Drive revenue with customer analytics

If you’ve ever watched The Office, you might remember the episode when Dwight and Jim discover that their customers have been giving them terrible reviews. They’re in total and utter denial — “The reason that I got bad customer reviews is because I didn’t! There is a massive conspiracy going on here!” Dwight protests.

While The Office is hardly a blueprint for workplace best practices, this exchange offers valuable insight into a startling reality: If Dunder Mifflin had a data and analytics plan that factored in customer satisfaction, Dwight and Jim probably wouldn’t have been taken by surprise. Like Dunder Mifflin, small and medium-sized businesses might not have the same muscle to exercise a comprehensive, full-bodied data and analytics strategy. They’re working with less people, fewer support tickets, and fewer chances to prioritize and iterate on feedback.

Yet at this stage, businesses have a chance to think about CX data with fresh eyes: Customer feedback can be gathered, iterated on, and influence revenue generation down the line. Their customer relationships can be looked at as data points to help them understand their customers’ needs.

Companies that measure performance provide better service

We live in an age where personalized customer experience matters. The Zendesk CX Trends report found that 50% of customers will ghost after one bad experience — and that number rises to 80% when bad experiences pile up. CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) and NPS™ (Net Promoter Score™) can help agents measure their performance and help people across the organization, from product and marketing to sales, see where to work towards improvements.

Vincent Phamvan, CMO at Simplr argues that beyond metrics like CSAT and NPS™, metrics like Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) are crucial for long-term growth. “Solutions that provide a unified view of the customer, and easy integrations, allow customer service teams to see relevant account data,” Phamvan writes in Relate, “ — and provide sales reps with context into the service history and health of a customer’s account—vital knowledge before attempting an upsell or contract renewal.” Phamvan raises a sobering point: As companies grow, customers suffer. Tracking relevant and actionable data so that your growing business understands your customers’ needs, whether that’s in customer support, buying behaviour, product quality — truly every aspect of your company — is crucial to providing the best CX possible.

Turning insights into actions

Every interaction you have with your customer is part of a larger conversation. CX experts always talk about keeping your customer at the center of your vision, but what does that actually look like? If the relationship you have with your customer could be plotted on a chart, it would be all over the place.

Maybe it’s purchase history, abandoned shopping carts, or returned merchandise. Maybe it includes conversations with customer support, open rates of outbound emails, and CSAT ratings. Maybe it’s a comment left on a social media page. When all of this information is available to your business — and it should be — you can glean incredible insights to adjust your roadmap and drive revenue. In fact, 64% of SMB leaders agree that creating customer profiles with this info helps their team provide better service! When all this data from thousands of transactions is analyzed, clear patterns will emerge.

Similarly, being able to visualize patterns in customer behaviour can clarify whether a small vocal minority is not an accurate reflection of the habits of your customer majority. A negative comment on social media can be alarming — but if the majority of your customers aren’t fazed by the issue, it probably isn’t worth reinventing the wheel to make one person change their mind. Clearly visualized data will influence product change when it’s actually necessary.

Modsy, an online interior-design service, built out a data and analytics strategy that brought customer feedback “back into the business and [built] persuasive, data-backed cases for making specific improvements to product features.” An accessible data and analytics strategy for a growing SMB like Modsy saw higher CSAT, lower resolution time, and iterations on their product that helped them grow. A support strategy isn’t just about organizing your tickets and customer conversations — although that’s a great start. It means listening to your customers, learning about them, and using what you learn to drive revenue.

Back at Dunder Mifflin, it turns out that Dwight and Jim’s customers were not, in fact, leaving horrible reviews. They were framed! But again, if Dwight and Jim’s customer data was visible to them and to the entire organization, it probably would not have been as easy to pull the wool over their eyes. Growing pains make for good television, but in your real-world business, it can make for bad customer experience. Building out a data and analytics strategy into your support and sales will improve customer experience when you make specific and informed changes — and ultimately, this will drive revenue. Customers are your best investment.

For more information about why your growing business should stay on top of your data, check out our research on how a data-driven approach to CX leads to better service by clicking here.