In today's competitive market, understanding your customers is critical. It's the first step in delivering the exceptional experiences that people today expect: seamless, consistent and relevant interactions, experiences and messages that anticipate their needs and solve their unique problems in the moment.
To achieve this, businesses must invest in the right customer journey tools—ones that allow them to really know how their customers are behaving across all channels in real time. The businesses that prioritize this will be the ones that come out on top.
Leveraging real-time data to better know your customers
Research by Alterian and CX Network revealed that a staggering 85% of business leaders consider the ability to understand and act on customer behavior one of the biggest customer journey challenges facing them today. Despite this, 42% have only taken early steps to try to remedy this and improve customer journeys. More concerning is that 20% have limited or no formal customer journey strategies in place.
The research also revealed that many businesses are still relying on traditional qualitative methods to try to gain insights into customer journey behavior. Of those surveyed, 72% conduct regular customer surveys and feedback analysis, while 45% use social listening tools to monitor online conversations and brand sentiment. Interestingly, businesses in the US are relying far more on survey data alone compared to those in the EMEA region, where they are more likely to take a holistic customer journey view of the data.
While qualitative methods will always play a role in providing valuable insights that help teams improve customer experiences, they are only one piece of the puzzle. We live in a dynamic digital world in which customers are interacting with and switching between more channels than ever before. Businesses need to utilize the power of AI-driven journey analytics if they are to keep up with the large volumes of real-time customer interactions.
Right now, only 50% of businesses are utilizing customer journey analytics to analyze customer interactions. This means there is a significant gap in how much teams actually know about their customer journeys.
Despite a digital maturity gap, decision-makers recognize the need for transformation and the importance of using the latest technology with real-time data to truly understand customer behavior. In fact, 38% are exploring or implementing AI-driven analytics platforms, while 39% believe AI is pivotal for customer journey experience. But if action is not taken now to better know and optimize the customer journey experience, many businesses are likely to find the gap between themselves and current market leaders widening.
The role of AI-driven technology in achieving customer journey success
To deliver exceptional journeys, businesses must have full visibility of all journey data in real time. Without this, teams cannot orchestrate individualized customer journey experiences in the moment it matters.
As Alterian CEO Bob Hale explains, this relies on businesses integrating advanced technology into their customer journey strategy:
While customer surveys and feedback analysis play a role, businesses can elevate their understanding by merging proven techniques with cutting-edge analytics and AI. This fosters a deep understanding of customer behavior and enables businesses to deliver real-time individualized journeys at scale.
Using Alterian's Real-Time CX Platform, a ride-share business was able to gain a holistic view of the whole customer journey and fully see and analyze the activity of every customer and prospect in real time. This allowed the business to uncover a range of valuable insights, including:
- Retention rate and attrition trends
- Demographic-based retention trends
- Marketing campaign efficiencies and conversion rates
- Customer lifecycle trends and unique engagement behavior
Armed with these insights, the company was able to make immediate improvements to the customer journey experience as well as use the data to inform future journey optimization decisions.
As this case study demonstrates, AI-powered journey analytics solutions provide businesses with the freedom to fully understand different customers and create unique customer-led journeys that align with individual needs and drive loyalty, satisfaction and revenue.
Why journey understanding is a strategic necessity
In today's competitive landscape, where customer experience is paramount, a profound understanding of customer journey behavior is a strategic necessity.
Through the power of AI-driven journey analytics, teams have the ability to truly comprehend customer behavior and use these insights to anticipate and exceed customer expectations in a way that is individualized to them. By doing this and creating best-in-class customer journey experiences, businesses will be able to differentiate themselves, build lasting customer relationships, and drive sustained business growth.
Ready to elevate your customer journeys?
Talk to one of our consultants about understanding and acting on customer behavior.
