Let’s be honest, self-centeredness is an ugly trait – not just for people, but for businesses as well. Perhaps that’s why we see so many organizations taking active steps to continually become more accommodating to their customers. According to research by Omer Minkara of Aberdeen, however, adopting customer-centric tactics isn’t just something good that businesses are doing for the heck of it; clear cut performance metrics show that focusing on the customer is also just good business. For marketing, in particular, customer-centric tactics such as collecting and utilizing multi-channel customer insights can correlate to a wider capacity for marketing best practices, and a bigger leg up against the competition.
Know Thy Customer
Both better marketing initiatives and better sales experiences are built on having a better understanding of the buyer or customer. According to Omer’s research, 67% of companies using multi-channel customer insights also standardize customer data across their organizations, compared to only 39% of companies without multi-channel insights. In other words, across the various departments of an organization, there is only one data-driven view of the customer. Moreover, 52% of these organizations with multi-channel customer insights also maintain a seamless integration of customer and operational data across enterprise systems, verses only 32% of All Others. This means that these customer-centric organizations not only know who their customers are, but also what they’re doing and how they’re interacting with the organization. This also opens the door for more effective marketing practices, as 70% of companies with multi-channel customer insights are able to segment specific customers by different criteria, verses only 53% of All Others. The gap widens even more for the ability to drill down on marketing campaign results with 68% of multi-channel customer insight oriented companies achieving this best practice, compared to only 32% of All Others.
Give to Receive
With better customer knowledge, organizations also have an advantage in knowing where buyers will appreciate marketing investments and initiatives most. Generally speaking, for example, many customers prefer a mobile experience, which is, perhaps, tied to why 74% of companies with multi-channel customer insights also have mobile-optimized websites, compared to only 49% of All Others. In a more concrete sense, 61% of companies with multi-channel customer insights also have a formal strategy to empower loyal customers as brand advocates. As you would expect, these organizations do still gain a lot of value from these giving efforts, most notably, companies with multi-channel customer insights have been found to enjoy an average Net Promoter Score (NPS) that’s six times higher than All Others.
Cashing in On Customer Insights
For some, more effective marketing tactics and higher likeability among buyers are advantageous enough on their own, but for more revenue-driven marketers, the case for customer-centric insights is also just as compelling. In cases where returning customers are considering increasing their investments, for example, companies utilizing multi-channel customer insights average a nearly 228% higher increase in cross-sell and upsell revenue year-over-year than their insight-lacking counterparts (22.6% vs. 6.9%). In driving revenue from customer referrals as well, companies using customer-centric insights dramatically out-pace their peers achieving a 430% higher year-over-year increase (12.2% vs. 2.3%).
Overall, when companies invest in better understanding, and better serving their customers, they measurably achieve better results. Of course, with pressures of hitting profits, driving growth, and increasing brand awareness looming over marketers, it can be easy to lose focus on the customer, but as the research shows, in almost every marketing end-goal, there is a clear advantage in catering to the customer.
For more on the advantages of customer-centric tactics, download Aberdeen’s free report, Customer Analytics: Making Big Data Work for the Marketer.
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