It Pays to Know Your Customers

Author: Meghan Villard

Companies that are not paying attention to their customer experience (CX) will soon realize that their customers are not paying attention to them either. Oracle recently did a study to find:

• 89 percent of consumers say they have switched brands because of poor CX
• 20 percent of consumers are actually willing to pay more for a better purchase experience

From a business perspective, executives estimate that not offering a positive, consistent, and brand-relevant customer experience costs them 20 percent of their annual revenue. That’s a lot of cash left on the table when you consider poor customer experiences are completely preventable.

We should be thinking about CX differently – beyond the “customer experience” to “people experience”. The focus should be on everyone’s experience, even if they are not a customer. And how do you go beyond the sales cycle to understand “people”? You do so with data.

Typically, companies view data as the information that is explicitly provided – the items on a receipt or a customer email address. Advanced analytics can go way beyond this structured data into the social cues, the hints of clickstream data, the chatter on social media – all to better understand who the customer is and what they desire.

Data is the key ingredient to an advanced CX strategy. Companies hit a ceiling of CX potential when they lack personal or in-depth knowledge and information about their customers.

A recent panel hosted by Colorado Technology Association and led by Chris Sansone, Director of Customer Experience at RevGen, provided the following examples of companies using advanced analytics to drive CX:

• Inspirato – The luxury hospitality company tracks how travelers like their temperature in each place they stay. They use AI and smart home technology as an invisible hand for a seamless and positive experience. See, data isn’t creepy – data is cool.
• Colorado Rockies – The pro baseball team has an eerily large amount of data on their fans. So, the Rockies asked this key question: What do we do with the data that will benefit both parties? The answer: they dug deep to learn even more about their demographics and built a rooftop bar that has allowed them to fill 5,000 empty seats with those fans who want to socialize during the game.
• Amazon – Amazon has moved from personalization and recommendations to tapping into your emotions. They have built the feature that tracks your package beyond the “delivered” status. You can now watch the location of the delivery truck and see when “you’re next” so you know exactly when to expect your package. What drives this? Data, AI, and technology. And how do you feel as a customer? Pretty dang good.

The takeaway lesson: It pays – literally – to know your customers. And when you think you know them, get to know them even better. Use the velocity and variety of data that exists to understand a situation from a customer’s point of view, and then craft an appropriate interaction.

Data and AI are on the rise, but so are customer expectations. Use this disruptive environment to your advantage, and make it a positive experience for your customers, your potential customers, and for you as a business.

Meghan Villard is an analytics manager at RevGen who believes every dataset has a story – one that impacts a company and can help deliver on business goals.