Insight is the fuel which drives the engine of customer-focused organisations and enables informed businesses to craft compelling and engaging customer experiences. Leading brands are using it to engage, acquire, understand and increase the loyalty of their customers. Here are the best ways to create robust insight from us – a customer insight consultancy.
How do we qualify insight in all the noise?
The challenge for many organisations is in the extraction of meaningful and actionable customer insight from the vast quantities of data that they are operating with. Actionable insight should:
Align – Connect with the ambitions, goals and strategy of the business.
Have a business context – Inform the business within the context of it’s existing operations.
Be relevant – Align with the issues and ambitions that the business currently faces.
Present something new – Tell the business a new story.
Have clarity – Be easily understood by all stakeholders.
Any brands that have transformed their business with customer insight?
Metro Bank’s customer insight
Insight: 24% of the UK population own a pet dog and, 19% of the population are young children. Banks have a reputation for not being child or animal friendly environments.
Action The bank decided to focus on delivering a great experience to children and pets in order to increase account holders’ loyalty. They did this by providing free water and food for dogs in all branches along with a kid’s area which keeps children occupied whilst account holders are doing their banking.
Three Mobile’s customer insight
Insight: Data usage increased by 71 times when individuals were abroad on holiday; due to the posting of holiday snaps on social media.
Action. Three launched the award-winning, highly successful “holiday spam” advertising campaign which saw a 90% increase in social conversations involving Three.
Netflix’s customer insight
Insight: Netflix understood the inputs of a customer insight consultancy and made the best use of their customer data. It has a huge amount of data which reveals the viewing habits and preferences of their customers – leading to the discovery that their customers prefer high quality dramas.
Action Netflix commissioned (and then produced) a string of quality dramas, beginning with smash hit series, House of Cards. By giving customers more of what they want, the business has quadrupled its subscriber base since 2012.
So what are the 11 techniques to develop actionable customer insight – from a customer insight consultancy?
- Panel based surveys – Running online surveys to ask target customers questions about their issues, needs and desires can inform businesses on how to improve marketing messages, customer experience and product innovations.
- Customer interviews – Interviewing existing customers to reveal what they like and dislike about a product or service can help businesses deliver better service and customer experiences as well as retain their customers for longer.
- Secondary research – Secondary research produced by specialist research houses is a helpful shortcut which businesses can use to better understand a new market or business opportunity.
- Usability studies – Website usability studies can reveal how customers are interacting and engaging with a website and therefore help businesses to improve the digital experience and their customer conversions.
- Customer segmentation – Understanding the different clusters of customers that a brand has can help businesses provide more contextually relevant and segment-specific communications which improve engagement, conversions and customer loyalty.
- Product affinity analysis – Analysing sales data can help businesses identify customers who are likely to want to buy a new product that their business is launching. This can be invaluable in driving sales for a new product launch.
- Search analysis – Analysing search trends on Google can reveal the questions that prospective customers may have about a product or service – and can inform how customers think about it. This can be very helpful in crafting marketing messages and producing more effective content for prospective customers, accelerating sales conversions.
- Social media listening – Listening to social media chatter around a brand, product, category or competitor set can unearth insights about the customer’s attitude and outlook in order to better meet their needs.
- Customer feedback loops – Creating opportunities for customers to give feedback on their experience can inform organisations on how they can improve products and customer service.
- On-site search – On-site search analysis is often overlooked but can reveal the psychology of a brand’s website visitors. This can be used to better organise and structure the information, navigation and user journey on a site.
- Competitor analysis – Analysing the competitor’s marketing strategy can reveal opportunities for brands to accelerate marketing performance. Competitor brand analysis can help brands develop stronger differentiation against their competitors.
Implementing all of the above should become part of any brand’s strategy. Gaining true insight into customer desires and behaviours is a clear way towards profit.
