Simply told, Customer Intelligence or CI is the process of collecting and analysing various customer information and data gathered from their online activities. Marketing practices based on complex customer data help retailers and companies establish deeper and more effective relationships with consumers as well as improve the strategic decision-making of their organizations.
Customer data base
The heart of any Customer Intelligence strategy is the customer database. Therefore, the first step that every company needs to take is identify all available sources of customer data (CRM, payment systems, website traffic statistics, social networks, advertising campaign statistics, product reviews, etc.) and combine them into a common database.
The second step is more demanding, as it involves the processing, analysis and visualization of the collected data. Experts use various advanced tools and procedures to turn incomprehensible amounts of seemingly unrelated data into a meaningful story.
Here comes the third step, which includes interpreting the data and applying the conclusions. With the help of the BEX platform, a company can use CI data to determine who their online visitors are (their demographic and sociographic data, geolocation, etc.). They can also see what their interests are, how they travel through a sales funnel, how they act on their web page and much much more.
Useful data for all departments
The insights that we gain with this systematic approach to data are valuable to all departments of a company:
- – from the management and heads of different departments, who can use the CI to monitor KPIs of individual departments,
- – to sales employees, to whom CI enables a concise overview of sales (by products, promotions, by points of sale), the duration of the sales cycle and the identification of opportunities for up-sell and cross-sell,
- – and their marketing colleagues, who will find it easier to gain new customers and retain existing ones. Above all, they will be able to manage marketing activities more efficiently and provide customers with an effortless consumer experience.
- – In addition, CI also greatly benefits CRM, the development, finance and distribution departments, as dynamically designed and up-to-date insights help manage all processes seamlessly.
