Customer experience: unleash the power of data!

Collecting customer data is no longer enough - you have to act on it!

"2016 promises to be a lively year when it comes to customer relations. It will be a year in which companies that develop real efforts to improve customer relations will be rewarded, while those that have been downplaying their customers' needs for years will begin to wither away," confides Forrester in its study " Top 10 Success Factors to Determine Who Wins And Who Fails in the Age of the Customer " (1).

According to the report, customers will reward companies that anticipate individual needs and make use of the data they collect. On the contrary, companies that constantly have to ask for basic information, and are unable to "recognize" a customer, will start to lose them.

In short, Business Intelligence must create added value! Data collection must truly serve the customer experience!

Customers will no longer tolerate companies with amnesia when it comes to knowing their preferences.

 

explained Gene Alvarez, managing vice president at Gartner, at the Gartner Customer 360 Summit in September 2015 (2). It is therefore imperative for companies to recognize their customers and provide them with relevant content that demonstrates real effort.

Respect for confidentiality and privacy as a differentiating value

Consumers are used to brands collecting data, and are more or less in favor of it... But one thing is certain: if personal information is collected, then these consumers expect it to be useful!

Consumers demand that brands use data before they interact! All your customers know that you collect data, and they'll accept the idea more readily if it serves the experience they have with your brand.

 

To act, you need data. But be careful how you collect it. Data confidentiality and privacy have become key issues. We can no longer confine ourselves to the simple "legal" aspect, or even see data collection as a risk. Quite the contrary, in fact. It's a real opportunity to stand out from the crowd. We need to explain what the data collected is used for, and how it can be used to personalize our offering.

Customer involvement will thus become a lever for improving the relationship! In other words? According to Forrester, brands that get their customers more involved - through their loyalty programs, for example - will see the benefits.

Companies that launch customer-focused operations will gain real and lasting differentiation. Business as usual is doomed to failure.

 

Customers need to be involved in defining the brand and designing its products and services: who's in a better position to know their needs than they are? This is something our customer Castorama has understood very well: by means of questionnaires delivered via in-store touch-screen terminals, some of its sales outlets collect the opinions of their customers directly. This has enabled them to adapt the working hours of their teams, further improve customer service and develop new ideas based on reliable data obtained in real time.

Since the heart of customer relations is based on the personalization and contextualization of the offer, the consumer must be strongly involved, ideally at a very, very early stage. This is what our consultants contribute to, particularly when they implement a customer experience improvement coaching program .

Are you ready for these changes?