Customer analytics is one of the most in-demand applications of data analytics solutions.
In the last three years, its global usage, across a wide range of industries, has risen by more than 40% (Accenture).
However, while customer analytics works well in isolation, it works best with data visualization.
Let’s understand why.
Understanding customer analytics
Customer analytics is the practice of collecting and analyzing customer data in order to better understand your customers. It provides an understanding of what your customers expect, and how and when they expect it.
The understanding is communicated via insights — behavioral patterns, such as buying your products or services, or how they interact with your website or application.
Insights help you anticipate customer needs and pain points in the future, so that you can readjust your strategy and make the necessary, well-informed decisions to address and solve them.
Here are a few decisions businesses can make based on customer analytics —
- Identifying and bridging gaps in short-term and long-term strategy
- Improving sales
- Benchmarking
- Improved, customer-centric product development
- Strengthening customer satisfaction and retention
- Accurate, data-driven hyper-targeted advertising and marketing
Integrating data visualization with customer analytics
Customer analytics solutions offer many more incredible benefits. Some benefits are direct while others are indirect. But each benefit can be viewed as a combination of learning and acting.
Consider user engagement, for example.
Customer analytics solutions offer deep insights into the needs and expectations of not just your customers, but also consumers who have stumbled upon your website or application for the first time. The insights allow you to understand what perceived value-add it is that could convert them into customers. And the same system of monitoring and analyzing data can drive satisfaction, retention, and hence revenue. And why is that? Well, because the truth is, customers are willing to pay more if you can anticipate their demands, if you can know what they want before they want it.
That said, customer insights cannot be acted upon if they are not communicated to full effect. As businesses, we shouldn’t just leverage customer analytics to anticipate customer demands, but we must also leverage data visualization to effectively communicate what we learn, so that our teams can make the most of the learnings.
Data visualization solutions translate customer insights into graphs and other representations of data, making them easier to comprehend. And when personalized for every team, from sales to support, they ensure that the transition from learning to acting is smooth and foolproof. By ensuring that, businesses ensure that each team knows what to do with complete clarity.
Integrating data visualization with customer analytics is critical because, at the end of the day, communication dictates the success of strategic actions. After all, it’s the bridge that connects learning with acting.
