Learn how to use data to get to know your customer

Customers expect to have the same experience with a store no matter where they are shopping – in a brick and mortar location, on the store’s website via laptop or on the store’s app via mobile device. Combining online and offline data helps retailers stay informed about their customers so they can drive customer loyalty and increase revenue.

The article opens with a description of the way the shopping world has changed – instead of brick and mortar stores as the cornerstone of a community, customers are now doing their shopping in many other ways and across various devices. To attract customers in today’s digitalized world, you need more than a welcoming storefront — you need experiences that make an emotional connection with customers to draw them in and keep them coming back; data is the way to do this.

• Get to the heart of the customer – to best connect with customers on an emotional level, identify the type of data that will help you understand your consumers’ motivators. Retailers need to go beyond first party data to make this happen. Brand example: Target
• Connect with customers to create empathy – because there are so many places a consumer might shop, collecting data and implementing it in a seamless cross-channel experience is imperative. Brand example: Home Depot
  • Real-time Data – know where your customers are shopping and when. Make sure you can react when they show a need for your product.
  • Identify customers across digital touchpoints – customers expect to be able to add something to their shopping cart on their laptop, then access that same shopping cart from their mobile device or tablet. Device co-ops help brands recognize familiar customers using unfamiliar devices hand present consistent experiences to the shopper, not just their device.
• Know your customers inside and out – you can’t just expect to collect the data, you also need to apply it. Knowing both offline and online data and how it fits into the full customer journey is critical to gaining a complete view of the customer. When you can unify all your data into a single view, you have a complete picture of who your customer is — at all times and on all devices. And from this evolved vantage point, you can deliver the types of experiences your customer wants — driving loyalty and increasing revenues.
• Embrace data-driven experiences – If retailers want to stay in the game, build loyalty, and win customers, they must incorporate a data-driven culture into the organization so they can personalize experiences and capture a larger audience. Brand examples: Target, Home Depot, Amazon.