Over the past decades, organizations have gone above and beyond to offer the best customer experience possible. Competition is currently at an all-time high, with companies from around the globe attempting to find tiny points that set them apart from others in their industry. While a positive customer experience is now expected by customers, not every business succeeds in creating one.
The vast majority of companies, coming in at 65%, believe that data is vital in providing a world-class customer experience. Yet, 53% of businesses consider their lack of ability in regard to data analysis and tech the core factor that holds their customer experience back. Without the correct techniques, methods, and strategies, businesses can’t tap into the valuable data that customers provide.
In this article, we’ll dive into three core strategies that every business should use to improve the customer experience. We’ll start out by tackling market research, before moving on to customer analytics and data-first decision-making. Let’s explore how you can create an unparalleled customer experience using data.
Why is Data So Vital – And How Can I Manage It?
Businesses currently have access to more information about their competitors, industry, and customers than ever before. The sheer quantity of data that we currently have at our fingertips makes monitoring and improving the customer experience a delicate but effective objective. While lots of data makes analysis extremely valuable, it can also overwhelm businesses.
An organization can use data to effectively improve every single stage of the customer experience. From the very first touchpoint that a customer has with your company, they generate a stream of data. How long they spend on certain pages, how frequently they visit your site, even their general review sentiment – everything is traceable.
By using the information that customers generate, we can turn a stream of numbers and data plot points into actionable insights. These insights can help to improve the customer experience, refining details that they don’t like and implementing features that they tend to enjoy more. Over time, little changes based on data can lead to huge gains in terms of increased click-through rates, boosted sales, and decreased customer churn.
Yet, the sheer quantity of data can also pose a major barrier for most businesses that don’t have a fundamental basis in data analytics and data processing. There are potentially millions of points of data to harvest, structure, process, and analyze. In order to overcome data silos and provide a smooth pipeline for data analytics, many businesses are turning to leading cloud-data warehouses.
For example, when comparing Databricks vs Snowflake, we can see that both can handle huge quantities of data. By constructing a centralized cloud data warehouse repository, businesses can collect all the customer data they need without fear of becoming overwhelmed or bogged down by the data.
With data architecture in place, businesses are ready to turn toward strategies to turn this data into actionable insights that improve the customer experience.
Using Market Research to Improve the Customer Experience
One of the major advantages of living in a data-first world is that we now have a comprehensive landscape of market research to draw upon any time we launch into a new field. For businesses that want to better understand their customers, it’s always a good idea to start with market research. Researching your main competitors, how they gain customers, what their customers like and dislike about their services, and what your industry standards are will set you up for success.
By drawing on publicly available data, or looking into your competitors’ datasets with SEO or CX tools, you can create a list of features and ideas that you should endeavor to include in your own products and services. Instead of beginning from nothing, market research allows you to hone in on a distinct style that will set you out from your competitors from day one.
Initial market research is a vital step toward providing a winning customer experience.
Using Customer Analytics to Improve the Customer Experience
Customer analytics are any data that a customer produces by interacting with your website or services. With the extensive selection of tracking and monitoring tools that you can install on your website, you can quickly turn every interaction into a treasure trove of information.
Whenever a customer comes onto your website, be sure to monitor their path through your pages. Notice where they spend the most time and where they quickly pass over. Are there any design elements that are disparate on these pages? By understanding what your average customer likes and dislikes, you can then start to edit your website to accommodate directly to them.
Focus on providing an experience that your average customer enjoys, demonstrated by an increase in time spent on certain pages or products. Use data as your map toward a cleaner, better-structured website.
Using Data-Driven Decision-Making to Improve the Customer Experience
Data-driven decision-making is the art of taking all the data your business produces and using it to make statistically backed decisions. Instead of making decisions because you think they may be the right choice, use data to plot a path that is backed by mathematics. Not only does this remove any element of uncertainty, but it can also help you to continuously improve your customer experience.
A great example of this is running A/B tests on your website. By showing slightly different photos, copy, or design choices on your site to different pools of customers, you can work out which is statistically more enjoyable for them. By repeating this experiment across every element of your site, you can continuously improve what you’re offering to your customers.
This, combined with farming customer feedback and acting upon it, will pave a pathway toward a better customer experience for all.
Final Thoughts
Providing a winning customer experience is the single most effective thing you can do to create a loyal base of customers. Every time a customer comes into contact with your website, a customer support agent, or even uses your product or services, you want to make sure they have the best experience possible.
Instead of relying on luck or attempting new strategies until one sticks, data-first decision-making will revolutionize the way you deal with each customer. From providing a comprehensive understanding of your market to refining every customer touchpoint, data can transform the way you relate to your customers.
By following the strategies outlined in this article, you’ll be able to create a winning customer experience and please your customers at every turn.
