How are you doing with your Christmas list? With only five days to go until the big celebration, do you have all of the gifts you need? Were you able to find the perfect gift for everyone on your list? How about that gift for your nephew who graduated from college three years ago and has purchased his first home? Were you able to come up with a gift that you were excited to give and he will be excited to receive?
If you were able to answer yes to all of these questions, you likely made some phone calls or sent some emails in an attempt to discern what gifts would be the most appropriate, the most needed. If you have at any time struggled to find the best holiday gift for a friend, family member, or coworker, you can understand the goal of a marketing team’s customer experience services. Used by companies of all sizes, customer experience services attempt to get a read for what is appealing to customers and what could help companies market specifically toward a certain kind of customer. No team of customer experience services will ever be able to provide a person by person marketing plan for all potential customers, but by collecting data and tracking online habits, many competitive intelligence programs can help your company reach the potential customers you are trying to contact.
What Do Your Daily Shopping Habits Say About You?
If you are like many American consumers you likely never go through an entire day without making a purchase of some kind. And, if you do not buy something on a given day, chances are you have at least spend some online time looking at products or services that you might be interested in. The best marketing teams and competitive intelligence and analysis strategists realize that they can learn a lot about their current and potential customers by tracking their purchases and their online searches. It should come as no surprise then that when you go through the grocery store check out line and receive a coupon that appears to be carefully selected for you. Based on that day’s purchases, for example, the gorcery store’s customer experience services computer software can promote a potential product. They may, for instance, give you an additional coupon for a product that you just purchased for the first time. They may also give you a coupon for a product that you frequently purchased in the past, but have not bought recently.
Obviously, none of these end of sale coupons are random. Based on the buying habits of that day, or in some cases the buying habits of the last months, the software designed by the competitive intelligence agency is pushing you toward a likely purchase.
How Crowded Is Your Key Ring?
Tags that clutter key rings today may have seemed like a novelty when we first slid them on. The customer satisfaction service industry, however, began using this no coupon approach to grocery store and pharmacy purchases years ago. While they may have been promoted as a way to reward customers with coupon prices every time they walked in the store, they are actually a way to track the purchases you make and an opportunity to predict what your next purchases will be. With extra incentives like giving discounts for upcoming fuel purchase, these competitive intelligence strategies actually promote both product and loyalty.
If you are a consumer with a key ring crowded with tags from favorite shopping locations, you are probably a well mined consumer. The marketing companies can understand your buying habits and may be able to predict what you might need to buy next week, or next month. And, if you are patting yourself on the back because you are not a card carrying member of any company, you are likely providing the same information to marketing teams during your computer searches.
The latest research indicates customer loyalty can be worth 10 times more than a single purchase. In fact, according to the Content Marketing Institute, nearly 70% of consumers say content marketing makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company, increasing the chances that they will make more purchases from that same company.