What are customer insights and how to gather them

Customer insights are the collection and analysis of customer data related to behaviors, preferences, and feedback that can be used to help businesses understand consumers and their motivations behind purchasing decisions.

Brands collect customer insights from a variety of sources to understand their audience on a deeper level, with the purpose of using the information to assist with business functions like product development and refining the customer experience.

Analyzing customer insights provides brands with information about what consumers in their target audience like and dislike, which can be used to support a variety of business functions. Customer insights can help product development teams know what to make, with less risk if the companies know their audiences will have interest in the new offerings. Customer insights can also help businesses offer better customer service by anticipating issues and pain points. Brands may even use customer insights to refine their messaging, such as focusing on words or phrases that elicit a desired response from their audience.

Collecting customer insights helps brands answer valuable questions like:

• What products are our customers interested in?

• What do our customers like and dislike about our brand?

• What are the most common pain points customers face using our products or services?

• What language resonates most with customers?

• How does our audience feel about competitors?

Getting answers to these questions and others helps brands build customer journey maps and personas. Customer insights help brands market the right products to the right people using personalized messaging that extends into support — leading to stronger brand loyalty and customer lifetime value.

Customer insights come in several forms and from a variety of sources, and all of them have valuable information brands can utilize.

If your brand has an online community, it offers a wealth of information including insights from your most avid supporters and potential new customers who are still on the fence. Brands can see how customers interact with each other, and monitor discussions to see things that are commonly brought up or emerging trends. For example, seeing an influx of users report issues with a service after an update can allow the brand to quickly address the problem before it goes viral. Brands can also take note of customer suggestions, such as the example below of a user in the Intuit QuickBooks community bringing up an idea for a new feature:

Best of all, online communities can provide avenues to collect other types of customer insights. Within online communities, brands may opt to seek feedback using surveys or look for reviews that get posted.

Customer feedback provides direct insights about specific things brands are interested in, generally in the form of surveys. For example, after visiting Samsung’s online community, users are prompted with a survey about the nature of their visit and how likely they are to make future purchases or recommend the brand to others:

Customer feedback can be collected after any interaction, so it’s worth offering surveys across channels to present as many opportunities as possible to collect insights. For example, you may want to suggest surveys after a phone conversation, email exchange, or chat session. Additionally, it’s a good idea to send NPS and CSAT surveys to longtime customers to understand why they stick with your brand and identify any potential pain points that could prompt them to switch to a competitor.

Online reviews about your products and services provide customer insights about the things consumers like and dislike about your offerings. Brands can use these insights to refine their offerings through improvements to existing products or the creation of new products. Outside of your own reviews, it can also be valuable to look at reviews for competing products and services. Depending on your industry, reviews may be present on several sources such as your product pages, dedicated review sites (like TrustRadius and G2), consumer blogs, social media, and Google My Business Profiles.

In addition to using reviews as a source of customer insights, showcasing them on your website can be a powerful form of social proof that helps build trust with prospective customers. Including reviews and accolades shows potential buyers that your products and services are highly regarded among users, such as in the example below speaking about Khoros.

Social media gives customers a public platform to share their thoughts about your brand, and posts can draw responses from users across the globe and even go viral, for better or worse. Being involved on social media isn’t just valuable, it’s essential for brands that want to keep a pulse on their public perception and keep it in a positive light. When consumers share opinions, make an effort not just to collect the insights, but also respond to the customer so they feel heard and valued. Starbucks does an excellent job of this, with several examples showcasing the way they collect customer insights and provide a personalized response to the poster.

In the example above, a Starbucks customer provides a suggestion to add iced coffee and tea to the company’s rewards program — which the company acknowledges and thanks the customer for. In another situation, a customer publishes a post expressing their disappointment in one of the company’s drinks, noting that it seemed like the barista was confused on how to make the drink. The company not only apologizes for the situation, but also requests additional information which may be used to prevent it from happening again in the future.

You can learn a lot about your customers from the analytics available through your website. Demographic data can show you details about your customers’ location, age, and gender that can help you put together broad customer personas. You can also collect behavioral insights based on how users engage with your website including quantitative metrics like user’s time on page, pages per session, bounce rate, and conversion rate. These metrics can help brands form a customer journey map to see how a user lands on your website and goes from point A to B, or what causes them to leave. Using these insights, brands can make adjustments to improve the customer experience and make it as easy as possible to convert on their websites.

Customer insights are a valuable resource for brands, but you have to know how to collect and analyze them. If you’re not sure how to go about the process of collecting customer insights, Khoros can help.

Our community management software helps brands create a place for customers to engage and share thoughts about your products and services, which provides a wealth of insights for companies to collect. Additionally, our customer service software offers the capability for brands to monitor mentions across social media channels so you can gather insights and respond in real time. If you’re interested in learning how Khoros can help you collect customer insights, request a demo today!