Today’s businesses collect a wealth of data. If used correctly, this information can provide a competitive edge and unlock avenues for growth and innovation. Harnessing this information requires a solid understanding of what it is and how best to collect it. This article will outline the main customer data types and how to manage them effectively.

Customer Experience

Customer experience has become a key differentiator for businesses. It reaches beyond just how quickly your support agents respond to a ticket or the overall satisfaction with the product. It includes everything from how your company communicates with customers to how well you design a website. Providing a great customer experience helps increase brand loyalty and can even cut extra business running costs. All departments must understand their efforts’ impact on the customer experience and how customer data training can help them deliver on their company’s proposition. Training teams on collecting and analyzing data can help them make informed decisions that improve the customer experience. This includes solicited feedback and unstructured data, such as comments on social media or community forums. Natural language processing and text analytics can enable a team to identify valuable signals and turn them into insights quickly.

Customer Service

Customer service, or CSR, is a critical part of the customer experience and has the potential to create brand advocates, increase revenue, and differentiate companies from competitors. However, it requires regular training to ensure that representatives deliver a great customer experience. Customers expect their queries to be handled quickly, so companies should set clear response times and provide agents with the tools they need to meet these targets. Training them on active listening skills, empathy, and a friendly and personal tone is important. Some people will be willing to pay more for premium customer support experiences, so deciding if you want to offer your clients this is important. You can also train your customer service team on emotional intelligence to help them recognize when their heart is racing, or they’re flustered and take steps to manage those emotions. Achieving these goals takes time and dedication, but if your teams are equipped with the right resources, they can deliver impactful customer experiences.

Product Development

Product development covers everything that happens to a product or service, from concept to market release. During this stage, teams identify the need for a new or improved product based on customer conversations and market research activities. They then determine if the problem is worth solving with a product and what that solution should look like. They read and interview future customers, observe how others use existing products, and research offerings that compete with the proposed development. Then, they design and build a minimum viable product (MVP) capable of solving the identified problem. They also experiment with product features and pricing to gauge interest, test out marketing channels, and prioritize upcoming product releases. This ongoing process requires continuous monitoring and tracking to ensure the company is progressing toward its strategic goals.

Marketing

When it comes to generating more sales, marketing teams rely on the information generated by customers throughout their interactions with brands. Marketers should understand the different types of customer data to maximize their effectiveness. Basic customer data identifies individuals and includes demographics, purchase histories and more. It can be used to segment and target audiences for more personalized messaging.

Quantitative data includes metrics like click rates, conversions and more. It can be used to identify trends and patterns that are influencing performance. Attitudinal customer data goes beyond simple sentiment to reveal motivations and more. It is often gathered from reviews, surveys and social media. Smart tracking capabilities allow marketers to unite online and offline customer data into robust profiles for effective omnichannel communications. By continually onboarding offline data to match digital identifiers, marketers can ensure that all touchpoints are accounted for in their messaging and experiences. This is essential to achieving long-term customer retention and growth.