High-touch engagement is customized, hand-to-hand customer contact that goes far beyond bulk messaging. It’s about treating every customer like your only customer – through personal help and genuine relationship-building. It is the opposite of low-touch, automated solutions dependent on bulk messaging alone.
While the other option is to use generic, one-size-fits-all methods, high-touch engagement is about quality and personal relationships, yielding more loyalty and better results.
Perfecting engagement
- Over 75% of customers report that personalized interactions are essential for building trust.
- Brands that utilize high-touch engagement strategies see customer retention increase by 30%.
- Companies that adopt targeted outreach are observing a 20-25% rise in the rate of conversions compared to generic communications.
- Predictions indicate that in 2025, with increasing consumer demand for personalization, the application of high-touch engagement behavior will increase by 15% by the year, driven by ever greater ROI.
Adding a personal touch
High-touch engagement isn’t about being pushy. When working with enterprise clients, I’ve learned that sending a quick, relevant follow-up after a meeting shows you’re invested.
Making high-touch engagement work
Zappos is renowned for its customer service, a classic example of high-touch engagement. The company goes the extra mile – handwritten thank-you notes, follow-up phone calls, and even surprise upgrades – all contributing to a customer experience far from mass-produced.
It has enabled Zappos to enjoy one of the highest customer satisfaction levels in retail, with studies showing that their customized approaches are responsible for a 40% repeat purchase rate.
On the other hand, Airbnb has built its brand on strong community ties by employing high-touch engagement strategies. Their full-time support team reaches out to hosts and guests one-on-one to offer personalized suggestions and effective resolution of issues.
A Forbes case study indicates that Airbnb’s effort resulted in 30% repeat business growth and increased user satisfaction. Customer-to-customer engagement has been key to trust establishment and loyalty creation on their global platform.
Everything in moderation
Challenge:
One of the biggest challenges is balancing high levels of personalization as your customer base grows. The things that work for a small group can become too much at scale, making every interaction count becomes hard.
Resolution:
The answer is to use innovative, adaptive systems that allow you to perform routine tasks but still have a human touch. For example, CRM technologies can allow for one-to-one segmentation and dynamic content but reserve human follow-ups for high-priority interactions.
Personalizing customer engagement
- Define what high-touch engagement means for your brand.
- Invest in CRM software that allows personalized segmentation.
- Automate routine activities without sacrificing personalization.
- Monitor engagement metrics to gauge success.
- Refine your outreach on an ongoing basis using customer feedback.
- Balance automation and manual touchpoints for your most valuable customers.
