No matter what type of business you have — B2B, B2C, DTC, or even SaaS — you need to know how to harness customer information and insights to improve and grow your brand. Knowing what your customers think, want and are looking for in your products helps you adjust your business to their needs and provide better customer service.
But how do you know what customers are thinking? There are a variety of tools and channels you can use to tap into customer insights, which we will discuss in this post.
Social Media
The easiest way to get a pulse on what your customers are thinking is to engage with them on social media. Look for what posts people are liking and commenting on and be sure to always respond to comments. Certain marketing platforms even let you take messages from social media and plug them directly into your customer service pipeline.
The only drawback to using this channel for customer insights is that it can be very time-consuming. You’ll need someone on your staff dedicated to managing your social media presence, gathering data and analyzing results.
Imported Data
There are many companies on the market that provide first party data — also known as customer intent data. This type of data is gathered directly from consumers as they interact with your website or brand (via other platforms).
It captures information like what pages they’ve viewed, for how long, what they clicked on and if they purchased anything. Some services even include heat mapping data to help you get a better idea of what customers are interested in and where they’re spending the most time on your site.
Customer Surveys
Another way to gain more qualitative data about your customer’s experience with your brand is to issue post-purchase customer surveys. After someone makes a purchase from your website, you can automatically send them a survey via email.
These surveys give people a chance to tell you what they loved about your product and about any issues they had. Oftentimes, this is where companies gain the best insights about recurring problems in their processes or areas they could improve for their customers.
NPS Surveys
NPS (net promoter score) surveys help you gauge customer experience in a quantitative way. These are similar to customer surveys, but they ask people to rank their experiences from 1-10. Most NPS surveys have just 1-3 questions to keep it simple and easy to fill out.
As you gather scores, you add them to your overall total and then divide them by the number of responses. This gives you your NPS average. People who score your brand higher on the 1-10 scale are more likely to be brand promoters — meaning they will likely buy from you again and recommend your brand to others. People who score lower likely had a bad experience and are worth reaching out to to see if you can resolve any issues.
Reviews
Finally, customer insights can even be found in the reviews and testimonials you gather from customers. This is where they get to describe their experience and recommend your brand to others. Reviews can come in all forms and all places, such as Google reviews, social media posts, official testimonials on your website and more.
Be sure to read the reviews that come in about your business to ensure you’re delivering great products and great customer service. Keep in mind, some people might have a bad experience due to factors out of your control. That’s okay. Do your best to make the situation right and let that action speak for itself. Meanwhile, post good reviews on your website so others can see what a great product you have.
Customer insights go a long way to helping you build credibility and trust with your target audience. It tells you what you can improve and what you’re doing well so you know exactly where to focus your customer service efforts.
