Customer experience covers every stage of the consumer process – from discovery right through to purchase and then retention.
Focusing on that penultimate step, purchasing, is important, as it’s when customers will choose to open their wallets: Forbes estimates that 86% of consumers are willing to pay more if their experience has been positive. Fine-tuning this part of your customer experience is best achieved through the use of big data. Developing and properly deploying data sets will provide you with a clear path forward to inspire your customers and improve the terms of purchase.
Using modern data
The first step in accomplishing this is through appreciating the value of modern data. Wharton highlights how this can be done, and especially so in the modern marketing world, which is moving away from third-party cookies. Start collecting data on the other stages of your customer experience right now. New forms of analytics to reflect a changing marketing and business world are essential: apply an agile mindset to using data, and use a platform that supports this. Full-process data management and analysis data used via a marketing platform can help with this. Industry experts behind the UniFi Guest Portal outline how this can be of benefit: having ‘constant flow’ data located on the same multi-functional dashboard can help you to capture very new consumer trends to make use of.
Utilizing new data
These new modern data flows are key, according to McKinsey. In their report on modern marketing techniques, they highlighted the need to obtain new, better data-sets as key. Putting these to work is the next challenge, and something every business should consider in depth. McKinsey uses the example of a retail chain that showed the movement of demographics in their consumer base. Through this, they could establish what areas to target in terms of marketing, and aim to make improvements. Identifying a trend within the consumer base, and then expanding marketing efforts to encourage more activity from there, is putting data to good use.
Driving up engagement
The ultimate retailer wants their customers to purchase, and want to purchase again – hopefully on every time they need products within that industry. Achieving this is difficult, but made easier through 360 feedback from your data. Be collecting data at every stage in the sale process, including the final purchase. Demographics, feedback, and customer purchasing trends can feed into a sophisticated model that reveals what really makes your consumer base tick. Studies have shown the effectiveness of such a model: one 2018 study authored by researchers with the Otto von Guericke University, Germany, clearly established how deploying data in this fashion leads to greater levels of customer retention associated with having the full picture of consumer habits.
Data is a great tool in terms of improving customer purchase experience. It can only succeed when using new data, and when deployed in a smart fashion. Treating data holistically, and aiming to gather and employ it at all stages of the customer experience, is the trick to succeeding in this area of your marketing strategy.
