Data holds the key: How businesses must use data for improving retail customer experience?
In today’s digital era, data is playing a crucial role in the success of your business. Data comprises critical information that the business owners can use to ensure they grow their business while improving the retail customer experience. It also provides you with valuable insights into what your audience prefers to buy. Business owners must understand how they must use data for improving the retail customer experience.
Improving the customer experience helps create a loyal customer base, that allows your business to stand out from the competition, and generates better revenue.
I know what you are thinking, big data means making sure that your business architecture supports big data analytics, has the perfect combination of ML and AI and rides high on NLP too!
The latter technologies are only necessary for those who are going to make some changes in their voice search optimization segments. You need better tools for crunching the massive data sets, and better tools mean more investments.
But that’s the fun part, businesses, be it small scale or large scale, are making that kind of investment in modern technologies. And why are they doing it? To run a smoother business operation that is more profitable and future-proof.
What does big data mean for enterprises?
When we are talking about big data and its role in the enterprise realm, we cannot keep the three V’s of big data out from the topic. They are namely velocity, volume, and variety of data.
Big data is quantified as per the “volume” of information an organization stores. For optimal use of this plethora of information, it’s necessary to consider the data velocity cycle. Also, the variety of data collected by businesses matters for improving the retail customer experience.
When used intelligently, the three V’s of big data can come in handy for marketing purposes and getting the business brand in front of the consumers.
How is big data helpful in improving retail customer experience?
You might already know what big data is and how enterprise businesses are heavily using it. However, you might still not be aware of how to use the plethora of information big data holds within itself, optimize it, and capitalize on it for growing your business.
We will help you learn how big data must be used for improving your customer retention by providing enhanced customer experience and generating more revenue.
So, let’s get down to business and understand how you can effectively improve your business process by implementing three wheels of big data i.e., volume, variety, and velocity.
1. Predicting customer needs & preferences
Data plays an important role in growing your business as the information they collect from their customers helps them understand their:
- Purchase history
- Buying habits
- Preferences
- Average spending budget
- Device usage history
Apart from deriving demographic data, businesses can gain better psychological insights into the reasons consumers make their purchasing decisions.
All of this information provides an upper hand to retailers in what their customers are into. Also, such data allows retailers to
- Serve tailored advertisements
- Engaging with them on social media
- Save production costs, etc.
All of this information combined into a well-structured plan allows businesses to improve retail customer experience.
2. Accuracy of information
Increased accessibility enhances efficient decision-making. Advancements in cloud technology have enabled businesses to take a real-time approach. Real-time data with its accuracy and speed, let’s retailers make better decisions on-the-go.
When business leaders can access information faster, they can make decisions about their business more efficiently.
Major vendors in the modern business scenario have made good use of hyper-cloud technology, enabling businesses to achieve customer retention goals seamlessly.
Let’s see why real-time data impacts the retail customer experience.
- Passed along to the end-user without unnecessary delay or modifications
- Accessible via multiple devices
- Efficient and real-time decision making
3. Better accuracy and relevance to the target audience
With data lifecycle management strategies, retailers can get accurate and relevant data. Data lifecycle management (DLM) ensures that from acquisition to deletion, the business data is efficient, secure, and compliant.
- It allows businesses to keep their information updated and accurate.
- It removes irrelevant data.
- It helps in determining which should be saved and which should be trashed.
4. A centralized data hub
Businesses have long realized that they need to go with digital transformation but have avoided uncertainty, security, trust, and budgetary constraints. The technological shift is overwhelming, especially considering that the world is more prone to epidemics and natural calamities.
As they say, the show must go on, and technology allows that to happen by reducing the need for manual inputs. Business leaders have understood that the shift in the technological realm is essential and will help their business become profitable in the long run. The need for faster and secure cloud infrastructure has inspired them to look for capable digital transformation partners.
Let’s see what modern businesses are considering to stay ahead of the data race.
Multi-cloud technology comprises applications and infrastructure stored on various public cloud platforms, which must be integrated end-to-end.
Hybrid-cloud technologies enable businesses to execute their process on public and private cloud servers and other servers.
Many businesses rely on cloud CRM for storing customer data for sales and marketing purposes. Some cloud systems use customer data for developing custom apps and reach their users on mobile devices. Although these two systems are different, their functioning depends on data being delivered in a secure and timely manner.
Businesses do so by migrating their real-time data at the core of their organization and integrate it with various environments from a centralized data hub.
5. Makes business customer-centric
Technology makes major cultural shifts in a business environment. Take a look at Agile, Cloud, and DevOps. These technologies have made their run based on innovation and change the way businesses deliver results for internal and external customers.
At its core, every technology highlights communication, and for better customer communication experience, data plays a major role. Data helps businesses meet and, even in some cases, exceed the customer’s expectations.
There was a time when customers looked up contact information of businesses, and many times businesses lost their precious leads due to lapse in communication channels. But with the advent of chatbots, the bridge has somehow been created between businesses and users.
6. Tailoring customer service as per their preference
Understanding the buying preference or patterns allows retailers to deliver better results.
They can use the collected data for deciding which products users might be interested in or even for retargeting other items to them. You might have seen Amazon and various other e-commerce web portals do the same.
Businesses have understood that when customers are looking for a product, they still need to see various options or add-ons without leaving a particular product page, they want to be served other things that are similar and could work for them.
For instance, a family plans their trip every spring and makes the booking from a particular site. That site owner can make good use of this information for reaching out to them with various packages or even cross-sell some of their more expensive yet exclusive packages.
7. Decide strategies based on the shopping data
These two shopping data types influence eCommerce or retail businesses:
Consumer shopping data
Marketers compile and draw out consumer shopping habits for making important decisions regarding their products and inventory. This is a major part of enhancing the retail customer experience.
For instance, you have a best-selling product which often goes out of stock. By using real-time data, retailers can better manage the inventory.
Competitor shopping data
Keep your friends close, enemies closer! We don’t mean this negatively, but it is equally important to have information about competitor inventory and shopping habits. This way, retailers can predict sales and make the required changes to an enterprise business model.
There is this Amazon seller tool called Amzpecty. It sends daily updates to sellers regarding the competitor’s shopping behaviors. This insight is given to them using big data.
Conclusion: What are you doing with your customer data?
Gartner reports that businesses lose $15 million per year on average because of poor data quality.
Making the best of the data is the top priority for modern businesses, be it small, medium, or large. The technologies are growing in data analysis, and businesses are learning how to contextualize this data and derive better insights.
Turning data into actionable information
Capturing and processing large amounts of data is hefty for businesses, and humans cannot think of accomplishing this task on their own. There are major digital transformation partners who understand this technological need and help transform businesses to stay competitive.
Computers are getting smarter and faster, with the increased growth of machine learning algorithms and AI. These technologies are making data analysis smoother, faster, and more accurate.
Business leaders know the importance of using consumer behavior and predictive analytics for business growth strategies. Rapidops is one such technology partner that understands how much valuable data is for improving retail customer experience.
Our expertise in developing smart digtial products that can process data in real-time and give useful insights into consumer behavior patterns makes us the best option for your business. 👇
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