The digital transformation has transpired, leaving in its wake a rise in new and increasingly intelligent technology brands. Greater competition has B2B technology revenue leaders reporting a slowdown in net new sales, putting pressure on teams to retain and upsell existing customers. To succeed, brands must look deeper at sales, marketing, and product efforts with a keen focus on the customer experience (CX).
Starting a customer insights program can feel daunting. However, with the right approach, it becomes a powerful way to understand customers and make data-backed decisions that drive retention and growth. From improving product development to enhancing customer loyalty, actionable insights allow companies to anticipate needs, solve real problems, and create meaningful connections. This blog discusses the data needed to power true insight and the critical steps for launching a successful customer insights program that brings such data to life.
What is a customer insights program?
At its core, a customer insights program is a structured approach to deeply understanding customers. It goes beyond demographics and firmographics to uncover unique behaviors, needs, preferences, and pain points. With the insights gathered, businesses can make smarter, data-driven decisions that align with what customers actually want and need, leading to stronger relationships and improved retention.
Why organizations need a customer insights program
From initial product development and marketing new or updated solutions to attracting prospects and retaining customers, we’ve proven firsthand how transformative a customer insights program can be at every stage of a business’s lifecycle.
Let’s start with a business’s product or service. Customers expect businesses to cater directly to their unique needs. An effective customer insights program lets companies hear directly from users on-the-fly about the wins and gaps in their services to influence products and services. When a new feature or service isn’t resonating, businesses can identify areas where features may need to be clarified, simplified, or adjusted to improve adoption rates.
Then comes the challenge of building customer retention marketing strategies that drive awareness, adoption, and customer retention. With deep customer insights, businesses can properly market their products with tailored messaging and visuals that truly speak to and resonate with different customer segments. This data-driven approach helps increase engagement and ensures that marketing efforts are more effective, reducing wasted budgets.
CX is where loyalty is won or lost. Customer insights allow businesses to fine-tune each interaction by identifying areas for improvement across their journey. Insights gathered from feedback or behavior analysis can pinpoint friction points in purchasing, onboarding, or using a product, enabling businesses to make targeted adjustments that enhance the overall customer experience.
Finally, a great customer insights program helps see around corners. Recognizing patterns in customer behavior and preferences allows companies to anticipate shifts in demand, stay ahead of trends, and allocate resources effectively. This proactive approach is especially necessary in enabling businesses to remain ahead in increasingly competitive markets by meeting evolving customer needs before others.
Insights that fuel customer retention marketing strategies
Before a business can take action, it needs data to fuel customer attraction and retention strategies. According to our 2024 tech marketing report, 45% of surveyed B2B tech professionals in marketing and sales functions feel their organization lacks customer insights to truly understand their CX. But in our experience, businesses often house a plethora of untapped data.
Data is everywhere as long as businesses know where to look. A strong customer insights strategy requires quantitative and qualitative research from internal and external sources. Important information can be found in several internal resources that business may already have in place, including:
Sales data
Customer feedback surveys
Behavioral and product interaction data
Customer service data
Chatbot inquiries
Significant insights can also be derived through more extensive methods such as:
Customer sentiment interviews
Heat mapping or session recordings
Market research
Competitor research
Thankfully, businesses don’t need all of these data points to build out an effective customer insights program. I would even encourage businesses not to focus on collecting so much data that it becomes overwhelming. Instead, they should collect and analyze the data that supports their ultimate goal.
7 steps to an effective customer insights program
An effective customer insights program goes beyond simple data collection; it builds a foundation for data-driven decisions that foster lasting customer relationships, drive retention, and create loyal advocates for a brand. Here are the seven steps to kickstart data collection that is then transformed into actionable customer insights programs:
Define the goals and objectives. Leaders don’t have to solve all of their organization’s challenges at once. Instead, they should drill into their company goals and hone in on high-ticket items first.
Focus on a specific customer persona. If an organization wants to reach specific audiences, leaders should center their research on those targets before expanding into other segments.
Outline the data collection strategy. Once goals are in place, leaders must determine the sources that will provide the information they need and define research parameters, such as a timeframe or number of data pools, to help stay on track.
Collect and organize the data. The processes for sourcing existing data or collecting new data can be quite different, with varying levels of effort. Leaders should consider resources and begin collecting and organizing data specific to goals and audience targets.
Analyze the data for actionable insights. Once they have all the necessary data, it is time to turn it into an actual program. When analyzing data, leaders should take note of trends, common questions, misconceptions, or wins, as these will often lead to the crux of the issue they want to solve.
Implement necessary changes. Leaders can then use these insights to build an effective strategy that drives positive change for their customer experience.
Iterate on success and stay abreast of trends. Customer needs can change, the market can shift, or business goals may evolve. A genuinely effective customer insights program never ends but instead operates in a cycle, starting back at step one to achieve the success of step six.
Want experienced support in kickstarting your customer insights program? Partner with Alloy for stronger customer-centric decisions that improve brand perception, enhance loyalty, and ultimately drive business growth.