These days, practically everything in a business is a touchpoint. If it isn’t, it might need to be. This demand drives businesses to look for ways to increase engagement, but not every approach fits the bill. When customers feel like an interactive display isn’t relevant for their needs and preferences, they may stop engaging entirely.

The push to introduce greater technology and maintain a high-quality customer experience is a delicate balance calling for the use of the right tools. Smart displays rely on technology like sensors and cloud platforms to customize content and generate data to promote customer-focused decision-making.

Deliver Personalized Content

When customers walk up to digital signs for business, they may already expect a certain kind of experience. Storefronts with multiple locations may have customer accounts and loyalty programs that record data to monitor engagement, identify chokepoints in each transaction, and personalize content.

Customized content is a key advantage of smart displays. With centralized data processing and analytics, the system can deliver content tailored to the customer’s region, specific location, and recorded preferences. For example, a store selling seasonal goods can customize recommendations based on location, climate, and the shopper’s stated goals. Customers get more of what they are looking for, with less sorting through things they find unnecessary.

Track Customer Engagement

The path to improving customer engagement starts with the tracking process. Businesses that rely on workers to track the number of people engaging or the time they spend engaging with the company miss too many opportunities. Smart displays can track a range of customer engagement metrics, such as:

• Time spent in the location
• Percentage of successful purchases or requests for more information
• Interactions with the display

This data can help companies determine if they are making the right choices to improve engagement. For example, very short display interaction times could indicate a problem with the design or onboarding process.

Promote Data-Driven Decision-Making

Data collection should lead to an improved customer experience, but achieving that improvement isn’t always easy. Businesses have to try a range of tactics to meet consumer expectations. As shoppers interact with a smart display, the company gets information about how customers progress through content and transactions. Relying on data can help to isolate approaches that are unlikely to lead to greater customer satisfaction, such as the presence of hidden fees in a purchase transaction. The ultimate result is that the company can use the data to make better decisions to improve customer engagement and loyalty.

Provide Real-Time Insights

While data can be a boon for data-driven decision-making, this technology can also provide real-time insights that help businesses make the right choices in the moment. Customers who are struggling to find what they need while engaging with a digital sign may get frustrated or even leave. Data showing that an interaction is consistently timing out at each step could trigger the system to identify issues with the process and automatically request human help or recommend easy solutions. This way, the insights provided by the system can save the transaction before the customer abandons it.

Improve Engagement

Some business owners get primed to think that any attention is good attention, but conversions and sales often require positive engagement. Improving engagement is a tricky balance because customers will often talk more about bad experiences than good ones. Still, improving the kind of engagement that leads to loyal customers starts with the right use of data. Collecting data about engagement can identify things that draw buying customers in. A strategic implementation of a program that rewards customers just when the data says they are likely to pull back can reduce churn and keep the engagement humming.

Optimize Business Performance

If a company is going to do anything, it ought to use the data it collects to do it well. Assessing business performance is a nuanced process involving a range of factors, but there are ways to optimize it. Collecting data on customer interactions with smart displays can show how eager they are to pursue content and purchases on their own schedules. Conversely, it can also highlight the moments that really require a human touch. This information can inform a strategy that leads the business to provide just the right amount of supervision, saving resources for other tasks.

The future is bright for companies that leverage smart displays to improve the customer experience. By integrating data-driven strategies into business practices, organizations can increase engagement, raise sales, and ensure a higher level of customer loyalty.