Start Using Data Insights to Improve Your Digital Customer Experience

1. Get Data in Order

You can’t become an insight-driven organization without data to analyze for insights.

Most businesses are well aware of the need to gather data. But many treat this as a box-ticking exercise – they do it, but they don’t do it with purpose.

Data only has value when you can identify which data is useful and how to apply it. Crucially, this means bringing together different data points from across all functions and teams that are involved in a customer’s entire journey.

Historically you may have divided your business into different functions that never had any crossover, but in today’s omnichannel retail world everything is connected. So, it’s important to look at your business and identify where data is being siloed based on the structure and organization of your operation.

Knowledge sharing not only results in everyone having a collective view of the customer journey, but also means you can draw more accurate insights from the data.

2. Experiment and Fail

You might think that becoming a data-driven organization means removing the risk of failure. But actually, failure is a vital element of growth – it’s only by trying out new things that you can identify what works from what doesn’t.

An experimentation culture is needed for your business to take advantage of the insights that data can provide. This means that your team need to be empowered to use the data to find a hypothesis to test, try it out, and learn from the results.

By using data effectively, you can also experiment in more meaningful ways. Most businesses limit any experimentation to small front-end changes, such as the color of a CTA button. This doesn’t do anything to address the larger problems in the customer journey, which have a much greater effect on shopper behavior and – ultimately - profitability.

The more you use the data you have on your customers and what they’re doing, the easier it is for you to identify and prioritize opportunities for improvements or to introduce new functionality. This means that your experiments will be focused on the right places to deliver value – even if a hypothesis is disapproved.

3. Go Deeper with the Right Tools

It’s likely that your retail business uses a lot of digital tools to gather data about what’s happening on your e-commerce website, such as Google Analytics and heatmaps.

But these tools are often light on detail when it comes to insights into ‘why’ something is happening or why customers are behaving in a certain way. They also don’t show you where improvements can be made or help you dig into points of friction.

Investing in a deeper understanding is one of the best business decisions that you can make. This might be via a single tool, such as a new Digital Experience Analytics solution, or by combining all your existing data sources together in a more integrated way.

Choosing the best approach will depend on your business and your goals, but going deeper into visitor behavior, intention, and friction will help you make the right changes to your digital experience.