The way people shop online has changed drastically in modern times. A study from Dimensional Research showed that around 90 percent of people cited that their purchase decision depended highly on positive reviews. While 86 percent of people said negative reviews made them leave the product/service altogether. This shows how much consumers are likely to investigate a service than relying on the words said by a company. Hence, companies must always be on their front lines when it comes to understanding their customers. With this understanding, they must predict and address any issue even before they arise. They can achieve all of this via customer intelligence.

Understanding Customer Intelligence

Just like Business Intelligence where business information is collected and analyzed, Customer Intelligence deals with customer information to make better marketing decisions. It is the process of collecting and analyzing information about the customers and their activities. When combined with the Customer Relationship Management System, you have a robust customer relationship strategy for improved customer service and increased customer retention. Around 84 percent of marketing executives agree on the importance of customer experience and prioritize customer-oriented strategies. However, only fourteen percent of them report that they have strong capabilities in that area. Consequently, Consumer Experience has become a key factor for businesses to stand out from the increasing competition. The better the understanding of customers, the more chances are that business will benefit from customer intelligence.

The need for customer intelligence rise from the influx of a large amount of data generated by customers every day. Wilson Raj, Global Director, Customer Intelligence at SAS, explains, “We’re seeing advanced analytics trends such as the growth of AI and AI apps, open-source computing for innovation, the emergence of the cloud for data and analytics. The convergence of all these trends is overwhelming for organizations. They want simplicity. They want more automation. Automation of analytics is at the heart of automation technologies for marketing and sales.”

Trends In Consumer Intelligence Marketing

Artificial Intelligence

With artificial intelligence set to monitor customer intelligence data, marketers can enhance customer experience with better personalization. AI will filter out what audience groups to exclude and which to include in a campaign. Consequently, they can increase their chances of customer conversion and offer better services/products. Overall, AI will deliver a customer journey and analytics to help them engage the right customers, across the right channels, at the right time.

Mobile Data

With smart handheld devices in everybody’s hands, mobile data has become one of the most focused areas of customer intelligence marketing. Any move made by the customer on mobile will help businesses to reflect on the customers’ insights and data and deliver better online services.

Localization

With localization, marketers can use demographic information and understand the way consumers engage with the brand via different locations. This demographic information further comes in handy while designing ad campaigns by leveraging location and tailored messaging directly related to customer needs.

Predictive Analytics

With AI, mobile data, and a localization set, all types of consumer interactions can be mapped out to predict consumer’s future behavior via Predictive Analytics. Understanding customer intent and pinpointing their stage in the buyer’s journey will allow marketers to come up with relevant offerings at the right time and on the most relevant medium.

Real-time Analytics

Harvard Business Review’s Real-Time Analytics: The Key To Unlocking Customer Insights & Driving The Customer Experience finds that customer analytics are essential for improving customer experiences across all marketing, selling and service channels an enterprise relies on. Based on interviews with more than 560 business leaders, the study finds that banking, retail, and telecommunications have the greatest upside growth potential from adopting customer analytics. Real-time analytics assist advertisers to boost campaign productivity and profitability while driving value to consumers. An example of such would include Retailers directing consumers down the path of purchasing and giving them relevant information, material, or deals during their shopping journey at the right time.