consumers

If your goal is to be successful, you must proactively find ways to motivate and influence your consumers.

By Angela White

In the last decade, the exponential expansion of the e-commerce sector and the new age consumer’s inclination to continuously shop online has achieved prominence and significant traction. No doubt, technological advancements, access to high-speed internet are all essential contributors towards this shift in consumer behavior.

With artificial intelligence increasing its foothold in the industry, and a rise in disposable incomes have impacted how consumers are now behaving on digital platforms.

Key Ways to Motivate the New Age Online Consumer 

Businesses are finding it quite a challenge to acquire, interact with purpose and retain their customer base in an increasingly competitive environment. The idea is to offer customers a journey that is wholesome, the shopping experience seamless – right from the start of the customer browsing the website for products to reaching the final phase of confirming the purchase.

To ensure that your customers stick with you in the long run, try to motivate them by using these fundamental yet essential strategies:

1. Motivate Through Social Media

The backbone of any e-commerce eco-system is social media. The world today is experiencing a phenomenal digital revolution, and social media is at the forefront of it. Any business in the modern day commerce relies heavily on platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and Facebook as strategy brand builders. However, these platforms can also be used to influence customer opinion and attitude towards the business.

Through a series of discussions, recommendations, feedback through surveys, customers can communicate what they feel about the business in all honesty. By responding to customer feedback, businesses can turn around negative opinions towards positivity.

Going a step further, businesses can take cues and start building on gathering more in-depth information by designing relevant surveys. Survey makers are extremely useful here.

2. Motivate Through Efficient Customer Support

Customer support platforms are essential touch points for both the business and their customer base. However, with digital progression, more and more customers are looking to self-serve their needs by accessing knowledge base articles, FAQs, etc. But that in no way makes live agents a relic in the organizational system.

If new-age online consumers are unable to find their answers, customer support is there to assist in all manner possible. This contact is also an opportune moment to motivate customers towards becoming more loyal to the brand.

As soon as the session ends, live agents can share a short survey to get instant customer feedback. Customer survey templates can be designed with the help of survey software that can come in handy at this stage. This can be shared via email or SMS to gather if the customer is satisfied with their experience in resolving the query through the customer support team.

3. Motivate Through Reviews

Reviews, online feedback and customer testimonials are the real motivators for all new-age consumers today. Positive reviews are what a business will always want to portray on their digital channels for their customers to see. However, negative feedback and their subsequent resolution on the same platform can also leave potential customers with a positive note about the business. Regardless of the review is positive or negative, it should be addressed immediately to build a long-term relationship with the customers.

Motivate Through Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing via online channels is becoming increasingly important in motivating customers in their browsing and shopping behavior. This is an effective digital instrument that is being used by businesses to link prospective and current customers with key online players. The idea is to efficiently align the customer’s psychology with that of the influencer to efficiently motivate customer opinions about the business.

The right influencer performs the responsibility of an intermediary between a brand and their customer to create an individual connection with the brand by assessing the audience emotionally and perceptively.

Importance of Motivating Customers

There is a reason why your customers choose to stick with you in the long run. It could be because of your products, perhaps a solid customer support team or even simple business ideologies. The key here is to understand how your customer perceives your business as the emotional quotient cannot be kept completely out of the equation.

If your goal is to be successful, you must proactively find ways to motivate and influence your customers. Attract, interact and retain them through effective and consistent communication, engaging content and overall experience. 

Angela White is an ed-tech enthusiast with a passion for writing for the consumer market in the areas of product research and marketing using eLearning softwares. Having a knack for writing and an editorial mindset, she has been writing for ProProfs: a brand that’s known for creating delightfully smart tools such as ProProfs Survey Maker.

Consumers stock photo by fizkes/Shutterstock