People, processes and solutions are the three main components that stem out of the global revolution in a data-driven culture. Research indicates that 88% of the companies use data and data analytics to understand the dynamics of their potential consumers. Data is the central axiom around which targeted marketing campaigns and user experiences revolve.
Therefore, the collection of accurate data has a tremendous amount of value. Proper understanding of data and understanding the opportunities it brings is imperative for organizations to create a data-driven customer-centric experience. Therefore, the collection and accurate interpretation of customer data are vital to the long term growth and success of an organization.
Ultimately, the goal is to make the consumer feel like they are dealing with people who care about their interests, and not a business interested in profits. It is great for any business to have exemplary services, but it is even greater when exemplary service is coupled with strong customer loyalty.
What organizations need to understand is that the only thing more important than generating new leads and gaining new customers is their ability to retain these customers with engaging customer experiences. Consumers look for familiarity, comfort and trust when it comes to investing in a service.
If a business is able to harness user data to analyze and predict consumer behavior, it will in turn be able to provide an intuitive, familiar and personalized user experience to customers, thus boosting the customer experience.
Accumulating familiarity with the user will only increase the trust that the user places in the business. Hence, data-driven customizations inevitably boost the satisfaction that the customer has with their experience, resulting in long term customer retention.
Here’s how businesses can use this data-driven approach to enhance the customer experience in a way like never before:
1. Choose and encapsulate the “right“ data
How well the marketers recognize, capture, and prioritize valuable data about your customers can determine how successful your marketing plan is. A marketer can collect a lot of data but it will be useless if he is not able to identify the right trends, behaviors and patterns within the data. The filtering of necessary data from the sea of information is critical when it comes to using customer data to boost business experience. This process is vital as identifying the “right” data allows a business to find and understand its audience.
Once a marketer understands his audience, he is able to curate targeted business experiences that go in hand in hand with the needs of his key demographic. This will result in more positive responses to efforts towards customer care, as a targeted audience is more likely to appreciate experiences that cater to their behaviors and needs.
Any interaction between your company and a customer will reveal information about their habits. If you’ve collected enough data, you’ll be able to find statistically meaningful relationships between various behavior trends, which you can use as a point of convergence for your study. Then, your efforts can revolve around this information, and marketers will have an easier time providing custom, personalized customer care. It is impossible to go wrong when customers feel like they are being attended to personally rather than being a face in the sea of consumers.
2. Choose the best methods for data processing
Once the data has been collected, the next step is to process this data. Marketers must use reliable and efficient tools to process vast amounts of data. Traditionally, there are three main data processing methods- manual, mechanical and electronic. However, with the global market transforming into a digital village, electronic methods have become the standard go to when it comes to data processing. Specialized softwares that excel at data processing while providing efficient output has become the modus operandi of data driven businesses.
Marketers can analyze data using a variety of accurate and efficient data-driven marketing tools available on the market today. Google BigQuery, Amazon Web Services Hortonworks and Cloudera are incredible tools that make data processing systematic and easy.
These tools allow you to target customers , segment and compartmentalize their capabilities, interpret trends and spot potential problems. While these are the established forces of the data processing world, one can find multiple such softwares that will still provide an efficient inroad to accurate data processing.
However, not all organization’s needs are met by a single method. At times, circumstances demand for alternative methods of processing data. Therefore it’s important to select a tool that works best for your organisation. MAke sure that your business is equipped with all the right tools to optimise results under any circumstances.
3. Integration of the data collected
Once data has been collected and processed, a business must then integrate or unify this in one place. In other words, once a business has systematically categorized the data, it has to then place this categorized data sets with previously gathered data. Thus once this data is consolidated, it is available for use and interpretation under a broader banner. This process of bringing all the data to one place is known as data integration. This gives people flexibility in using data in whatever way they want.
For example, business XYZ has collected data on users for the month of March. After bringing together various data points from different sources, XYZ is able to create demographical data, that is, data that can be categorized under broader categories such as gender, age, profession etc.
Now for this data to really help XYZ, it must be compared and merged with the data that XYZ has collected for the previous months of January and February. By integrating collected data with previous data, XYZ has an unified view of consumer behavior, trends and patterns. Now, XYZ can make data driven decisions and observe differences, similarities and changes between the data that was previously collected, and the data that has just been collected.
Businesses must integrate their data from various data sources to one location. Integration of data reduces the amount of time the team spends entering data. This process helps to avoid errors and inaccuracies. You can collect information from leads, submit it to other support teams right away, and increase confidence that everyone has the most up-to-date, checked data and reliable information by combining various resources.
4. Consider the Big Picture When Analyzing Data
Now that your business has systematically integrated and categorized its data. The next step is one of the most vital steps on the road to effective data-driven business of experiences. What do you do with the data that has been collected? How do you interpret this data? How do you utilise this data to drive positive customer experiences?
Data is important for enhancing customer service, but how you interpret it will ultimately determine how valuable it is to you. Identify what your business is looking to improve upon. What aspect of your current customer care is lacking? By asking these questions business owners can identify the areas in which they need improvement. In other cases, business owners may already know which facets of their customer care they want to improve or strengthen. Keeping in mind one’s business plans and roadmap, marketers must first understand what it is that they are setting out to accomplish with the data that they have collected.
Once these areas are identified, businesses must use the processed data to further understand what the customers want, and how they can further improve their customer experience. Utilise the data to influence areas that will have the most positive outcome to your business. Business should always be striving to provide personalized and intuitive business of experiences.
5. Make Use of Any Available Digital Platform
There are over 4.5 billion people in the world who use the internet. That’s more than 50% of the global population. Almost everyone on the planet is using an electronic device. These devices serve as data points that businesses can harvest to collect customer data. There are millions of data points available for a business to gather customer data.
A business should be looking to maximise its data-gathering capabilities. They can do this by gathering data from their consumers using any device they usually use, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. Questionnaires, surveys and rating systems are all excellent tools in collecting data from your consumers. Customers also leave reviews on websites and apps. These reviews provide business with critical criticism or positive feedback- both are important in terms of customer data.
Tracking social media, monitoring website activity and using lad magnet tools are great ways to collect data on your customers. Use these resources to create a CDP ( Customer Data Platform) for your business. This platform can then act as a handbook for data collection. A CDP provides a focal point to all your customer data- allowing you to segment your audience and create various customer experience strategies.
6. Follow your consumer’s path
With sufficient data, it gets easier to trace and follow your customer’s path. It becomes easier to analyse and predict consumer behaviour. This knowledge can then be used to enhance their experience at each point, making communication between the organisation and the potential customers very easy and efficient.
Observe and analyse which products customers are more likely to respond to. Are they inclined towards certain brands? Do they have certain specifications when it comes to responding to an advertisement? By observing this, customer data can be used to provide easier customer paths.
One thing is clear- consumers are empowered with various methods to make purchases. By establishing the ‘path’ that the customer normally takes to arrive at a certain product or service, a business can make it easier and faster for the customer to arrive at that product in the future. Therefore, businesses can easily predict customer needs and provide an easy path for the customers to reach their destination. This creates a positive user experience and ease of use for the customer.
This can be done by monitoring some key behaviours and patterns from customers:
A. Which advertisements do customers respond to?
What makes some customers more inclined towards certain products. As a business, it is important to recognize why customers choose a certain product or service. Take into account pricing, brand and product reviews to better understand product behaviour.
B. Why do customers choose certain products?
C. Are customers biased towards certain products?
Observe customers to predict their innate biases and preferences towards certain products. Establish a pattern of behaviour and follow that blueprint to provide better customer experiences.
By asking the right questions, businesses are in a better position to provide quicker, easier and more user friendly paths for customers to arrive at their desired product or service. This is a massive boost to customer experience as not only does the functionality that businesses offer come across as customer friendly and intuitive, it also boosts loyalty amongst the customer base.
7. Improve your Approach
The only constant is change. The world is changing as every second passes. Similarly customer interest, desires and needs will also shift everyday. It is recommended to keep reviewing and improving your marketing plans based on new consumer data and the performance of each of your marketing campaigns. The right data will assist you in adapting to emerging developments as well as evolving consumer preferences and behaviours.
Data is changing the way consumers and businesses communicate. Some ideas that seem far-fetched today may become a global standard in the future. You never know what will work out best, so be open to experimenting and trying out new strategies. Make sure you are always looking for ways to create unique and innovative marketing campaigns. Do not be closed off or reserved about changing what is working.
Use data-driven strategies to enhance and boost not just the consumer experience but your whole organisation internally and externally. Keep an eye out for change in trends and patterns- they tend to change in the blink of an eye.
Summing up
Data is the king of the internet era. It reigns supreme as the most important digital entity to thousands of organizations, businesses and corporations. Harnessing the power of data to improve your business is the first step towards creating a pleasant, amicable and homely environment for your customer base.
The true power of data lies beyond its mere collection. Knowing the right methods to process data is imperative. Analysing the data the right way is vital. Using all resources possible to collect data is critical. Harvesting data to create better experiences is a cocktail of various elements. The secret lies in finding the right blend of each element to optimise and maximise the output that data driven customer experiences can provide to a business.
Let us, at Kilowott, assist you in rethinking how you deliver a digital experience and boost your customer experience.
