Good #Data Can Lead to Higher Volume of #Customers

Would you like to know what your customers are thinking?

As a business person, knowing how your customers feel is key to your success. After all, happy customers will stay, but unhappy customers are likely to leave, which is bad news for your business.

Luckily you don’t have to be a mind reader to find out how happy your customers are. The data you have access to can show you.

So just how can you use data as a key to your customers’ happiness?

Here are six ways to get started.

Assess Your Data

If you want data to make a difference to customer happiness, you’ll need to start with a thorough assessment of the data available to you.

Data can come from a variety of sources, including:

• Customer service call stats;
• Website metrics;
• Social media use;
• Delivery and shipping records;
• Complaint tickets logged;
• CRM software;
• Customer surveys.

A clear overview of the data available will make it easier to move forward with using it.

Make a Plan

Once you know what data you have available, you can plan how to use it. What you do with the data will depend largely on what you want to answer.

Customer happiness is a broad topic, so it’s helpful to narrow it down.

Where do you want to start?

You might begin by looking at complaint log volumes, complaint resolution times, or customers’ overall satisfaction with the resolution. Or you might start by looking at which customers are coming back regularly, and which are leaving your business.

Narrow your focus and it will be easier to assess what data you’ll need to answer your questions.

Look for the Least Happy Customers

The article “Why Data is the Key to Your Customers’ Happiness” suggests looking for the least happy customers, the ones who are most likely to leave.

Using data to figure out which customers are the least happy with your business means you and your team can focus your efforts on finding out what is going wrong.

Reaching out personally to every customer will likely take more resources than you can spare.

By prioritizing the customers who are most at risk of leaving, you can decide who most needs a personal call.

Ask How You Can Bring Them Back

You can figure out how to bring customers back in two ways:

• Ask them directly – Once you know which customers are least satisfied with your business, you can put in a call and ask them how to make things right;
• Look for trends – What does your data say about why customers are unhappy with your products or services?

Solving problems will boost your reputation and help you retain customers who might otherwise have left.

Identify Common Problems

Data can also help you identify common problems with your business.

For example, if you’re seeing a lot of support tickets about one issue, you know that’s a problem that needs solving.

You can also look at data to find out what isn’t engaging your customers.

Are there product features that are going unused? Or a certain part of your website where they click away?

Look for trends and you’ll see why your customers aren’t happy.

Look at What Works

Using data to shore up customer happiness isn’t just about identifying problems. You can also use it to see what works, and make sure you deliver more of that.

If customers are raving about a service, or a specific product is flying off the shelves, you know you’re on the right track.

You have plenty of data available to your business.

Make use of it to boost customer happiness and keep your business strong.

About the Author: Tristan Anwyn writes on a variety of topics including social media, how to build customer relationships, content marketing and how to use data for increased customer satisfaction.