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10 Key Affino.com Customer Engagement Elements

Affino.comContact CaptureCustomer ContactCustomer EngagementCustomer IncentivesCustomer Interactionregistration+-
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Customer Engagement is really about making a connection with potential and regular customers and inducing them to interact with you in one way or another. Every business relationship starts with some form of interaction - enquiry, feedback, observation with a view to capturing a prospect’s contact details, so you can communicate and incentivise further, until they are in a position where they are positively predisposed towards you. On Affino.com we use a number of element, techniques and tools to hopefully bring our customers closer to us:

 

 

Prominent Calls to Action

(e.g. ’REQUEST A DEMO’ - as above)

On most pages of our website you will see key connector buttons which hopefully cover a prospect’s most likely lines of enquiry. In pure marketing terms - everything on your website should lead to some follow-up action and outcome. So each page needs to serve a purpose in connecting with and elevating said prospective customer up to the next rung of the customer ladder.

Sticky Contact Side Bar

Sticky Contact Side Bar

Our Calls to Action tend to be at the tops and tails of the page real estate, so we use a floating contact bar - which consistently hover around the mid-point of the right hand-side of the screen. So that exactly when a customer wants to make contact, those tools are always close at hand.

Get in Touch Contact Panels with Avatars

Get in Touch Contact Panels with Avatars

In our opinion so many sites fail at this basic level of engagement - using staff picture portraits / avatars to accompany contact elements on the page. People generally relate best to other people, they want to know that they're dealing with someone real and genuine - so you need to show your real and genuine customer-facing members of staff.

Registration Welcome Page

Registration Welcome Page

This is a recent update to this site - a dedicated page that users are taken to immediately upon completion of Registration - giving them a clear and simple overview of the key parts of the site which may be relevant to them, and recommending those areas with selective content highlights.

Key Personnel Listing with Portrait Pics

Key Personnel Listing with Portrait Pics

So much of the digital domain is impersonal, alien and anonymous - far too many companies neglect to display what should be their key assets - or more specifically - their principal personnel. As previously stated, we humans relate best to other humans, and desire a personable and a personal experience with sympathetic, intelligent and like-minded individuals.

Public Profiles

Public Profiles

This element allows potential customers to view / review the biographical details of the company's personnel, alongside their editorial contributions. You get a quick snapshot overview of what other areas of the business and site they are involved in, including of course all their contributed editorial content and Forum post.

Content at varying levels of Depth and Detail

Content at varying levels of Depth and Detail

No business has just one level of customer - at the minimum you have 3 - potential, recent / casual and regular. The first group needs the briefest of overviews with the barest of details, the intermediate level requires a little more scope and depth to help them get more out of what you offer, and the long-standing customer probably wants the kitchen-sink version of everything, so they can apply ever finer nuances of improvements. On Affino we sort of have 4 core levels of content from very brief to long-form or at least increasing levels of detail and complexity - ranging from Glance, to Blogs, through Insights and onto Affino Features.

Content Metering

Content Metering

The whole idea behind this is to provide sufficiently valuable content to make people want to register to read more than the 2 articles freely available. Obviously the content has to be wholly relevant and worthwhile for anyone to be likely to register, and then their registration is made in exchange for the value contained within the insights.

Authors and Related Contacts

Authors and Related Contacts

This is another humanising element - where content is connected to pictured authors, and linked in turn to those Author's Public Profile pages, as well as social engagement tools - for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter as appropriate. This gives prospects and customers a clearer picture of who they are dealing with, and within what circles they operate.

Comments & Twitter Cards

Comments & Twitter Cards

Much like Content Metering is a tool to encourage Registration, we use Comments in the same way - having them require user registration for participation. We also use Twitter Cards for broader context, and to connect content with social media, social media followings through to social media influence.

Final Thoughts

There is always room for improvement, and despite a fairly strong stance, there is lots that can still be improved, and that we are still constantly working on improving and adding to. We are though relatively few, and our limited numbers in certain areas make it difficult for us to engage in certain round-the-clock activities. An example of this is the classic pop-up chat, which we have long considered adding, but currently cannot spare resources to service constantly and consistently at the quality we deem necessary. We take pride in doing absolutely everything ourselves and to the highest standards, and when we are in a position to add the pop-up chat, that will also be a high-quality in-house operation. In the meantime we cordially welcome you to our site, hope you enjoy your stay, and won't hesitate to reach out and make friendly contact.

Stefan Karlsson
Posted by Stefan Karlsson
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