5 things to assess when investing in Customer Analytics

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Customer Analytics Software

We are riding the customer experience wave where the customer, as the focal point, has now become more important than ever. Any and all data your business is able to gather on your customers is crucial in designing this experience. That said, how do you translate enormous amounts of raw customer data to digestible and importantly, actionable information? How can business owners work with insightful customer strategies – without blindly running marketing campaign after campaign – and use it to drive quality customer engagement and interactions?

Customer analytics is definitely a core part of any business in this time and age, to even stay relevant in the playing field. And when it comes to choosing a customer analytics software, there are just too many mind-boggling options that one simply doesn’t know which is the best fit.

There has to be some logical way of picking the right customer analytics platform simply because of two major reasons:

A. a wrong choice can be expensive and wasteful in the long run,
B. Also, a wrong choice might not provide tangible customer insight and set your customer success efforts in the wrong direction.

Both of these impacts defeat the entire purpose of investing in a customer analytics software and hence, it is extremely important to ascertain the right fit for your needs. Here, we have come up with 5 things you need to assess before choosing a customer analytics platform.

1. Assess the Purpose

What is your core objective of implementing a dedicated software for customer analytics?

• Is it to boost sales?
• Is it to tailor products to suit customer needs better by taking customer opinion?
• Is it to have a transactional record of all your customer interactions?
• Is it to have a transactional record of all your customer interactions?

Although the core objective of any business to boost profits, there can be several other objectives to understand a customer and invest in a solution to meet the same. These specifics help you filter out from your plethora of choices.

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution in this space simply because of the diverse objectives that vary from organization to organization. For instance, if you are looking to specifically deliver a delightful customer experience, then a survey tool alone might not serve the purpose. Establishing a clear purpose & defining the objectives can help you make a better choice.

2. Assess the Scale

One of the most crucial factors for choosing the right customer analytics software is the scale of your organization. Before making a purchase, it is very important to consider how feasible it is for your organization to scale up the software usage and get the best benefit out of it. Here are some scalability-based questions that you need to ask yourself before investing in a customer analytics tool:

• Do you have multiple stores spanning different locations?
• Do you want to collect data from all of these places at the same time?
• Do you have the resources to act upon the data that is collected?
• Are you trying to fix specific issues at a particular location alone?

A solution that gives you the flexibility to scale both upwards & downwards, depending on your need at that point of time can be an ideal fit for your business.

3. Assess Dynamism and Flexibility

The ways customers interact with your brand is constantly evolving. New channels of interaction are opening up at such a rapid pace that brands who fail to adapt, perish. So, in terms of being future-ready, how the customer analytics platform can help you collect customer data across multiple channels is a vital factor in determining the tool that best fits you. Some questions you need to ask yourself in this regard are:

• Does the software support omni-channel feedback collection?
• Do you have an omni-channel presence?
• Can the software ensure a degree of consistency across all these channels while your customers interact with you?
• Does the platform allow centralized data collection from all these channels?
• Is the data collected, collated in real-time, across multiple channels?

4. Assess Actionability

Analytics and insights are useful only when they are actionable. A tool must be capable of giving sharp insights which are actionable in real-time. The information it provides after all the analysis must be easily consumable and point to an action which can have an impact on the end consumer.

For example, when a customer is not too happy with the service at a particular store and this gets recorded in the feedback, immediate action from the management such as reaching out to the customer, making sure he’s made to feel better etc. go a long way in developing a positive customer sentiment.

• Does the software provide actionable insight?
• Does it allow configuration of workflows so that the insight reaches the right person at the right time?
• Does it provide insight which is contextual and relevant?

5. Assess Ease of Use and Affordability

Every organization has a very diverse workforce with a broad range of skillsets. A software meant for customer analytics is used by a wide range of employees – right from the operational level managers to C-level executives. The platform should be flexible & simple enough to facilitate this versatile usage across multiple levels of the organization.

At the same time, it is important to assess whether the tool comes with all the essential features & functionalities at a fair price? Depending on your requirements & the size of your business, it is essential to make sure how much investment is worth it on a customer analytics software.

• Is the software easy to set up and use?
• Does it allow easy collection of customer data?
• Does the tool have a friendly user-interface?
• Is the pricing clear, simple & unambiguous?
• Does it offer value for its price?
• Does it come with recurring fees such as annual maintenance & support fees?

Implementing a customer analytics software is a great initiative in understanding your customers better and putting your brand a step above the rest. After all, businesses are slowly moving from customer satisfaction to customer delight. And if you truly want to deliver customer delight, you need to do away with surface-level customer insights and get a deeper understanding of customer behavior. Take into account all the factors mentioned above and make the best choice of customer analytics software to bring more meaning & direction to your customer experience initiatives!

Ganesh Mukundan
Hiver
I'm a content marketer at Hiver. I've been writing about customer experience for the past 5 years. I'm passionate about narrating delightful customer stories, researching CX trends, and deep-diving into concepts such as VoC and Customer Journey Mapping.

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