It’s amazing what happens when you stop talking and listen! There are tons of ways to beef up digital customer engagement these days, so it’s important you understand exactly what your customers are looking for. The good thing is that they want to collaborate with you — if you listen, they’ll tell you what they want, how they want to get it, and how they want to consume it.

When you make your customer experience interactive, your customers feel heard and open up a goldmine of feedback. The retail and hospitality industries have seen great results with things like virtual concierges by giving customers a chance to share what they want before being bombarded with options. And companies are using transactional kiosks to listen too. They can add a question or two at the end of the payment process to ask customers what they think, and this feedback gives businesses ideas for how to improve.

But asking and listening is only half of the picture. Watching helps you learn about your customer too. Look at how they act when they’re in your store…how could you improve their experience? Best Buy did this by noticing that lots of customers compared prices on their mobile phones in the store. So they installed interactive price comparison software on computers to drive customer engagement in their retail stores. Outdoor stores like Sports Authority and REI saw that customers were asking lots of questions about ski destinations while they were in the store. So they installed interactive ticketing kiosks  where people can research and buy ski tickets to lots of popular mountains right in the store itself.

ChargeItSpot is working with retail stores to help them meet the customer needs they saw every day. Store owners saw they were losing customers when their phones died: instead of shopping, they rushed home to recharge their mobile devices. ChargeItSpot installed specialized kiosks, with small lockers that let shoppers plug in their phones and then lock them up and continue shopping while they charge. These self-service charging stations have led to higher store traffic, longer shopping trips, higher revenues, and of course, happy customers!

And I want to add that solutions don’t have to have the latest high-tech touch screen software to make a difference…low-tech works too! Grocery store owners saw shoppers struggling to grab groceries while holding their coffee cups, so they started putting cup holders in their carts to make things easier for their customers. Online retail giants like Zappos started offering free return shipping when they saw many customers were scared to purchase online.

Clearly, listening to your customers and watching them gives you valuable insight into what they want and need.  What have you learned from watching your consumers?