In the last few years, data-driven sales and marketing strategies have received a dramatic boost due to stiff competition and rapidly changing customer behaviour. From just $10.5 billion in 2020, it is estimated that companies will spend $24.2 billion on customer data measurement and analytics by 2025. That’s a 2x times increase in less than five years. So, why is customer analytics a top priority for organisations today? What are the top use cases of application? A recent Forrester research report shares some telling insights.
2020 Forrester Survey Explores the Importance of Customer Analytics
Understanding dynamic customer behaviour and predicting (often hidden) expectations was always a priority for companies. This need has become even more intense due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly 1 in 3 customer analytics professionals said that they have become more agile in analytics execution. More than a quarter are focusing on descriptive techniques to understand shifting customer behaviour. But despite these challenges, customer analytics continues to be high on ROI with the following functions gaining the most:
- Planning sales and marketing campaigns – 72%
- Managing customer relationships – 63%
- Understanding relationships on specific channels – 63%
- Pricing products correctly – 54%
- Managing overall CX – 54%
- Developing or enhancing products – 52%
As you can see, the beneficiaries of customer analytics are spread out across the organisation and aren’t necessarily limited to customer-facing roles.
And, even with these benefits, companies are only scratching the surface when it comes to the true potential of customer analytics. For example, just 40% said they leverage social media data, less than half use mobile data, and a little over 30% make use of structured voice-of-the-customer. To push the needle in the right direction, it is vital to explore the role customer analytics could play in your organisation.
7 Top Use Cases for Customer Analytics
- Sentiment analysis – Gauge real-time mood to improve service quality, cross-sell/up-sell or pause the interaction
- Personalised recommendations – Predict what the customer is most likely to buy next based on past purchase and browsing histories
- Dynamic pricing – Dynamically adjust pricing to align with the customer’s “sweet spot”
- Churn prediction – Identify flight risk customers to prevent churn and avoid new customer acquisition costs
- Marketing mix realignment – Invest in the best-fit marketing channel mix based on attribution data
- Workforce training – Use data on customer preferences and interaction quality to train agents more effectively
- Lead qualification – Assign highly accurate lead scores to target those that are most likely to buy and bring lasting CLV
Ultimately, the goal of customer analytics is to enable conversion and convert customer relationships into lifelong loyalty. Here are the top companies that can help you make this happen.
Best Customer Analytics Companies in 2021
Customer analytics requires extensive skills in data science, data exploration, and visualisation – which may not be available in-house. Fortunately, there are battle-tested domain experts that can integrate with your current sales, marketing & customer service stack, such as SAS, Salesforce, Adobe, Microsoft, and Teradata, named as leaders in the recent Forrester Wave.