While most companies recognize the importance of customer insights, many struggle to transform their data into actionable insights that deepen customer loyalty, boost revenue, and maintain a competitive edge.
Do you “get” your customers? Most companies think they do. In truth, most have some work to do. One thing’s for sure, though: Understanding your customers is a strategic imperative in the digital age. Data-driven customer insights are the pathway to that understanding.
“86% of [Digital Experience] DX professionals agree on the importance of data-driven insights, and 84% view these insights as essential to understanding customers, supporting user acquisition, ensuring conversions, and boosting revenue.” – Fullstory survey
Most DX professionals agree that these customer insights are essential, and every company has tons of data. Great – so now what? Few companies have transformed their mountains of customer data into actionable insights that drive sustained value and impact across the customer journey.
This disconnect represents an untapped opportunity to unlock strategic advantages and propel sustainable growth. Customer journey analysis acts as the bridge between data and action, allowing organizations to make the right moves and translate that into value.
Why Customer Data Alone Isn’t Enough
Every company these days has dashboards and reports. What matters is what you do with this data – and this is where the challenge lies. How do you get actionable insights from your data? This is a constant struggle.
“Less than half of data analytics & insights leaders (44%) report that their team is effective in providing value to their organization” – Gartner survey
What’s missing is the ability to create a narrative thread – meaningful insights that weave together data points across the customer journey, fostering a more comprehensive understanding. This understanding empowers strategic decision-making that ultimately drives better business outcomes.
The Struggle for Insights Is Universal
Actionable customer insights should be a top priority for every industry. Let’s explore why this is important within some key business domains. I have shared three unique customer insights examples that draw on real-world experiences to support the impact these insights can have on customers and business performance.
Retail Customer Insights Example – Creating Sustained Competitive Advantage in Customer Experience
The insights from a customer journey analysis can reveal hidden buying patterns or uncover roadblocks to purchase. Armed with these insights, businesses can act to minimize friction, tailor product recommendations, bundle offerings, and create targeted promotions that drive higher basket values and revenue per visitor.
For instance, BlastX Consulting partnered with a sporting goods retailer to better understand the customer journey for a valuable audience segment. We layered analytics data with Voice of Customer (VoC) feedback to uncover how the current digital experience created confusion on what sporting equipment was required for loyal club members. We executed a test experience to provide better clarity and used this as an opportunity to highlight other related products for upsell. Executing on the resulting customer insights led to a positive lift in transactions and revenue per visitor.
Healthcare Customer Insights Example – Reduce Costs and Dependence on Call Center
Member (payor) and patient (healthcare provider) data – even anonymized data – can reveal meaningful trends. This helps healthcare payers and providers optimize the patient experience, ultimately building brand trust and loyalty. One example is the use of insights to help your members and patients more easily access self-help resources and quickly get the information they need.
To this point, BlastX Consulting collaborated with a large healthcare organization to analyze and surface insights around friction points in key member journeys. We then took action by testing an experience that made it easier for members to resolve their pain points through online self-help options. This change led to cost savings because it reduced the need for users to call the call center for assistance.
Travel Customer Insights Example – Creating Positive Passenger Experiences to Increase Revenue
Insights driven by customer data analysis enable organizations in the travel industry to tailor experiences and offerings to specific traveler preferences. By analyzing marketing and website engagement, these businesses can surface pain points and provide direction on optimizing the booking process for seamless journeys. Acting on these customer insights can translate into increased bookings, customer satisfaction, loyalty, and revenue growth.
BlastX Consulting worked with a national railroad company to improve digital experiences, especially as travelers accessed their site from different devices. This was challenging for the organization, as they had yet to migrate to a fully responsive website – a project that was slated for later in the year. From our analysis of the customer journey, including evaluating the marketing and the onsite experience, we discovered an unintended experience for desktop users: popular organic search results were driving desktop users to an unoptimized mobile experience.
We tested rerouting these impacted users to an appropriate desktop experience, which led to a significant lift in booking rate and revenue per visitor. On a larger scale, these insights and measurable results enabled the team to get buy-in to fast-track the implementation of a responsive site.
Don’t Ignore Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Unlocking customer Insights
It’s nearly impossible to have a discussion these days without the topic of AI coming up, and customer insights are no exception. As teams consider how to turn customer data into insights, it’s essential to make sure AI is part of the conversation.
BlastX Consulting is actively exploring how AI can power insights, driving everything from better customer experiences through diverse content engagement to efficiency gains in data analysis. When it comes to customer insights, AI can substantially boost your ability to do a deep dive analysis, identify key trends or friction points, conduct sentiment analysis and work across both quantitative and unstructured qualitative data. At BlastX Consulting, we’ve seen efficiency gains upwards of 97% when incorporating AI to analyze unstructured customer feedback.
What’s exciting about this aspect of AI is that it can truly have a positive impact across industries. In the healthcare industry, for example, clinicians have expressed significant interest in using AI to cut down on manual analysis, reduce the chances of human error, and free them up to spend more quality time with patients – ultimately helping them deliver better patient experiences.
“When it comes to AI, “more than half (56%) of respondents don’t know or are unsure if their organizations have ethical standards guiding its use” – Deloitte
While the benefits of AI are undeniable, it’s important to note that teams using AI with customer data must still prioritize and protect that data. It’s critical to educate teams on the proper ways to engage with AI, and building and enforcing a governance standard is an essential part of this process.
From Insights to Action: An Executive Roadmap
Getting from insights to action isn’t easy, but there are steps that executives can take to establish this culture. I recommend prioritizing these four pillars:
- Focus on Outcomes: Ensure clear goals are set that align with your overall business strategy, and push for measurable results when translating insights into actionable next steps. Encourage teams to track progress regularly, iterate based on learnings (experimentation is perfect for this), and ensure your data-driven efforts deliver tangible business value. And don’t forget the customer. Measure the impact on key metrics like customer satisfaction, retention rates, and customer lifetime value.
- Break Down Silos, Build Bridges: Foster a culture where customer data informs every decision. Break down silos between departments and ensure everyone, from marketing to product development, works towards a unified customer-centric vision. If your teams aren’t already tying in Voice of Customer (VoC) insights across other initiatives, this is a good place to start.
- Invest in the Right Tools: Ensure your business is invested in the right data platforms that allow your teams to capture, analyze, and visualize the customer journey effectively. User-friendliness and seamless integration within your existing MarTech ecosystem are crucial for conducting meaningful customer journey analysis. This aspect also includes exploring the use of AI tools that can easily integrate into your MarTech.
- Empower Your Team: This is a critical priority. Your teams need to be supported to adopt and use your data platforms. Don’t underestimate the value of training, but don’t stop there. Consistently encourage data-driven discussions and celebrate insights-driven successes. The key is to champion a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
Get or Keep your Competitive Edge
Unlocking the value of customer insights isn’t easy. However, it’s the only way to know your customers and how they interact with and view your company. It’s the only real way to secure their trust and loyalty.
The good news is you can do it. You have the data – put it to work! Prioritize customer journey analysis. Arm and encourage your teams to embrace insights that lead to action. Unlock the power of data-driven insights to deepen customer loyalty, boost revenue, and secure a sustained competitive advantage.
Customer expectations have never been higher. The digital landscape continues to rapidly evolve. Disrupters like AI and increased privacy restrictions via third-party cookies are always lurking around the corner. It’s incredibly easy to fall behind – so don’t let these changes catch you by surprise. Data-driven customer insights are the best way to stay close to your customers amid a torrent of change.
Would you like more customer insights examples or help unlocking business value with customer journey analysis? Reach out to BlastX Consulting if you’d like to discuss having our guidance as you advance your data-driven insights in an effort to create more value and impact for your customers and company.
