Ecommerce businesses generate a lot of information about customers. Your customers are likely to leave feedback via customer service, social media, or reviews. You can use the wealth of information that you already have to improve your business and make your customers happy.
Listening to the other side is essential for business success, whether it be in personal relationships or sales. Effective listening goes beyond just hearing other people’s concerns. You must also understand the issues they are raising and then address them.
This article will provide a brief overview of how to integrate customer data into your business improvement efforts. We will discuss where data can be found and some of the more unusual ways to use it.
What is Customer Data?
Data is practically currency in today’s digital world. Your business can make informed decisions by using data. Many business owners don’t have a clear understanding of the nature and purpose of customer data.
Every interaction your customers have with your website, social media, advertisements, or communications, they produce data. Customers also provide valuable information when they buy your products. This information is called customer data. You can record the data that a user provides when they enter your eCommerce site. Analytics allows you to see:
- What visitors see
- When a purchase is made
- Browsing and buying habits
One concept is what personalization is. This is the advantage of data usage for eCommerce customer service. Data can be used to understand your customers and to show personalized offers and other content to them based on past product views, past purchase, demographics and content interactions.
Chatbots are gaining popularity with customers and retailers alike. 80 percent of brands intend to use chatbots in 2020. Chatbots are also preferred by customers. More than half of the 1,000 respondents said they would prefer chatbots if they could save time.
Aerie, a store selling lingerie and clothing, has implemented a chatbot to serve their Millennial and Gen Z customers. The chat platform Kik was used by the team to allow customers to browse products according to their preferences. The Facebook chatbot displays a range of products that can be used in “this” and “that” scenarios. The chatbot saves the customer’s favorite product for future product suggestions.
Anecdotal customer data is where the information is based on one person’s experiences. You can also use other types of data to reach your entire audience. These two types of data can be combined to help improve your business in many ways, as we will see later.
Unexpected places can contain data
Data can come from many places in the world of online businesses. To understand and solve difficult problems, you can use data from many sources, including sales data, on-site analytics and advertising data. Let’s take a closer look at some of them.
Analytics
Analytics data can be used to identify confusion sources, whether you are using an external tool like Google Analytics or an integrated feature into your ecommerce platform. Are customers spending a lot of time on one page, but not making a purchase? Do you have a lower bounce rate during sales? Customers might stumble across an old ecommerce website. You may need to do a Magento Migration or upgrade your platform. To get a complete picture of how customers arrive at your site, you can also connect your analytics data to the Google Search Console.
Sales
You can use the information that you collect from each sale to determine which customers are most likely to buy your product. You can determine which products are most popular in what parts of the globe, which allows you to target your efforts to provide faster shipping and better customer service.
Marketing
Your marketing setup can give you valuable information, regardless of whether your company uses online advertising like Facebook ads or other marketing methods. This information can help you target your marketing efforts by identifying the most relevant audience segments. The open rate is useful for gauging the interest of your customers if you use email marketing. With better-targeted marketing, you can concentrate on gaining the most value from customers who are interested in your business.
These data sources are not the only ones that are most used. There are many other options. You might have specific information that could reveal valuable insights about customers to which your business has access.
Understanding Customer Attrition
Business owners can use data to identify and correct the root causes of customer loss in order to retain customers longer. Are customers more likely to buy one product, then move on? What is the part of the experience that encourages customers to leave? To model attrition, you can use both large-scale and specific data points.
Particularly, consider the last experience of customers. Customers who have purchased a product multiple times and never return to it again are likely to have had a bad experience.
A good way to measure your attrition is how many customers abandon a product after they have purchased it. If everything were perfect, every customer would return to your company. This is not always possible. The experiences and data of one-time customers can prove to be extremely valuable.
Combine general data from your customer base with specific cases to maximize your return on your investment in data analytics. You can use both types of data to understand and resolve specific problems, as well as get metrics that will help you continuously evaluate your performance.
Social media sentiments and customer reviews are valuable ways to stop attrition. These data points can reflect extreme views and are therefore more specific. People who haven’t had spectacularly positive or negative experiences are unlikely to make a review or post on social media.
Segment Your Audience
Marketing is based on the principle that what works for one customer may not work for another. Even though they may all be interested in the same product, your potential customers are not homogeneous. You can use the data from your customer base to market your product and stop guessing. This will help you build your business.
Sometimes, different customers prefer different sales channels. While Instagram Shopping may be the most popular channel for some customers, another audience might prefer to use your website. Your business will have a competitive edge by adapting to customer preferences.
Analytics platforms and advertising are two of the best ways to gather data to help you segment your audience. Platforms like Facebook and Google can help you determine the types of customers you reach by different ads. These platforms can help you determine the reach of your marketing efforts. This will allow you to target the most valuable customers or access the largest audience possible.
You may need to consider cultural and geographic differences in how your customers choose to advertise or promote your products. You can gain a better understanding of your customers’ origins by analyzing the traffic to your site and the addresses of those who have purchased your products.
Many ecommerce companies have products that are very popular with certain audiences. Your company may have a low-end product, which sells well to one segment, but another group prefers a higher-end product, but they buy less often. You can target the right customers by analyzing your data and comparing the purchase patterns of your customers.
Meet your customers on their preferred channels
You might be able, based on your sales and analytics data, to determine which social media channels and websites your customers use. Although hard data can help you optimize your business, it is not as important as the human touch that comes from speaking directly with customers.
Social media communication is direct and open, unlike other forms of communication. Your business can interact with customers directly by replying to comments, videos and posts with a message. This communication also represents your business to a large audience of existing and potential customers.
Customers will often comment on marketing announcements via social media platforms. Customers who respond to online businesses’ posts on social media make them feel heard and get lots of honest feedback. Your business should interact with customers on Twitter and TikTok.
Find New Niches
On-site analytics and traffic analysis can be used to identify unexpected geographical areas, keywords or demographics driving sales. You need to ask yourself if your business is adequately serving this new customer base. You might discover a new customer persona by analysing this data.
Many online shops sell customizable products. You can modify your products and market to reach new audiences and demographics.
Look for customer feedback if your company offers multiple levels of a product, such as a cheaper option or a more expensive one. Customers would like to see an option between the two? To drive pricing strategy, use customer data.
Find out your competition
Although most of the data you have access to tells you about your business, you can also infer some information about your competitors. Google searches, social media comments and likes, or simply browsing competitor’s websites, are all great ways to find out more about your business.
You can also see the effectiveness of your competitors’ social media and SEO strategies. These insights can help you improve your marketing. Is it possible that your competitors are successful in targeting niches on social media that you haven’t considered before? This audience might be a good target for future marketing.
You should also take note of which products are selling well among your competitors. It might be a smart idea to create a direct counterpart to a top seller from a competitor company if you don’t already have one.
The Big Picture
Building a successful online company should not be a daunting task. Online businesses have a few big advantages over brick and mortar establishments–among them, the ability to use various data sources to better understand and serve customers.
Target customers can benefit from traffic analysis, sales records, as well as marketing data. You can gain valuable insight about who is buying your products and services by using the right analysis strategies.
