You may or may not have heard about the term “Customer Intelligence”. If you own a business of any kind, it has become crucial to know what it is and why it’s so important. This article will explain just that.
Contents
What is Customer Intelligence (CI)
Customer intelligence (CI) is the process of garnering and studying data you get from customer interactions, from both internal and external sources. This way, you can learn what the best plan of attack is when it comes to your customers’ needs and behavior. This kind of data usually includes purchase history, web activities, and so on. Making use of it is especially important if you want to make smarter decisions when it comes to your business.
Why Use It?
If you want to keep up with your competition, or even surpass it, you might want to take a look at the reasons why you should use it to your advantage.
To know exactly what their customers do, what they need and how they want to get it is crucial for a business to stay successful. Customer Intelligence does just that. It gives you a survey of your customers’ demographics, as well as other important aspects of their targeted behavior.
With customer intelligence, you can generate detailed analyses of your customers’ profiles. And with its help, you can understand your customers better, and tailor your products or services even more to their needs.
Not to mention you can make better business decisions that can help your company grow in the most profitable direction. So, it has a lot to do with your marketing. It can help you out a lot, so you can convert more prospects and keep more of your loyal customers.
When you get the most out of your customer intelligence, your marketing campaigns become more effective for both your potential and already existing customers.
How to Use Customer Intelligence
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Gather Data
Naturally, you have to start collecting data first. Don’t make this process from only channel only. Rather, use as many as you can. This can include websites, e-mails, mobile applications, contact forms, and so on. The data you get can either be demographic, behavioral, transactional, and so on. All of those can be crucial in determining what your customers like and what they want from your products or services. So, if you want to make the most out of your marketing and branding, this is the key.
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Group the Data
To analyze the data more easily, and to get more details, you have to put them into their respective categories. It can usually be divided into three different categories:
– Direct feedback (the customers directly give your business or a third party some feedback, including but not limited to reviews of products or services)
– Indirect feedback (the comments customers leave on social media as well as any complaints to customer service)
– Inferred feedback (the information you get about your customers based on their transaction history, cookies, geographical location, and so on)
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Analyze the Data
There are a lot of tools and applications you can use to get insight from the data you have collected so far. They make your job a whole lot easier and save you some money since you don’t have to hire a separate team to work on that, either. So, explore some of the tools that can help you with that.
Conclusion
Customer intelligence can be an extremely powerful instrument to help you further your understanding of your customers’ wants and needs. It’s key to staying ahead of the competition, converting prospects as well as keeping your current customers.
