is a type of software that's used to design better interactions for customers. It comes with various features that can help you increase the loyalty and satisfaction of your customers. Using data collected with your customer engagement software, you can tailor each customer’s experience to improve their level of engagement and overall satisfaction.

Customer Engagement Platform vs CRM

As you may already know, there’s another kind of customer management platform that’s similar to customer engagement software called a customer relationship management platform (CRM). Customer engagement software is very similar to a CRM, but there are some important differences.

So, what’s the difference between a customer engagement platform vs CRM?

• A CRM is used for collecting data about future and current customers and managing interactions with them.
• Customer engagement software is used to aggregate customer data, which is then used to design experiences that will improve customer loyalty and customer satisfaction.

Said another way, a customer engagement platform is a tool for creating more impactful customer experiences that customers will want to engage with. A CRM is more of an organizational tool that’s used for managing communication with customers.

Customer Engagement Software Market

If you aren’t yet using customer engagement software to aid your customer interactions, there’s no better time to get started. But choosing the right customer engagement software for your organization’s needs is easier said than done.

First, you’ll want to familiarize yourself a bit with the customer engagement software market. It’s important to do your homework so you can make an informed decision.

The most noteworthy trend in the customer engagement software market is that it’s on the rise. The current market size is about $19.3 billion and it’s expected to grow to $32.2 billion by 2027.

Customer engagement software can be very effective at reducing customer churn, as many business leaders are discovering for themselves. This has led to an increase in demand for customer engagement software.

Like most industries, the customer engagement solutions market was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the field of customer engagement and management, this impact centers around the way customer behavior has changed as a result of the pandemic.

Customer engagement strategies (and by extension, customer engagement software) have been forced to adapt to the new ways customers are approaching interactions with businesses post-COVID. In particular, the pandemic has increased the need for digital communication channels in the business world, which has also increased the need for digital customer engagement solutions.

Customer Engagement Statistics

There are plenty of customer engagement statistics that demonstrate the current state of the market and indicate where it might be heading. Here are some of the most revealing recent customer service statistics.

• Businesses that prioritize improving customer experience typically experience an 80% increase in revenue.
• 73% of customers say that customer experience is a driving factor in their purchase decisions.
• 86% of customers say they would be willing to pay more for a product if they know they’ll get better customer service with that business.
• Investing in better customer service can ultimately reduce customer service expenses by approximately 33%.
• 64% of customers expect personalized interactions from brands they’ve had previous interactions with.

The customer engagement trends 2022 revealed can serve as helpful guideposts as you navigate this growing industry. It can be very useful to keep these numbers in mind as you search for the right customer engagement software for your company.

Best Customer Engagement Software

There’s a long list of quality customer engagement software to choose from. While most of them have similar capabilities, every platform is designed a little differently and may be better suited to certain kinds of businesses. It’s important to weigh all your options carefully.

Here are some of the top customer engagement platforms on the market right now. Keep in mind that this is not an exhaustive list of the best customer engagement software, but rather a selection of some of the more popular options available.

Customer.io

Customer.io is a platform with various customer engagement capabilities. It allows you to access data about customer behavior in real-time and use that data to create personalized messaging for them. It’s also built to be scalable, meaning you won’t have to swap out tools as your customer base grows.

Zendesk

Zendesk is a remote customer engagement solution that enables omnichannel customer support. You can use this software for personalized communication with customers through whichever channels they prefer.

Influitive

Influitive is an example of some of the best customer engagement software designed for B2B customers. It comes with all kinds of features that make it easy to segment customers and target them directly with a wide variety of personalized communication methods.

Oracle

Oracle is a great platform for aggregating and unifying customer data from a variety of sources. Once this data has been organized, you can also use Oracle to build AI pathways to provide customers with personalized customer journeys.

Surfly

Surfly is another good customer engagement platform that makes it possible to communicate with customers via digital channels as easily as if you were conversing face to face. You can customize the experience to match any kind of customer journey, and you can customize the look and feel of the platform to match your branding.

Salesforce

While Salesforce is technically a CRM, it has customer engagement capabilities as well. You can use Salesforce Experience Cloud to build a data-driven loyalty program for your customers. By rolling in some of the features typically found in a customer engagement platform Salesforce becomes a very versatile customer management tool.

Tremendous

Tremendous is another great platform for designing customer engagement strategies. Most notably, you can use it to build rewards programs for your customers. A rewards program can foster loyalty by showing customers how much you appreciate their business.

Userlane

Userlane is a customer engagement platform you can use to create personalized customer experiences and integrate them directly into your software application. This is a great way to create a customized customer journey that offers a seamless experience. Your customers will get real-time, in-app guidance that’s tailored to their specific needs.

Braze

Braze is another example of customer engagement software that can help you boost customer loyalty at your organization. Using Braze, you can design memorable customer experiences with customer data. Drawing on customer data ensures the interactions you’re designing are totally relevant to each customer. Like most software with the moniker customer engagement platform, Braze can help you channel customer data into better customer experiences (and higher levels of engagement).

Increasing Customer Engagement with Northpass

These are some examples of the most popular customer engagement platforms. But it’s not a complete list. You may even find that a different kind of tool altogether works better for your organization’s customer engagement initiatives. The important thing is not which tool you use, but rather that whatever you use gets the desired results. 

For example, while Northpass is a learning management system (LMS) it can still have a tremendous impact on how engaged your customers are with your brand. When customers have access to high-quality learning materials, they’re more likely to be informed, self-sufficient, and confident product users. All this adds up to a customer base that’s more engaged, more loyal, and less of a burden on customer support resources. Try implementing Northpass into your tech stack and see for yourself how better customer education can boost customer engagement.