Customer Intelligence: Understanding your customers

Customer intelligence is more than information

Wikipedia defines customer intelligence as “the process of gathering and analysing information regarding customers, their details and their activities, in order to build deeper and more effective customer relationships and improve strategic decision making.”

As an integral element of any efficient Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program, customer intelligence provides valuable insights regarding customer behaviours and feelings towards your products and services.

Customer data can be combined with information about competitors and marketplace trends to provide a comprehensive base from which strategic decisions can be made. Having a bigger picture of what’s happening helps determine the direction your company needs to take to be successful.

With complete, accurate and timely customer intelligence you can gain a better understanding of the customer online experience and develop initiatives that enhance it. Most importantly, this knowledge can be used to better align your business goals with your customer’s expectations.

Customer intelligence raises challenges

According to John Radcliffe, Vice President of Gartner, many organizations report that most of the data they collect is of poor quality: “Significant initiatives, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence (BI), are failing at high rates”. The challenge is having high quality data for strategic decision-making in rapidly changing marketplace. In a customer integration report published by the CDI Institute, the companies that were surveyed reported that “They often do not have the stamina to respond to rapidly changing customer and market requirements.” Lack of good quality customer intelligence presents many challenges to achieving business success in a dynamic environment.

Customer intelligence management with OneDesk

The benefits derived from using are numerous. OneDesk simplifies the entire customer management process by collecting workable and actionable customer intelligence using the customer portal or social collaboration tools. Through OneDesk’s discussions and blogs, employees, customers and partners can work together to build better products and services. Capturing insightful actionable customer intelligence can help you streamline the entire process of gathering, analysing and using information that takes the guesswork out of the product and service development process.

Customer intelligence: Business benefits

The process of managing customer intelligence is becoming increasingly difficult because of the large amount of customer data that is received through multiple online channels.
can help you get good quality data about who your customers are, by collaborating with them to find solutions to their issues and satisfy their needs. Collecting this customer intelligence in a more efficient manner also provides more insight into your customer lifecycles and helps measure overall profitability, customer retention rates and loyalty.

When you use OneDesk to manage customer intelligence you:

• Have an efficient process to identify and understand your customers needs, and align them with your corporate strategy

• Increase customer retention and attract new customers

• Effectively manage your brand’s reputation by promptly responding to customer inquiries

• Improve overall communication, and build stronger relationships with your customers

• Develop better products and services

OneDesk has the tools you need to turn customer intelligence into actionable data. If your company needs an effective system to make sense of the changing needs of your market sign up for a free account here. Try OneDesk now for free.