Personalization isn’t an option in today’s market place. It is something customers expect as they interact with a brand. The Epsilon Report shows that over 80% of customers are likely to buy when a company offers a personalized experience. The good news is that you already have most of what you need to personalize customers’ journeys. The online data from sales, social media, and insights from all online touchpoints are a goldmine waiting to be explored. Customer service metrics like the first-person resolution can also be used to personalized customer experience.
However, merely having a ton of online data isn’t enough. It takes the right tool to make greater use of the online data you currently have. That’s where a CDP comes in.
A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is the most popular tool companies adopt to make the most out of their online data. It’ll allow you to understand customers’ behavior and create the best strategies to personalize the customer journey.
How CDPs Can Help With Personalization
Big tech companies have raised the standards. Customers now expect a business to provide relevant content and offers that appeal to them based on their past activities.
Customer Data Platform can create a hyper-personalized experience. It assembles online data from all touchpoints to provide a single profile for individual customers. CDPs use first-party data (data from customers that have made a purchase or shown interest in your company or product). So you can create a holistic view of each customer based on their preferences, purchase history, and behavior. It’s the detailed profile and real-time activations that enable personalization.
CDPs also allow integration with other tools to provide real-time personalization across all channels. When you put CDPs to work on your online data, it bridges the knowledge gap. This allows you to better understand your customers and provide the best services available.
Here Are 10 Ways You Can Leverage Online Data To Improve Customer Experience
Personalized Emails
Emailing is still one of the most effective marketing tools available to businesses. Sending generic email messages to your customers reduces its effectiveness. When your message speaks directly to a customer’s need, it creates a deeper connection between your brand and the individual. Reports suggest email personalization can increase your open rate by 26%.
When you use online data for email campaigns, it will appeal to customer’s interests, leading to higher conversion and retention. The online data from Customer Data Platforms enable you to determine where a customer is in their journey. You will be able to dive deeper into available customer online data and use it to compile accurate predictions of their current interest. So that you can craft a more compelling email copy.
Some marketers reported a 760% revenue increase due to personalized email marketing campaigns.
Improved Market Targeting
Imagine a world where you can tell what everyone who visits your site or social media handle want. That’s the perfect world. Consumers expect companies to know a lot about them, especially after a transaction. So you must strive to understand who your customers are and what they need.
CDPs allow you to achieve that. You’ll be able to get a clear picture of ‘who’ you are marketing to and predict their likelihood to make a purchase. This will, in turn, help you get a clearer picture of who your target market is.
Build Customer Loyalty
How do you become friends with someone? By building a relationship with them. You learn about them, and they learn about you. Attaining customer loyalty is like building friendship. CDPs allow you to build a rich profile of every one of your new and existing customers. You can then use that data to build your relationship with them.
For instance, let’s say a customer buys a dress of a specific size. You can use that online data to recommend a similar shirt of the same size at a discount. Such actions will make the customer feel valued and would build their loyalty.
Streamlined Customer Experience
When a customer chats up a business to complain, they’re initiating a conversation—one that a company can use to maximize its customer online data.
However, modern customers have a lot of options and very little time to spend. That is why companies need to streamline their services to avoid wasting their customers’ time. With a Customer Data Platform, you can assemble first-party data on your customer to optimize the customer experience.
Metrics like the first context resolution (FCR) and average handling time (AHT) tell you about your company’s customer service performance. Tracking these metrics would help you identify areas of improvement in your customer service practices.
For instance, if a customer has to re-route whenever they call. It’ll be more efficient to improve the IVR menus’ efficacy or put more experienced agents to the role. This will ensure that you don’t waste your customers’ time by placing them on hold for too long.
Better Recommendations
A recommendation is an effective way to upsell to your customers. But while making similar recommendations to a group of customers may sound like a plan, it barely scratches the surface. Customers want offers that are relevant and engaging. CDPs machine learning algorithms are capable of delivering more personalized recommendations. Since a CDP collects data from various channels to create a single customer profile. It’s easier to apply the behavioral data you have to enhance recommendations.
For instance, if your data shows that a customer is searching to buy a house in Manhattan. You can quickly make a compelling video of the properties you have there. Followed by information like nearby leisure sites, where to eat, schools for kids, and so on, and send to them. The more you Carter for customers’ individual needs, the more likely they’re to buy from you. 61% of customers care more about getting the right offer than their privacy.
Improved Communication
Customer feedback and satisfaction can help improve interactions with customers. Feedbacks on products provide insight into your customers’ thoughts and are a goldmine for personalization.
For instance, if a customer leaves feedback about a specific product been unfit for them, the products shouldn’t be offered to them in the future.
Similarly, if a customer complains about a customer service agent not been polite, the company can look into it. The employee can be trained on how to better interact with customers.
Improving your communication with customer will enhance their trust and increase customer retention.
Optimize Customer Journey
Once a customer feels they’re not getting as much care as they should, it will only be a matter of time before they go to another competitor. For instance, if your online store is difficult to navigate, customers may become confused about how to continue with the transaction.
Checking to ensure your customer journey is efficient is necessary to keep your customers. Look through your process and collect data on the various processes, from the ease of finding products to carting and placing orders. If any of those processes is complicated, find ways to improve it.
Emotional Connection
Customers’ emotion plays a vital role in their relationship with brands. Using online data to understand how customers feel about your brand is critical for connecting with them at an emotional level.
Emotional data sources include customer surveys, social media comments, feedback, and more. It’s important to analyze emotional data to understand customer needs and improve products and services. CDPs collect data from all sources, so you’ll have a clear picture of what your customers think of your organization.
Personalized Customer Service
Customers’ demands are endless, and a bulk of these demands rest on the customer service agent. CDP Data allows customer service representatives to connect with the customer at a personal level.
With adequate online data at their disposal, it will be easier to solve buyers’ problems and answer their questions and inquiries. This is particularly why companies are deploying AI chatbots in their customer service.
The more data there is about a customer, the easier it will be to understand who they are and their problem. Let’s say a customer calls in about a product purchased. The representative may not offer efficient solutions without the online data on previous transactions.
But when there are adequate data, the representative may even identify the customer by name. That’ll make them feel valued, and the issue will be quickly resolved.
Segmentation For Personalized Marketing
Customer Data Platforms don’t just enable customer segmentation. They allow hyper-segmentation of customers. By dividing your customers into various groups based on their personas, you’ll be able to serve them better-personalized content. For instance, you can group all customers who intend to buy a product into a specific group and send them copies aimed at attaining conversion.
You can also segment based on demographics, income level, personal belief, and interest. These will allow you to tailor your marketing activities to suit each customer groups or even individual customers. This way, whatever you send to anyone will be relevant to them.
Conclusion
CDPs allow you to understand your customers’ experience and provide insights on how to optimize them. Tracking online data about customer interaction will enable you to personalize the customer experience.
Your company will remain dynamic and relevant as you continue to align with your customers evolving interests.