How to Predict Your Clients’ Needs Using Big Data?

Conversions are the result of excellent customer experience. Good sales lead to good incomes, which are, after all, the primary purpose of any business. Now, when the secret ingredient of success is known, one small thing left is creating that ideal customer experience.

Brands, who exactly know how their clients pass through the customer journey can predict future behavior. One of the primary sources brands get insights from is Big Data.

Mined Data + Direct Customer Feedback = Great Insights  

In this article, we are going to describe in a few short steps how to understand your clients, create value for them and, as a result, deliver excellent customer experience—and doing all this by using Big Data. 

Step 1: Understanding your clients:

What is a Customer Profile and How to Create It?

The customer profile or customer persona is a general description of consumer categories that can be used for marketing and advertising purposes. Creating market segments and distinguishing the audience allows companies to sell products more deliberately and spend fewer resources on targeted advertising. That happens because a particular group of customers has its own needs. Understanding clients’ needs are the key to success.

A typical customer profile contains information about demographics, average income, cohort preferences, behavior, motivators, etc.

Demographics is one of the leading indicators and might refer to age, gender, family status, employment, and incomes. This data gives a general understanding of a customer’s personality and his/her primary needs. In fact, this is one of the most well-known examples of how companies use data mining.

But you should strive for more advanced analysis and acquire such additional information as:

• Interests.
• Lifestyle.
• Personal goals.
• Content consumption habits.
• What influences their purchasing decisions.
• Do they visit the events of your company?
• What is the primary source to discover your products?

How to complete a customer persona?

Complete customer persona has huge power in any kind of business as it helps you to know the person behind the profile, predict and solve his/her problems before they occur. Besides, keeping alive existing customer base is much cheaper than acquiring new clients.

So, here are 6 essential steps of completing a customer profile:

1. Export customer data from all online channels available. Emails, websites, social media, mobile apps (if applicable) are the sources of information that can be combined and complemented by each other.
2. Export customer data from offline channels. These are direct mailing campaigns, data about brick-and-mortar store visits, loyalty card usage, event attendees, last in-store purchases, and so on.
3. Import all the data into a single hub. That can be an inner CRM system, data warehouse, or special software for big data analysis.
4. Understand what this data is telling you. Collecting data means nothing without analyzing it. So it’s time for customer data mining. That is a computer process of discovering patterns within large data sets and presenting them in the easily understandable form e.g. graphs.
5. Use customer data you’ve collected in targeted marketing and advertising campaigns.
6. Regularly update customer’s profiles to be aware of any changes in customers’ preferences.

Now when you know the value of the customer profile and know how to create it, let’s proceed to the next level.

P.S. Scanning all the customer flow via big data analytic tools allows companies to define the average basket size, track seasonality, and predict price changes according to it.

Step 2: How to Create Value for Customers Using Big Data

Big Data is not just a trend. It’s an effective approach to understanding the customer’s preferences and needs. Therefore many businesses use it and with time, they become equally good with their competitors. Having examined customers’ minds in details, and knowing their genuine needs, the only competitive advantage companies are left with is a price. Apparently, targeting your audience like a pro is a short-term goal. There is no sense in chasing the next purchase in fear that competitors might offer a better price.

Building lasting advantage requires a big data-powered marketing strategy that focuses on creating long-term loyalty and relationship between your brand and its customers. You need to create a lifetime value and emotional connection that will keep clients with you instead of switching to competitors offering a better price. That is the first step before you’ll turn clients into brand advocates.

Make customer data work for you by asking the right questions as:

1. What makes them feel valued when dealing with your business?
2. Do they feel like they get something extra over competitors’ same price?
3. How they feel more comfortable buying your products (online, offline) and how they would like to pay (via credit card, by cash or using any payment systems)?
4. Do they get enough justification for the price?
5. Why do your regular clients choose your brand?
6. What does your client value the most about your brand?

Answers delivered by big data analysis can improve products and services and even create new ones. By the way, Forbes estimate big data at around $120 billion in 2015 and prospects it to grow to more than $180 billion till 2019.

Step 3: How to deliver a great customer experience?

Once you got the insights from your Big data research, you have all the ingredients to create the customer’s experience you’ve dreamed of. But keep it simple. You have to combine mined data with your client’s and employees’ feedbacks and develop an easy-digestible quality framework in order to create an emotional connection between your business and clients.

Conclusion

Today all our activities are being tracked. Online shopping, visiting brick and mortar stores, and even time of the day we open emails sent by retailers. Businesses are aware of each of our moves. They influence our decisions based on the information we leave everywhere. It might sound nuts but at the same time, predicting out needs, brands can create a unique customer experience for every person.

Are you ready to surprise your customers? Drop us a line to get your own Big Data tool!