The Top Customer Engagement Tools in 2024

Imagine walking into a store, and the person behind the counter gives you a broad smile, asks you if you need any help, is responsive to your questions, and provides helpful recommendations. Would you be likely to return to that store for a future purchase? 

Most of us would say yes! Imagine multiplying this scenario by hundreds of customers, and the owner can have a thriving store. That’s the power of customer engagement (tools), a tried and tested approach to improving business performance.

So, how do these tools work, and which tools can you use for your business?

This article aims to answer your questions. Here, we will uncover some of the top tools for customer engagement that you can harness for your business’s growth.

What is Customer Engagement?

Before examining the top tools for 2024, let’s explore what customer engagement is and its key goals. 

Although customer engagement is composed of various moving parts, it helps create a relationship between a business and its customer base. Therefore, the process is designed to interact with customers and increase customer retention and brand loyalty. 

Customer engagement has also been described as an emotional connection between brands and their customers. It is a dynamic process, effected through multiple channels and throughout the customer lifecycle. 

For successful customer engagement, businesses must go beyond the initial contact with the customer, constantly finding out their customers’ needs, delivering relevant content, and sustaining the relationship. Typically, businesses engage with their customers through community forums, social media, websites, email, and other communication platforms. Companies also use AI and machine learning algorithms that track user behavior to provide personalized campaigns and services.

Why is Customer Engagement Important?

Customer engagement is critical for several reasons, which perpetuate throughout the business. Helping you connect with your customers makes your business one of your customers’ top choices.

Generally, customer engagement for your business helps:

• Increase customer retention
• Reduce customer churn
• Grow your customer base
• Improve brand loyalty
• Distinguish your business from competitors
• Facilitate up-sell opportunities

Types of Customer Engagement Tools

Customer engagement tools are of multiple types, providing features that cover specific needs in the cycle. You can use tools to communicate with customers, gather feedback, and understand the information you gather for improved services. With the right tools, you can get a good idea of what your customer needs and how to meet these needs. 

Here is a list of the most common kinds of customer engagement tools businesses use today:

• In-app communication tools help businesses engage with customers who visit their website or use their products.
• Customer feedback tools, which allow teams to gather feedback and gain insights from customers
• Email automation tools that can help you automate your email campaigns.
• Analytics tools, which measure different metrics that help businesses understand customer behavior. 

In this section, we will describe what each type of tool does in detail. We will also take a look at the top products in each category.

In-app Communication Tools

When new users are onboarded to your platform, it might be challenging to grasp its features fully. In-app communication helps to solve this challenge. In-app communication helps your users understand your business or software’s key features and how to maximize their potential. 

A typical in-app communication tool will allow you to offer modals, pop-up messages, tooltips, checklists, product walkthroughs, and even chatbots. Overall, it allows you to guide the user through your app or web interface seamlessly.

What does in-app communication do for your business? Here are a few reasons to incorporate it into your business:

• Facilitates seamless learning of how to use your product
• Helps retain active users
• Streamlines your onboarding process.
• Allows you to share promotions. 
• Promote personalized brand messages. 

When looking for a customer engagement tool for im-app communication, knowing which communication medium suits your product is important. Below, we will look at some excellent product offerings for in-app communication:

1. Airship – Mobile App Experience Platform

Airship is a tool that helps brands master the mobile app experience. Created in 2009, the platform powers commercial messages provides no-code app experience creation, and allows teams to optimize for app stores. The platform also offers mobile wallet services, allowing businesses to offer customers loyalty cards, tickets, and passes. The platform also integrates seamlessly with other communication channels such as SMS, email, and web.

Pros:

• Integration with email, SMS, and web
• Live activities and updates
• App store optimization

Cons:

• UI can be challenging to learn
• Limited AB testing capabilities

2. CleverTap – Cloud-based In-App Communication Tool

CleverTap is a modern, integrated tool that helps digital consumer bands retain customers and increase lifetime value. The tool harnesses context and individualization, which it derives through AI/ML-powered insights. CleverTap offers behavioral analytics, A/B testing, user journeys, and personalization.

Pros:

• User segmentation
• Performance tracking
• A/B testing

Cons:

• Lack of built-in SMS providers
• The pricing structure does not favor large data users

3. OneSignal – Customer Messaging and Engagement Platform

OneSignal is a web-based customer messaging platform that helps businesses create meaningful connections with their customers. The tool allows teams to enable email, push notifications, in-app messaging, and SMS. OneSignal helps users improve the journey for customers with A/B testing, message templates, and an intuitive no-code customer journey builder.

Pros:

• Push notifications
• Efficient in-app messaging
• Custom reports

Cons:

• Limited design choices
• Expensive pricing structure

Customer Feedback Tools

Quantitative data and real-time monitoring is a rich source of information. However, qualitative data can help you understand why your customers behave in a particular way and gather insightful ideas for tailored solutions. You can get direct feedback to improve your product experience with the right customer feedback tool. 

Excellent user feedback tools typically allow you to integrate with your existing customer engagement platforms. For example, you can add a customer feedback form to your company newsletter or create an in-app survey. 

When designing a customer feedback form, it is also important to integrate it with the user journey. Feedback forms are best reserved for customers who have been onboarded and have been using your service for some time. Below, we will look at a few of the top customer feedback tools:

1. Qualaroo – User Research and Customer Feedback Software

Qualaroo is a dedicated tool that helps businesses gather product feedback from websites or mobile apps. With the tool, you can seamlessly capture visitor intent and understand what attracts them to your website. 

The platform also offers tools to survey potential customers to understand why they may not be converting. The platform also provides a feature, Survey Nudges, which allows you to target customers with survey campaigns.

Pros:

• Effective feedback engine
• Multichannel support 
• Valuable exportable raw data

Cons:

• Limited customizability
• Limited user interface

2. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a top survey software tool for a variety of customer feedback purposes. The platform allows its clients to create surveys, collect responses, and analyze data on a simple interface. With the tool, you can gather information on brand insights, product experience, customer experience, and market insights. The tool also provides real-time tracking of responses and data analytics to crunch your data.

Pros:

• The interface is easy to use
• Robust design features
• Flexible interface for answers

Cons:

• Limited free plan
• Limited integration with other tools

3. Jotform – Comprehensive Online Form Creator

Jotform is a comprehensive online form creator that helps businesses automate data collection and customer feedback. With the tool, users can create online forms on any device. Jotform requires no coding, integrates with over 100 third-party apps, and offers thousands of ready-made form templates for users. The tool also comes with automated response tracking, data export, standard reporting, and analytics.

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Faster creation of forms
• Seamless tracking

Cons:

• Limited free plan
• Limited support for complex forms

Email automation Tools

Multiple market researchers have revealed the effectiveness of emails as a superior marketing tool. With the right emailing tool, you stand the chance of both providing value and onboarding new customers. The right email marketing tool will help you improve personalization and deliver them to your users’ inboxes. 

Having a first name tag, at the least, is necessary for adding some personality to your teams. Still, other products will help you to combat email throttling effectively. Analytics integration, A/B testing, and market segmentation are also critical for effective email automation. 

In this section, we will examine some of the top email automation tools so that you can integrate them into your business.

1. Mailchimp – Email Marketing Automation Platform

Mailchimp is an efficient email marketing and automation platform that helps users understand their customers and maximize email marketing. Founded in 2001, the tool helps over 12 million customers launch and build email campaigns. The tool also includes campaign management features like event marketing, social media marketing, and detailed analytics. Mailchimp also integrates with multiple third-party software tools.

Pros:

• Auto-response
• Integration with CRM
• Seamless management of email lists

Cons:

• Complex user interface
• Limited data analytics

2. Twilio SendGrid

Twilio Sendgrid is an industry-leading email automation platform allowing teams to facilitate business communication seamlessly. The platform’s marketing campaigns provide users with segmentation, campaign editing, and deliverability. The tool also has email-building features that allow you to choose your path with editing options. The tool also works on an intuitive, clean UI.

Pros:

• Drag and drop editors
• Flexible campaign design
• Good email deliverability rates

Cons:

• Limited APIs
• Limited email scheduling

3. Klaviyo – Marketing Automation Tool

Klaviyo is a marketing and email automation platform that is designed to help businesses grow their reach and revenue. The tool is designed for a variety of email marketing strategies, such as newsletters, reminders, order follow-ups, and personalized thank-you messages. The tool integrates with multiple customer data sources, such as your CRM.

Pros:

• Customer funnel building 
• Customer segmentation
• Email template samples

Cons:

• Limited trigger functions
• Limited analytics tools

Analytics Tools

Analytics is all about monitoring and understanding your customers and measuring the effectiveness of your sales and marketing campaigns. Beyond counting clicks and click-through rates, it helps you decipher feedback at all points. Typically, a good analytics tool will help you understand your customer base’s diversity. This can help you create more tailored campaigns that meet everyone’s needs. Companies can also determine engagement gaps to see how to improve. 

Excellent visualization is also helpful in making sense of quantitative data, so look out for this. In this section, we will also take a look at some of the top analytics tools that you can integrate into your team:

1. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a robust platform for crunching your business data to make excellent business decisions. With the tool, you can track user behavior on your website, monitor web performance, and track various other indicators. The tool also monitors traffic sources, including search engines, social networks, and email campaigns.

Pros:

• Easy-to-use interface 
• Customizable dashboards 
• Seamless integration with other Google products

Cons:

• Steep learning curve 
• Limited enterprise features

2. Amplitude

Amplitude is a web-based analytics platform for mobile and web, helping organizations segment users, analyze funnels, monitor customer retention, and track revenue. 

The tool allows users to obtain actionable insights from customer digital surveys and offers behavioral graphs to understand customer preferences. The platform also helps users optimize digital products for increased engagement, increased conversion rates, and improved customer loyalty. 
You can check out our in-depth review of Amplitude Analytics to find out more why it ranks among the best customer engagement tools for 2024

Pros:

• Visually-appealing dashboards.
• Comprehensive analytics.
• Good for analyzing both products and user journeys.

Cons:

• Limited customization and flexibility.
• User pathfinders could be better visualized.

3. Mixpanel

Mixpanel is an intuitive analytics platform that helps businesses understand how customers interact with their products. The platform collects granular data, such as customer geographic location, devices, browser type, how they found your products, and more. The tool also tracks customizable ‘events’ such as sign-ups, cancellations, app downloads, and other essential metrics. Mixpanel also supports integrations with popular tools such as email and in-app messaging platforms, allowing you to reach your audience effectively.

Pros:

• Excellent reporting with intuitive graphs
• Customization options
• Intuitive, user-friendly interface

Cons:

• Limited documentation
• The limited scalability of their API

Choosing the Best Customer Engagement Tool in 2023

Customer engagement tools do not just help you interact with your potential customers; they can also help you increase lifetime value and attract new business to your company. 

There are many tools in the market, but the principles that make the best tools effective remain the same. While picking your customer engagement software, ensure it aligns with your business goals.

 
Want to dive deep into some of the best customer engagement tools before making your pick? You can head to Techwriteable’s blog for detailed reviews from our team or subscribe to our newsletter for regular updates on top SaaS trends.

Contributors: Victor Femi-Lawal (Technical Writer); Olumide Okesipe (Graphic Designer)