Do you know everything there is to know about your customers? It's possible with customer knowledge tools!
How important is customer knowledge ? Far from being just another customer relationship management trick, good customer knowledge can be a real driver of growth for your business.
Indeed, your organisation's success depends on its ability to respond as effectively as possible to the needs and expectations of its customers, in order to satisfy them and ultimately win their loyalty. Let's not forget that customers are one of the most precious resources in any business!
So what exactly is at stake when it comes to knowing your customers and developing your business? How can you better understand who your customers are? What data should you rely on, and what tools should you use to gather it?
Now is the time to learn how to break down the masks, so that your customers no longer hold any secrets from you and your customer loyalty rates take off!
What is customer knowledge?
Customer knowledge refers to all the information a company holds on its customers. It refers to both the data collected by the company and all the resources it can put in place to enrich its customer database.
The aim of this approach is to obtain concrete data such as :
- a customer's contact details
- the history of their dealings with your company,
- consumption habits, etc.
It can go so far as to provide a detailed, even anticipatory, understanding of customers' preferences and needs, with a view to satisfying them more effectively.
From personal data to transactional data, every piece of customer information contributes to the success of your projects, at every level and in every department of the company (sales, marketing, customer support, etc.).
Gathered, exploited and analysed with care, this data helps you to develop the most effective customer-centric strategy possible.
Here are the main types of data that make up customer insight:
- Socio-demographic data (age, level of education, family situation, etc.),
- purchasing behaviour (purchase history, product returns, services used, etc.),
- interactions with the brand (preferred channels, use of customer support, time spent on the pages of your site, abandonments detected during the user journey, etc.),
- social activity (comments on social networks, shares, messages, etc.),
- customer feedback (opinions, feedback on a satisfaction questionnaire, etc.).
The more varied and numerous this data is, the more useful it becomes in providing a 360° view of your typical customer or marketing persona.
What are the challenges of customer knowledge?
The need to adapt to changes in behaviour
With digital technology playing a growing role in their lifestyles, customers are proving to be more complex to satisfy than ever: more demanding, more connected, better informed, adept at new technologies, looking to buy more consciously, less excessively, etc.
For their business to prosper, brands need to continue to win over their customers and win new hearts. That's why it's in their interests to pull together all the elements they can to prepare for changing consumer behaviour, so that they can adapt to these changes and continue to evolve in the right direction.
This can take the form of :
- Better communication of brand values,
- greater transparency in the production chain
- a smooth , pleasant customer experience across all channels, etc.
💡 Brands that choose to listen to their customers and take these expectations on board as they go along avoid the risk of their customers turning away from them in favour of the competition.
Continuously improving your value proposition
Knowing your customers' needs, expectations and preferences is a great asset for your company. It gives you invaluable indicators for formulating a product and service offering that is always as close as possible to their expectations, and for developing it by adapting it to your targets.
By studying their behaviour and their interactions with your brand, as well as their direct feedback, you know exactly what you need to work on: from the design of your products to any friction points that need to be eliminated in order to offer a quality service.
You can remove bottlenecks and make a real qualitative difference, a real differentiating asset in a hyper-competitive market where offers tend to look the same: stand out for your remarkable service and your ability to delight customers!
Advances in predictive analysis
Customer knowledge can also go as far as predicting future customer behaviour, so that you can roll out a tailored range of products and services with a head start.
Cutting-edge technologies such as Big Data, machine learning and artificial intelligence enable brands to detect changes in consumer desires and expectations and adapt their offering accordingly.
Predictive customer analysis enables brands to be agile and proactive in developing tailor-made offers to ensure complete customer satisfaction.
Customer knowledge and loyalty
Customer knowledge is an essential step in building and enhancing your customer loyalty strategy.
You collect and analyse data that gives you a better understanding of your customers and enables you to serve them better by acting on several levels:
- proposing an offer that perfectly meets an identified need , or even exceeds their expectations;
- studying the customer journey to constantly improve it, personalise it and offer a memorable customer experience.
👉 The key? More informed decision-making, more effective marketing campaigns, and ultimately greater customer satisfaction. Customer loyalty itself generates sales, by encouraging renewed shopping experiences and higher average shopping baskets.
How can we get to know our customers better?
The question is: how can you get to know your customers better? Here are 4 steps to help you discover your customers' secrets right away:
1 - Exploit every possible channel
Your aim is to gather all the information that will help you obtain the most complete and accurate picture of your customers. To do this, all sales and communication channels are good ways of enriching your customer knowledge:
- your website
- your points of sale
- social networks
- your customer relations centre, etc.
💡 Set up systems to collect this data and involve all the departments concerned, particularly your customer support team.
This is made easier by the digitalisation of customer relations: you'll be able to understand your customers' interactions across a multitude of contact points, and pinpoint what's working or what's lacking.
2 - Identify relevant indicators
It's not just a question of getting to know your customers better, but also of identifying the best indicators, which are the most revealing for you, in terms of :
- customer satisfaction: health score, brand recommendation index (NPS or Net Promoter Score), difficulties encountered (CES or Customer Effort Score), etc. ;
- consumption habits : frequency of purchases, preferred consumption channels or locations, tools or services used, etc.
- digital behaviour: connection times, time spent on key pages of your site, purchases made, shopping basket abandonment, etc.
- exchanges with your after-sales service: problems encountered and/or resolved, sources of dissatisfaction, etc.
3 - Segment your customer database
Refining your knowledge of your customers also means knowing how to segment them. To do this, try to establish typologies of consumers who are interested in your brand, by grouping them according to different criteria:
- socio-demographic: age, income, level of education, etc.
- psychographic: personality, interests, lifestyle, values, etc.
- geographical: place of residence, data from local sales outlets, such as checkouts, interactions with sales staff, services available on site, etc.
- behavioural: average basket, channel used, method of payment chosen, preferred delivery system, etc.
This will enable you to establish buyer personas so that you can :
- target your marketing campaigns more effectively
- deliver more effective messages
- personalise and improve your value proposition.
💡 Thinking carefully about segmenting your customers allows you to sort the data, organise it and exploit it intelligently. In the end, you're better able to take effective action based on the segments identified, at the right time and with the right message.
4 - Speaking directly to your customers
What better way of finding out what your customers want from you than by collecting feedback directly from them? Whether you use customer satisfaction forms or questionnaires on a particular issue, you are sending out a positive signal at the same time: their voice counts and you are taking it into account.
Design a precise, hard-hitting questionnaire that targets the information you want to obtain:
- Which of your products do they need?
- Which contact channel do they prefer (telephone, chat, email, face-to-face meeting, etc.)?
- What problems have they had with your brand? etc.
This data will be varied and of high quality, and will even enable you to gather the customer feedback that is essential for identifying your areas for improvement.
The 7 customer knowledge tools
- Marketing platforms: there are complete marketing platforms for deploying your marketing operations and setting up personalised customer journeys. Such is the case with Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Thanks to its Marketing Cloud Customer Data Platform tool, you can connect all the data from your different software applications and channels to gain a better understanding of each customer and their needs, and intelligently automate your targeting and segmentation actions.
- Customer Data Platform (CDP) : the solution that gives you a 360° view of your customer base. This is the case with software such as Twilio Segment, which collects, unifies and updates all your customer data, regardless of the channels used. The result is a host of benefits, including more relevant communications and an ultra-personalised customer experience.
- CRM : this software facilitates customer relationship management, centralising and sharing customer data throughout the company. It keeps track of the customer's history, from their purchases to their interactions with the brand, so that it can be analysed and used to offer them a personalised response.
- Web analytics tools: tools can help you gain a better understanding of the users of your website (e.g. Google Analytics), by exploiting data on their digital journey. By analysing this data, you can improve the way they search for information, navigate and carry out transactions.
- monitoring or social listening tools : specialised software enables you to detect all mentions of your brand on the web, from forums to social networks and review sites, based on given terms (company name, product name, etc.). Observing conversations about your brand is a very useful way of expanding your customer knowledge.
- Satisfaction questionnaires : these surveys provide direct, accurate feedback and can be used in conjunction with customer satisfaction indicators (such as CES or NPS).
- Self-care tools : these are used to support customers and guide them through the process so that they can obtain information quickly and independently (e.g. dynamic FAQs, forums, chatbots, etc.). They are invaluable allies in providing you with information about your customers' uses, their digital behaviour and their main searches.
The importance of customer knowledge
Are you still wondering how useful customer knowledge is?
It's the first fundamental step in building effective marketing and sales strategies, whether it's improving customer service, winning new customers or proposing new offers in line with customer needs.
Turn customer knowledge to your advantage by using the maximum amount of information at your disposal to get to know your target from every angle. This will enable you to take the temperature of customer satisfaction, adapt your efforts accordingly and carry out targeted, highly personalised actions.
It's the best way of delivering a seamless customer experience that will make your offer more attractive, and the royal road to customer loyalty!
Article translated from French