A customer’s purchase experience can tell your company a lot of helpful information. Each customer has a story to tell you to help you succeed. When reviewing multiple data points such as market research to make strategic decisions, don’t forget to listen to the data you have already directly and indirectly collected from your customers and what the information is trying to say. Here are four guidelines that you can utilize to listen and learn from your customer’s activity to help you grow your overall business.
Listen to Customer Website Activity Data
When a customer visits your company website, there are key data points to follow to understand the customer’s mindset. These data points include what items the customer clicked on, how much time they spent on the site, searches, and if any items are in a queue awaiting purchasing. These questions and many more on the website tell the story of the voice of the customer.
Website-driven analytics and machine learning can help you interpret actions and present options based on answering these questions. As a customer proceeds through the website, you can help guide the customer to improve the overall experience. One bad experience will turn away customers.
Listen to Customer Point of Sale Activity Data
Customer purchases are more than just money coming for your company. If most of your point-of-sale business is through a physical location, you need to decide if you need to expand the size of your store. Otherwise, if the majority is online, you need to determine if your business should focus more online and move away from a brick-and-mortar approach. Either way, you need to understand every time a customer visits your company and leaves without making a purchase.
The visit to your store should be a partnership with the customer. You want their experience to be great, and for them to have a vested interest in returning. Online activity can be tracked more effectively, but in-store experiences are closely monitored for non-verbal mannerisms to gauge customer satisfaction in person.
Listen to Customer Support Chat Session Data
Your chat communication vehicle should be a primary communication data tool if your business has an online presence. Every page should link your chat vehicle and allow the prospective or existing customer to sound off with questions or comments. The chat session may not result in a sale, but you will see patterns of data to evaluate the questions being asked by the customer.
This data pattern will tell you if questions are proactive and trending toward sales. The data may also speak to customer dissatisfaction. You need to have a pulse on customer satisfaction and find the balance between a personal touch and machine learning to improve customer experience.
Listen to Customer Online Survey Data
Another solid piece of customer data is via an online satisfaction survey. Although many people don’t respond to these surveys, the ones that do can tell you valuable data about the whole experience with your company. Your customer records will show you who is a repeat customer and who is the one who responds to surveys.
More times than not, a response to a survey will focus on a customer’s bad experience with your company. It would help if you embraced the feedback as a learning lesson. Having this data visible to the public helps prospective customers to see what complaints were lodged and your response to the complaints. Most importantly, your response shows the steps you take to address concerns and prevent a recurrence.
The world is a competitive space, and many companies fail for multiple reasons. The important thing is if the company knows how to listen to what the customer is saying through numerous data points that the company can utilize to make actionable decisions. Ultimately, if you understand the customer voice and mindset, you will be a step ahead in pursuing a sustainable business approach.
