How can you get a deeper understanding of your customers for 2016?

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We are all trying to be more customer centric, but it isn’t easy. Here are some practical tips to help you be more productive in 2016.

How to Get a Deeper Understanding of Your Customers for 2016

1. suitecx ©2015, suitecx Inc. December 20, 2015 Customer Experience Management: How can you get a deeper understanding of your customers for 2016? We are all trying to be more customer centric, but it isn’t easy. Here are some practical tips to help you be more productive in 2016. 1. Use more Unstructured Data Almost 80% of customer data is unstructured. Unstructured data includes social media posts, mobile data such as geolocation and app engagement, audio, video and photos, call center recordings, product reviews, etc. It’s time for companies to put a plan in place to capture this data and use it to make better business decisions. Text analytics can help you start to understand the unstructured text, extract relevant data, and transform it to structured, usable information. Companies are deploying enterprise content management systems and services like Hadoop to help with capturing, storing data and making sense of it all. Thought Leadership “It’s time to create a data management plan and get started. Without data, you simply can’t act on any of your CX strategies.” Darcy Bevelacqua, VP of Sales, SuiteCX 2. Conduct Journey Mapping and Ethnographic Research Suddenly everyone is talking about journey mapping, but most organizations don’t take the time to do the detailed work to understand what actually happens at each touch-­‐point for each customer segment/persona. Instead companies brainstorm what they think might be happening (inside out) and hope that this is enough. In addition, organizational silos incent each department differently and do not reinforce getting the customer experience right. It’s time to do the real work of journey mapping, mystery shopping and ethnographic research. Talk to real customers to find out what they are trying to accomplish and then think through ways to deliver a better experience. A better experience may not be fixing what you do now; it may be creating something totally different. Also, create incentives that cross organizational boundaries to fix the core CX problems, and create cross-­‐company teams to design the improvements. Keep in mind you may need more training or expertise to help you utilize journey maps to your best advantage, but once you have done the work the benefit will be clear and measurable. 3. Deploy Machine Learning and A/B testing Companies are feeling the pressure to get smarter more quickly. Customers are savvy to most traditional marketing gimmicks and don’t have the tolerance for irrelevant messaging. It’s time to begin ongoing A/B or multivariate testing and deploy machine learning to understand what resonates best for each customer segment, journey, and lifecycle stage. Deploy technology to help you
2. suitecx ©2015, suitecx Inc. December 20, 2015 About SuiteCX® Backed by over 120 years of combined experience in customer experience consulting, SuiteCX is a set of software tools that allow users to make fact based decisions and process improvements that are grounded in the customer experience. Customer-­‐centric diagnostics, touch inventories, journey maps, customer storytelling and precision marketing are all components of this groundbreaking software. Thought Leadership learn faster so you know precisely when to send offers, when to send content and when to ask questions. Stop sending out communications based on your time schedule and start using what you know (e.g., location, time of day, browsing behavior, recent purchases, customer lifecycle, LTV etc.) to communicate more effectively and measure what works. 4. Build one centralized customer database At the moment companies are targeting devices, not people. Create a common sign-­‐in or unique id that tracks consumers across their devices to deliver a connected experience. Work on creating a single customer view to start targeting individuals according to their needs, preferences and lifetime value. It’s time to create a data management plan and get started. Without data, you simply can’t act on any of your CX strategies. While these things are not easy to do, the time to get started is now. Building a long-­‐term, sustainable and relevant relationship with customers and prospects will ensure that you can weather the storm of industry disruptions.