Business success nowadays hinges upon creating a superb customer experience. Companies can no longer afford to keep customers at arm’s length and treat them as an undifferentiated mass of people. Instead, they have to reach out to them as individuals and attempt to address their specific needs, wants, and desires.
This kind of approach used to be exclusive to large companies, since they are the only ones that have the resources and manpower to tackle the challenge. But thanks to the development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and most notably big data, companies of all sizes now have the tools needed to provide quality customer experience at scale.
Understanding Big Data
Big data, in particular, has ensured that businesses no longer have to speculate about the nature of their customers. Instead, they can systematically analyze the data at their disposal to find concrete figures describing who their customers are, what they like, and what will take them to convert.
With that being said, there is a difference between having access to big data and knowing how to use it effectively to generate success. Most companies are still struggling to leverage big data adequately, and this is costing them time and resources.
If you’re finding yourself in a similar position, you probably want to know what is the right way to use big data. Thankfully, we're here to lend a hand. Continue reading and find out more about how companies have been using big data to enhance their customer experience efforts.
5 Ways Big Data Can Improve the Customer Experience
1. Targeting The Right Leads
Lead acquisition is the process of gathering potential customers into your database to convert them down the line. The leads you collect in this initial phase will determine which marketing, sales, and service strategies you will use to create new customers. If you had a means to ensure that you only gather relevant, quality leads, you could optimize your conversion process to a great extent.
This is where big data comes into play. By analyzing vast quantities of online user data, you will gain insight into the general state of the consumer market, which will help you pinpoint the most promising leads. Not only that, but you will also acquire data that will help you craft laser-focused marketing campaigns to draw in these leads, instead of sending messages into the ether and hoping they find their target by chance.
2. Performing Sentiment Analysis
Conceptual frameworks such as game theory have shown that consumers don’t always act as rational beings. More often than not, consumers will follow their emotions and gut instincts instead of common sense when deciding which products to buy, or which company to support. This makes knowing how consumers feel even more important than knowing what they think.
Thanks to big data, companies can now conduct what is called ‘sentiment analysis.’ The process usually involves an AI utilizing machine learning algorithms to find subtle clues about what motivates consumers emotionally. And with this kind of sentiment data at their disposal, businesses can tailor their messaging to be more appealing on an emotional level, and thus provide a more positive customer experience.
3. Forecasting Future Trends
The true power of big data lies in its predictive potential. Thanks to big data, companies are no longer limited to insights about their past and present. They can also gain a glimpse into their future and the future of the market as a whole.
To give an example of this power in action, companies can now analyze the purchasing patterns of a given customer. Based on that, they can predict when the next purchase will come, what will be the item purchased, and what kind of nudge will be needed to make it happen.
If you combine this knowledge with a customized CRM system, you can create automated conversion workflows with a guaranteed ROI. You will gain the ability to reach customers when they want, where they want, with the kind of content they want. In other words, you will gain the ability to generate positive customer experience at the touch of a button.
4, Reducing Friction During App and Website Use
Customer experience is not influenced solely by the strategies you employ as a business. The technical aspect of your operation is as relevant for your success, as is the quality of your content. If your checkout form feels sluggish to use, or if your app uses an illegible typeface, your customers will start noticing it, and they will express their dissatisfaction by taking their business elsewhere.
Fortunately, big data makes it easy to find subtle patterns in the ways customers use your website and apps. You can find out how much time the average user spends on a particular page of your website, where they click, where their eyes are focused through heat maps and more. With this kind of information at your disposal, you can have your technical division implement appropriate adjustments to create a more seamless customer experience.
5. Providing a Personalized Experience
We’ve talked about how big data can help companies understand their customers better. But this kind of knowledge is only useful insofar it enables you to convert people into paying customers. One such practical application of knowledge derived from big data is content personalization.
Customers like to be addressed as individuals when they communicate with businesses. They don’t want to sit and listen to generic advertising aimed at no one in particular. They want to know why they should be personally invested in a given product or service.
Big data allows companies to make predictions about what each individual customer wants, and then automatically generate relevant material to be offered. For example, companies such as Amazon and Netflix use big data to provide custom product suggestions, personalized content, and other forms of personalized communication.
Customer Experience in The Age of Big Data
As companies collect more and more data on their customers, a mindful and customer-focused approach to analyzing this data will lead to improved customer service practices and consequently, a stronger customer experience. Knowing how to leverage big data for customer experience will, therefore, become imperative for any forward-looking business. Start using big data today, and prepare your company for a future dominated by big data.
About the Author: Daniel Bishop started off his career in digital marketing by working for a few local companies. After a year or two of learning different aspects of the job, he moved on and worked for DesignRush as a content advisor. Right now working for ReallySimpleSystems as an assistant editor and marketing consultant. Other than that he enjoys good coffee and Otis Redding.
