How to Turn Your Business Data into Customer Journey Improvements

Giving your customers an unforgettable experience when visiting your website or using your services is critical for closing more sales and generating repeat business. When you help your users feel more welcomed and valued as they engage with your brand, it builds credibility and resonates more with your audience.

However, all your current or potential customers are different and have their own needs or preferences. So how do you make sure you’re addressing all of these in the right way? The answer is personalized customer journeys.

One of the best ways to personalize the look, feel, and functionality of your website or applications is by leveraging business data and the insights it provides. Here are some effective ways you can achieve this:

Evaluate Customer Purchases

You can extract a lot of helpful information by evaluating your past customer purchases. For example, when marketing new restaurant features or services, you can use past dining experiences to show favorite dining times, meal or drink choices, and average bill amounts.

All of this information lets you personalize your marketing messages and can help your staff create better experiences for repeat guests. You can also generate free offers or discount codes that take your guests' preferences into consideration. This helps you make smarter resource investments with a higher likelihood of seeing a good return.

Monitor Website Usage Patterns

Trying to understand your users’ website browsing patterns means more than just tracking your website traffic over time. You want to try to really understand what elements specifically on your site are driving action and keeping your customers engaged.

Instead of just looking at broad website metrics, focus on the amount of time spent on certain web pages and track your bounce rates. See which type of content gets the most screen time for your users and which elements they click on the most.

Using heat maps is a great strategy to help you visualize how your users experience your site and can give you some great insight on how to make certain improvements.

Research Audience Demographics

The more you know about your audience, the easier it is to create experiences that really resonate with them. For example, knowing the ages, location, lifestyles, or even income of your audience can provide you with a lot of insight you can use to reach them more effectively.

However, even though demographics can help inform your business decisions, it’s important to blend these details with your own business data. Find a good balance between internal and external market research. This helps you to paint a broader picture of what “your” specific customer preferences are instead of trying to lump everyone into the same demographic bucket.

Collect and Analyze Customer Feedback

You can make all the assumptions in the world on what your customers prefer when accessing different applications or services, but they’ll never be as accurate or effective as asking users directly for their feedback. Extracting honest, unbiased opinions for users helps you to create a roadmap for relevant improvements that will help make a real impact on your customers’ journeys.

Invite your users to leave comments or reviews after making a purchase. Take all the feedback you collect and look for commonalities between them. This can help you to shortlist some of the more urgent areas that might need your attention and help you to avoid making investments in the wrong areas.

Track Social Media Activities

Watching how users interact with or discuss your brand across different marketing channels helps to paint a larger picture of what your customers need to see from you as a business. Social media platforms are the perfect neutral source where you can find open and honest discussions about your brand, whether they’re positive or negative in nature.

Outside of tracking your social metrics, these platforms can also provide you with insights into the type of content formats or subject matter that interest your users the most. This can help you improve your own marketing strategies and ensure that all your messaging connects with users in the right way and holds their attention.

Review Past Customer Interactions

Every customer touchpoint your business has is an opportunity to improve the customer journey. Customer calls, support emails, and even AI chatbot logs can all be helpful sources of information you can use.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools are a great example of how you can use customer data to actively improve brand interactions. Most modern CRM tools provide support agents with quick reference to previous customer discussions. This data can give them additional context on customer issues and help them to provide a higher level of service.

Leverage Predictive Analytics

Although looking at historical data is helpful, being able to better predict your customers’ purchasing habits is even more impactful. Many new AI tools give you the ability to analyze both your historical and real-time business data while providing you with accurate predictions on customer behaviors over time.

For example, by leveraging predictive analytics solutions, you can better predict when network demands are likely to spike, which will help you modify your infrastructure to avoid service disruptions. In other settings, you could use these predictive tools to help you identify when a customer’s inventory is likely to run low or if they are about to abandon their shopping cart.

Use Behavioral Segmentation

Behavioral segmentation is an effective way to group your customers into different categories to help serve them more relevant experiences. This is especially helpful if your business has multiple customer personas it's trying to manage.

To achieve this, look at your customer demographics and try to subcategorize them based on needs, interests, challenges, browsing preferences, and purchasing habits. With new behavioral groups defined, you’re able to create customized interactions or outreach programs specifically designed for these individuals, instead of just using the same templated marketing approach for everyone.

Implement AI-Driven Product Recommendations

When you have the right tools in place, you can leverage your individual user data to provide highly relevant product recommendations. AI-driven solutions built into your e-commerce website or mobile applications can track a user’s buying habits and offer them certain product suggestions as they complete new transactions that they’re likely to enjoy.

Taking this approach not only adds a more personal touch to all your customer interactions, but it can also increase your average transaction values, helping you maximize your revenue potential 24/7.

Consider Accessibility Needs

Understanding your customer’s purchasing habits is one important metric that data can help provide you with. It’s also important to use your business data to inform you on the accessibility needs of your audience.

While your website or applications may appear valuable, it’s essential to remember that not all users can access or view information the same way. For example, your demographics and customer segmentation should take into consideration viewing or hearing impairments, helping to ensure you design digital brand interactions that everyone can enjoy equally.

Personalize Your Customer Journey

Personalizing your customer journeys is an important way to connect on a deeper level with your audience. By using the tips provided, you can leverage your business data to create more meaningful interactions with your brand that lead to happier customers, increased sales conversions, and more sustainable growth.