Guide to Customer Insights: 50 Top Resources Including eBooks, Guides, Infographics and More for Gaining Valuable Customer Insights from Your Data

Customer insights can be the difference between a healthy bottom line and a floundering business. When organizations have quality data, they can put the meaningful, actionable insights to work and know their customers inside and out in order to delight them with a superior experience. But, getting to that point is not easy, and that’s why we have rounded up 50 of the top resources to create a guide to customer insights.

Our top 50 customer insights resources include articles, blogs, eBooks, how-tos, and many others to give you the expert advice you need to know how to go about gathering customer information and translating it to personalization via a holistic view of the customer. Our resources come from industry innovators, personalization experts, and customer data authorities to round our our guide with valuable information for your company. Please note, our top 50 customer insights resources are listed here in no particular order, but we have included a Table of Contents to help you jump to the resources that interest you most.

Jump To:

• Articles
• Blogs
• eBooks, How-Tos, and Guides
• Infographics, Slide Decks, and Webinars

Articles

1. What Does Customer Insight Mean?
@QualarooInc

Qualaroo helps companies understand and influence web visitor behavior to improve web conversion results. Their November 2016 article emphasizes the importance of having customer insights that others don’t and offers tips on how to find them.

Three key points we like from What Does Customer Insight Mean?:

• You should believe something about your customers and your business that few people agree with you on; but you can only be radical if you are right
• Ground unexpected insights in practical, everyday customer solutions
• Build a relationship with your customers to build a product based specifically on what they want, get feedback and make adjustments over time, and you’ll gain valuable customer insights that no one else has

2. Online Marketing: 4 Sources of Customer Insight on Your Website
@MarketingSherpa

MarketingSherpa provides B2B and consumer marketing professionals practical research and case studies on what works in marketing today. Taylor Kennedy’s MarketingSherpa article reminds us that we can gain valuable customer insights from our websites without using any testing if we focus on areas where customers provide direct feedback in their own words.

Three key points we like from Online Marketing: 4 Sources of Customer Insight on Your Website:

• Take comments from form fields and extrapolate them over a few months to look for trends in the types of comments and questions your customers make and ask
• Use customer service chat transcripts to inform your online operations
• Review call center transcripts and determine sources of confusion, problems, repeatedly used words or phrases, and feedback on marketing that indicates whether customers understand your brand

3. What is a Good Customer Insight?
@hypeinnovation
@E_Ozeritskaya

HYPE, a leading provider of full lifecycle innovation management software, offers The HYPE Innovation Blog with posts covering best practices, business transformation, customer insights, and more. Elena Ozeritskaya, customer insight expert, shares her criteria for useful insights in this HYPE article.

Three key points we like from What is a Good Customer Insight?:

• Put the time into articulating insights correctly, to ensure they are compelling, truthful, and empathetic
• Approach customer insight like you are peeling an onion to go deeper into the drivers, motivations, actions, symbols, heroes, and values of your customers
• Useful customer insights are targeted, true, and fresh

4. 7 Steps to Gaining Customer Insights from Your Digital Marketing Efforts
@salesforce

In his customer insights article for Salesforce, Pierry Software founder and CEO Josh Pierry details the ways in which you can gain valuable insights into customer behaviors via digital marketing. As Pierry points out, customer insights can inform your marketing strategy and your business while helping you anticipate customer needs.

Three key points we like from 7 Steps to Gaining Customer Insights from Your Digital Marketing Efforts:

• Identify a specific goal with your insights so you don’t miss out on actionable, valuable information
• Identify your target audience and think about where your digital marketing efforts reach them so you can take a deep dive into those channels
• Make objective observations by looking at the numbers behind the audience you want to learn more about

5. A Newbie’s Guide to Customer Insight Metrics
@Desk

As the all-in-one customer support app for fast-growing companies, Desk.com is in the business of customer insights in a major way. In her Desk.com article, writer and content strategist Laura Norman helps customer insight metrics rookies understand which key support metrics help in optimizing business.

Three key points we like from A Newbie’s Guide to Customer Insight Metrics:

• Choose a support solution that helps you track and improve your team’s performance to deliver exceptional customer support
• Look for new and trending issues and address them before they become significant
• Use customer sentiment metrics ad collect feedback to improve interactions

6. Innovations in Big Data Customer Insights
@Accenture
@piercarlo_gera

Accenture’s global lead for financial services distribution and marketing practice, Piercarlo Gera specializes in transformational programs that drive growth and optimize cost-to-serve. In his customer insights article, Gera not only focuses on the ways in which Big Data drives customer insights in the banking industry but also shares innovative programs that highlight the benefits of customer insights for both customers and banks.

Three key examples we like from Innovations in Big Data Customer Insights:

• Mashreq Bank created a website for consumers to research and purchase financial items using mobile devices, much like an Amazon experience
• One bank uses customer insights to reduce service charges customers have to pay, suggest ways for customers to save money, and advise customers on how to modify saving habits
• Intesa Sanpaolo makes customer analytics actionable in order to improve the customer experience

7. 7 Steps to Measuring Key Customer Insights
@beyondthearc

An integrated agency helping companies take action with content marketing, social media, PR, and data science, Beyond the Arc also specializes in customer experience and voice of the customer. In his customer insights article, Beyond the Arc CEO Steven Ramirez highlights a few steps from a Forrester Research report on customer experience measurement programs.

Three key points we like from 7 Steps to Measuring Key Customer Insights:

• Carefully select which customer experiences to measure
• Define metrics that align with key business objectives and measure outcomes to learn how well your customer experience efforts meet those objectives
• Track customer feedback across multiple channels and touch points to measure what customers value

8. Use Customer Insights to Close Four Loops
@btemkin

Customer Experience Professionals Association co-founder and customer experience transformist, Bruce Temkin shares his expertise in the Customer Experience Matters blog. His article, Use Customer Insights to Close Four Loops, reminds companies that there are four loops that need to be closed when taking customer insight-driven action.

Three key points we like from Use Customer Insights to Close Four Loops:

• If you use a voice of the customer program, make sure you do not get stuck closing only one loop
• Four loops should be involved in taking customer insight-driven action: immediate response, corrective action, continuous improvement, and strategic change
• It is important to build out four closed loops to improve customer satisfaction

9. 6 Ways to Fuel Your Innovation with Customer Insights
@StartupGrind

Startup Grind mentors, educates, and connects one million entrepreneurs in 200 local chapters in nearly 100 countries. Kristin Stith’s Startup Grind article reminds startup teams that nothing matters more than what customers say, think, and feel, and companies won’t know those answers until you share your products and services with them.

Three key points we like from 6 Ways to Fuel Your Innovation with Customer Insights:

• When creating a prototype, share with your audience members to get feedback because their opinions matter more than years’ worth of research and development
• Launch as quickly as possible to get constructive feedback
• Don’t hesitate to collect feedback because most customers provide important insights and give you valuable objective opinions

10. Customer Insights Are Key for More Persuasive Marketing Content
@toprank
@leeodden

TopRankMarketing.com is a modern digital marketing agency serving B2B and B2C companies. TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden reminds marketers that understanding customers’ motivations and influences is helpful in creating persuasive content marketing campaigns in his customer insights article for the TopRank Marketing Blog. The reminder is useful because many marketers continue to rely on intuitive insight rather deep customer insights.

Three key points we like from Customer Insights Are Key for More Persuasive Marketing Content:

• Customer insights are key to getting visitors to engage and creating content that resonates with them
• Marketers should determine the motivations of buyers before using keyword insight to make more effective content
• To persuade and inspire readers to take action, determine how and why they use certain platforms first

11. Extracting Customer Insights with Machine Learning
@teamrework
@reworkpip

Re-Work combines entrepreneurship, breakthrough technology, and cutting-edge science to shape the future of business and society. In her Re-Work customer insights article, director Pip Curtis shares an interview with Avneesh Saluja, an Airbnb machine learning scientist who leverages data to extract insights and specializes in addressing customer issues in a shorter amount of time and maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction.

Three key points we like from Extracting Customer Insights with Machine Learning:

• Natural language processing (NLP) is advancing and improving customer service and personalization
• Customer insights from customer issues can lead to product improvements and changes
• Real-time speech to speech translation with NLP is becoming more of a reality and will impact customer insights by providing even more data to companies

12. Why Companies Can’t Turn Customer Insights into Growth
@bcgperspectives

BCG.perspectives is produced by the Boston Consulting Group and shares cutting-edge thinking on business and management issues. Their customer insights article highlights the need for companies to look outward toward customers’ behaviors, needs, and wants in order to grow.

Three key points we like from Why Companies Can’t Turn Customer Insights into Growth:

• Companies spend too much time looking inward; their internal focus is prohibiting growth because they do not invest in innovative ways to anticipate customers’ behavior or evolve their customer insight functions
• Top executives must be committed to using customer insights strategically in order for it to occur
• There are four stages of customer insights maturity: traditional market research provider, business contributor, strategic insight partner, and source of competitive advantage, with functions falling in the third and fourth stages being the goal

13. Go Beyond Data – Consumer Insights are Key to Understanding Your Customers
@B2Community
@taticeresa

Business 2 Community (B2C) provides an open community for business professionals to share their insights and network with others while establishing their thought leadership. In her B2C article, Tatiana Teresa, marketing coordinator at GreenRope, explores why marketers should take a pause from Big Data, analytics, and metrics and look instead to customer insights for driving sales and marketing.

Three key points we like from Go Beyond Data – Consumer Insights are Key to Understanding Your Customers:

• Metrics may leave out customer motivation, which means they tell only part of the customer story
• Despite the difficulty in quantifying emotions, companies need to determine customers’ feelings in order to understand the connection between a buyer and a brand
• Organizations need to reach out to customers and ask questions to get first-hand feedback

14. 7 Steps for Taking Action on Your Customer Insights
@LuminosoInsight

Using AI, NLP, and deep learning, Luminoso bridges the gap between text and meaning and helps companies quickly uncover actionable insights and value in their data. Their customer insights article, first published by Quirk’s Media, acknowledges that listening to customers and acting on their feedback often is easier said than done.

Three key points we like from 7 Steps for Taking Action on Your Customer Insights:

• Despite the fact that 74% of companies want their decisions to be driven by data, only 29% think they successfully connect the insights they collect to concrete actions
• One way to connect customer insights to concrete business initiatives is to set clear business objectives from the beginning
• Don’t stop collecting feedback and data from customers to calculate the effects of your actions

Blogs

15. Customer Insight Leader
@LaughlinPaul

Paul Laughlin, customer insight enthusiast and MD of Laughlin Consultancy, is the chief blogger at Customer Insight Leader. The blog aims to inform and support customer insight leaders and includes posts that center on “maximising value from customer insight.”

Three key posts we like from Customer Insight Leader:

• CX Leader Shares Vision of the Future for Using Customer Data
• How to Make Better Decisions as a Customer Insight Leader
• More People are Realising Customer Insight Needs Leadership

16. Forrester Blogs: Customer Insights
@forrester

Forrester works with business and technology leaders to drive growth by developing customer-obsessed strategies. The Forrester blogs cover several topics, and the blog for customer insight professionals specifically focuses on actionable guidance that is aligned to this professional role with information on capturing, managing, analyzing, and applying customer knowledge to help your business beat out the competition to serve and retain customers.

Three key posts we like from Forrester Blogs: Customer Insights:

• You Need a Customer Insights Center of Excellence – Get Started With What You Have Now
• The Data Digest: Emotion is the Hidden Driver for Consumer Choice
• Insights-Driven Businesses are Stealing Your Customers

17. Clutch Loyalty Marketing Customer Insights Blog
@ClutchSuccess

Clutch.com is a personalized marketing platform that empowers brands to identify, understand, and motivate customers. Their customer insights blog covers topics such as personalized marketing, customer experience, and loyalty programs.

Three key posts we like from Clutch Loyalty Marketing Customer Insights Blog:

• Increasing Sales with Personalized Marketing
• 24 Experts Reveal Their Top Customer Retention Strategies for B2C Brands
• Luxury Brands Failing with Customer Experience

18. Qualtrics Blog: Customer Insights
@Qualtrics

A leading enterprise survey platform, Qualtrics powers customer, market, and employee insights. They also feature customer insights in their blog posts, which include customer experience tips, customers insights best practices, and analysis of customer behavior trends.

Three key posts we like from Qualtrics Blog: Customer Insights:

• CX Insights: How to Align the Front Line in Three Steps
• In-the-Moment Feedback: Better Than That Yearly Survey
• 5 Must Do’s for Courting the Millennial Customer

19. CMO from IDG Australia Blog: Customer Insights
@CMOAustralia

From IDG, CMO centers on addressing the unique leadership and technology challenges faced by chief marketers as they align their insights with those of the business. The CMO Australia Blog centers on customer insights and includes posts on topics such as customer journeys, compelling customer experience, and innovative ways to interpret customer data.

Three key posts we like from CMO from IDG Australia Blog: Customer Insights:

• Customer Journeys: The New Differentiation Battlefield
• How to Create a Compelling Customers Experience Vision
• Who Are Your Actual Promoters?

20. Experian Blog: Marketing and Customer Insight
@Experian

A leading global information services company, Experian provides data and analytical tools to clients around the world. Their marketing and customer insight blog explores consumer expectations, customer experience, loyalty, and many other topics relating to customer insights.

Three key posts we like from Latest Thinking Blog: Marketing and Custsomer Insight:

• Consumers Expect the Expected – Marketers Need to Remember Customer Expectations and the Value Exchange
• We All Live in a Review Culture – Why Consumer Experience and Understanding Your Customers are Critical in the Modern World
• The Problem with Retargeting – Cracking a Small Nut with a Giant Sledgehammer

21. McKinsey & Company: Consumer Insights & Analytics
@McKinsey

McKinsey & Company has been a trusted advisor to leading businesses around the globe since 1926. Their Customer Insights and Analytics blog shares insights into today’s customers, highlights how consumer habits are changing, and explores why customer analytics matter to businesses today.

Three key posts we like from McKinsey & Company: Consumer Insights and Analytics:

• Meet Today’s American Consumer
• Why Customer Analytics Matter
• Saving, Scrimping, and… Splurging? New Insights into Consumer Behavior

22. Cubeyou Customer Insights Blog
@Cubeyou

Cubeyou is a leader in market research automation and delivers consumer insights that businesses need to better understand their customers quickly. Their customer insights blog takes deep dives into various customer segments and companies’ strategies for understanding and catering to their customers as new challenges emerge.

Three key posts we like from Cubeyou Customer Insights Blog:

• Millennial Hispanics Might be the Key to Sprint’s Comeback
• Meet the Fast Food Chicken Consumers – Can KFC Re-Colonelize Them?
• Meet the Millennial Craft Beer Lovers – Does Shock Top Have a Chance?

23. BRIDGEi2i Blog: Customer Insights
@BRIDGEi2i

BRIDGEi2i Analytics is a global analytics solutions firm and trusted partner for enabling data-driven business transformation. Their blog covers a variety of topics relating to customer insights, including analytics, Big Data, and customer intelligence.

Three key posts we like from BRIDGEi2i Blog: Customer Insights:

• Stop the Third Degree Methods Being Applied on Hapless Customers
• Social Data and the New Age of Customer Intelligence
• Of Watermelons and Unstructured Customer Feedback

eBooks, How-Tos, and Guides

24. Using Communities to Gain Deeper Customer Insights
@getsatisfaction

Get Satisfaction builds some of the best customer communities with their online customer engagement community platform that connects companies with customers to develop relationships to unlock value for both sides. Their eBook, Using Communities to Gain Deeper Customer Insights, touts the value of analyzing conversations that occur in your customer community.

Three key points we like from Using Communities to Gain Deeper Customer Insights:

• Community conversations help companies understand customers more deeply, including their motivation to purchase more or become brand advocates
• Mentions on social media do not yield much insight because they rarely contain much information about the person making the comment
• Companies own the data in their customer communities and can analyze it as they see fit

25. Using Customer Insights to Fuel Innovation
@hypeinnovation

HYPE offers its full lifecycle innovation management software to help companies transform their employees, customers, partners, and suppliers into dynamic and engaged social innovation communities. Their customer insights eBook highlights the ways in which companies can adopt outside-in and inside-out mindsets and use customer journey mapping to gain valuable customer insights that drive innovation.

Three key tips we like from Using Customer Insights to Fuel Innovation:

• When used properly, customer insights can be the most valuable of all external input
• An outside-in approach is necessary to creating a culture that values customer insights
• If you don’t want to ask your customers questions, use ethnographic research and private online communities to gain customer insights without asking questions

26. 6 Steps for Launching CX Insights
@DRGresearch

DRG seeks to turn intelligence into growth opportunities by helping companies better understand customers, brand, products, and marketplace. Their eBook, 6 Steps for Launching CX Insights, highlights the need for businesses to leverage customer feedback when making decisions and launching insights into their organizations to drive success. Please note, you will need to complete a form in order to access the free customer insights eBook from DRG.

Three key tips we like from 6 Steps for Launching CX Insights:

• Companies must communicate insights in a way that ensures they easily are understood
• Embedding insights in decision making help foster a customer-centric culture
• Motivating and engaging employees helps ensure customer experience innovation

27. Customer Insights Matter More Than Ever in a Shaky Economy
@ROInnovation

RO Innovation is a leading customer reference management platform designed for sales enablement. Their Customer Insights Matter More Than Ever in a Shaky Economy eBook highlights customer insights as a key driver of ROI.

Three key tips we like from Customer Insights Matter More Than Ever in a Shaky Economy:

• It is important to work to know your customers on a deeper level through customer reference programs
• The time has never been better for talking to your customers
• Aim to leverage customer insights to work harder for you

28. 5 Creative Techniques to Gain Customer Insight
@SmartInsights

SmartInsights offers developments, advice, tools, and statistics for digital marketing strategy. Their customer insights how-to reminds marketers that the key to success is understanding your audience. It is a mistake to fall into the trap of assuming you know what your customers think; it is far better to reach out to customers and discuss what is important to them on a regular basis so that you can deliver a delightful experience.

Three key tips we like from 5 Creative Techniques to Gain Customer Insight:

• Dig deeper to underlying customer needs and desires to make your customers feel heard; empathy interviews will help you
• Get creative in your approach to understanding your customers and pair techniques with empathy interviews
• Carefully assess how customers approach, considers and decide to buy so you can better understand their frame of mind

29. How to Gain and Act on Customer Insights
@ClickZ

ClickZ offers news, analysis, and expertise to the digital marketing community. Bryan Eisenberg’s CLickZ how-to centers on gaining and acting on customer insights and reminds readers that successful testing does not translate to success in customer insight.

Three key tips we like from How to Gain and Act on Customer Insights:

• Use customer surveys as one way to gain customer insight
• Analytics tell you what people are doing, but you need to know why they are going it to gain a powerful optimization tool
• Customer product reviews also provide a simple way to gather customer insights

30. How to Collect Consumer Insight with a Customer Journey Map
@SurveyGizmo

SurveyGizmo builds software that helps companies explore and discover more about your customers. Sandy McKee’s SurveyGizmo customer insights how-to shares tips for collecting information using customer journey maps. As McKee points out, consumers today expect personalized, targeted brand messages, and companies need to invest in using consumer data so you can deliver highly-valued services to customers.

Three key tips we like from How to Collect Consumer Insight with a Customer Journey Map:

• Keep in mind that although customers want targeted deals, the majority do not want retailers to know their current location and do not want to share their browsing history
• Creating accurate map of customer journeys and delving into their experiences with your brand helps ease consumer reluctance and makes it easier to deliver outstanding experiences each time they interact with you
• Gain customer insight with brand awareness and customer satisfaction surveys

31. How to Gain Deep Insights into New Customer Buying Behaviors
@TonyZambito

Buyer persona expert Tony Zambito highlights the challenges that accompany changing customer buying behaviors in his customer insights how-to. According go Zambito, because buying behaviors are changing, companies need to have new ways of gaining insights into customers and the motivation behind their purposes.

Three key tips we like from How to Gain Deep Insights into New Customer Buying Behaviors:

• Companies cannot continue with the status quo in the face of changed customer buying behaviors
• Companies cannot afford to have gaps in their understanding of customers
• In light of new customer behaviors, companies should immerse themselves in their customers’ business

32. How to Build Effective Customer Insights
@appirio
@jiordancastle

Appirio helps customers compete and win in the new cloud economy. Jiordan Castle’s Appirio how-to explores three fundamental questions for gaining customer insights and emphasizes the need to transform information about customer experience into actionable insights.

Three key tips we like from How to Build Effective Customer Insights:

• Knowing which kind of customer experience you can deliver is not helpful if you don’t know what your customers need and how to appeal to specific, multidimensional personas
• Core elements of building customer insights include benchmarked customer engagement, persona journey mapping, integrated customer experience data availability, an omni-channel view of customer experience interactions, and cross-functional visibility
• You need to know all you can about your customers in order to provide a personalized, consistent customer experience

33. How to Gain Customer Insights in Digital Marketing
@WebsiteMagazine

Website Magazine shares insights on SEO, SEM, web design, web development, ecommerce, and everything relating to web business. In his Website Magazine how-to, application lifecycle management expert Girish Jashnani explains why digital marketers need to understand consumer behaviors.

Three key tips we like from How to Gain Customer Insights in Digital Marketing:

• Identify a specific goal in order to gain valuable customer insights
• Know exactly who you want to learn from in order to identify which of your marketing strategies your target audience uses the most; then, focus on the most relevant channels
• Be objective in your observations; focus on the numbers and metrics

34. How to Create Marketing Plans Depending on Customer Insights
@HoustonChron

Ian Linton’s Houston Chronicle article serves as a customer insights how-to and highlights the need to gain valuable insights in order to craft marketing plans that meet the needs of various customers. Linton explores the relationship between data, segmentation, product development, channel strategy, forecast, and customer insights and shares tips for using them successfully.

Three key tips we like from How to Create Marketing Plans Depending on Customer Insights:

• Capture data from all available sources to gain more accurate customer insights
• Use customer insights to personalize messages and content as often as possible
• Craft product development plans based on customer insights

35. How to Use Consumer Insights to Build Your Brand
@TechCoHQ
@alseoblog

TechCo is a publication offering community, connections, and resources for readers interested in tech and startups. SEO consultant Al Gomez’s TechCo customer insights how-to highlights the need for companies and marketers to use their best source of information, the consumers, to stay afloat.

Three key tips we like from How to Use Consumer Insights to Build Your Brand:

• Prioritize generating shopper insights
• Listen and observe online and offline to find customer insights
• Pay attention to customers and uncover insights by connecting with them personally, mapping their journey, and immersing yourself in the brand

36. How to Get More Insight From Your Customer Feedback
@Questback

Questback is a people-focused feedback platform that helps companies understand customers, engage employees, and beat the competition. Their customer insight how-to focuses on gleaning knowledge from customer feedback and points out that companies often miss out on valuable insights because they look at the same customer data in the same way each day.

Three key tips we like from How to Get More Insight From Your Customer Feedback:

• Use a data reporting tool that allows you to look at your data in different ways
• Zoom in for individual customer insights and zoom out for market overviews
• Use negative feedback to identify gaps in customer service or where your product does not live up to your promises

37. How to Use Customer Insight to Create Better Content
@MarketingProfs

MarketingProfs delivers marketing expertise through newsletters, templates, guides, courses, online seminars, conferences, and research. Their customer insights how-to aligns with their mission to eradicate mediocre content because it details a plan for marketers to use to create better content with the help of customer insights. Please note, completing a free registration process gives you access to more MarketingProfs content.

Three key tips we like from How to Use Customer Insight to Create Better Content:

• Customer segmentation is the place to start for focusing your content on a specific audience and creating content that solves their challenges
• Get feedback from customers to determine what they want to see from your content and which problems they are looking to solve
• Take insights you gain and apply them to your segments to ultimately build or refine your buyer personas

38. How to Use Your Content Platforms to Gain Valuable Customer Insights
@ducttape

Duct Tape Marketing focuses on simple, effective, and affordable small business marketing. The Duct Tape Marketing blog features Funding Gates chief content officer and small business writer Diana Mackie and her customer insights how-to, which encourages small businesses to use the data collection tools they already have to gain insights into their existing and potential customers.

Three key tips we like from How to Use Your Content Platforms to Gain Valuable Customer Insights:

• Use Google Analytics to get a reliable baseline for who your audience is; use the interests section to explore affinity categories, in-market segments, and other categories to get particularly useful insights
• Distribute blogs across a wide variety of platforms and share them widely to get more traffic, get a feel for a maximum number of segments, and feed more data into your insights
• Offer a few helpful PDF downloads on your website to capture emails, determine your audience’s interests, and identify their current problems

39. 3 Innovative Ways to Develop Customer Insight
@Qeryz

Qeryz focuses helping SMBs collect insights directly from their websites in simple, easy ways that deliver value. Their blog post, 3 Innovative Ways to Develop Customer Insight, is a guide for improving customer insights using research, analytics, and experimentation.

Three key tips we like from 3 Innovative Ways to Develop Customer Insight:

• Engage in genuine dialogue with customers to gain insights; listen and carefully respond
• Don’t stop at customer insights; transform them into action
• Use customer insights to create sustainable relationships with customers and foster customer loyalty and retention

40. How to Generate Customer Insights without Another Survey!
@marketculture

Led by Chris Brown, CCXP, Market Culture is a blog that emphasizes the value of using a customer culture for competitive advantage and shares strategies for creating a market-driven culture within your business. Brown’s customer insights how-to reminds readers that it is possible to gain insights without forcing customers to complete another survey.

Three key tips we like from How to Generate Customer Insights without Another Survey!:

• Four categories of customer insights are useful for driving business performance: strategic customer insights, program specific insights, product and service insights, and insights for marketing communications
• Implement an ongoing process involving primary research to gain deeper unique customer insights
• Talk with customers via one-to-one interviews, focus groups, and online forums to generate customer insights

Infographics, Slide Decks, and Webinars

41. Embracing Customer Insights
@Frost_Sullivan
@Visually

Made available by Visually, this Frost & Sullivan customer insights infographic highlights the need to embed the voice of the customer (VOC) in product development and effective portfolio management. The infographic also points to the need for R&D leaders to reassess their processes for identifying customer needs, developing realistic technology road maps, finding new applications for existing products, and prioritizing new innovations.

Three key facts we like from Embracing Customer Insights:

• 84% of companies believe they should employ voice of the customer in product development
• 84% of companies use VOC when developing new products in existing markets
• 82% of companies conduct on-site customer visits to gather insights

42. Turning Customer and Consumer Data into Actionable Insight
@SAP

As SAP points out, Big Data and analytics solutions have made it possible to know more about customers and determine which campaigns are most successful. But, as the Turning Customer and Consumer Data into Actionable Insight infographic from SAP points out, consumer products organizations continue to face hurdles when attempting to take demand-driven insights to new levels.

Three key facts we like from Turning Customer and Consumer Data into Actionable Insight:

• Companies struggle to use all of their consumer data to gain insights because data comes from multiple sources and often is not defined the same way or measuring the same thing
• Only 37% of consumer products organizations have a business intelligence system that can support historic, current, and predictive analysis
• Real-time analysis is key to optimizing customer insights

43. 5 Trends Shaping Customer Insights in 2020
@SKIMgroup

SKIM is a “refreshingly human customer insights agency” featuring decision behavior experts and top-shelf researchers. Their customer insights infographic looks ahead to trends that will shape customer insights in the next few years to come.

Three key points we like from 5 Trends Shaping Customer Insights in 2020:

• Companies need customer insights more quickly than ever before
• Insight extraction is a complicated process because huge streams of data come from business processes and are generated in virtual real context
• Customer insights come from a mix of rational and emotional triggers, and companies need to find ways to tap into customer motivation

44. 4 Infographics that Reveal Surprising Truths about Customer Satisfaction
@visioncritical

Offering enterprise-grade customer intelligence software that helps companies build better products, launch successful marketing campaigns, and improve customer experience, Vision Critical understands the challenges and rewards that are inherent to customer satisfaction. They share four infographics that center on the significant challenges companies face in order to meet their customers’ demands.

Three key facts we like from 4 Infographics that Reveal Surprising Truths about Customer Satisfaction:

• While companies believe brand loyalty motivates buying, it is not; one study found that 80% of customers are willing to switch brands or stores because of a promotion
• Companies do not understand their customers or their desires well enough yet to deliver superior customer service
• 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels he is being treated

45. From Customer Insights to Action
@Capgemini

Capgemini operates with the philosophy that “people matter and results count.” They also believe the business value of technology comes from and through people, so they create business and technology solutions to fit customers’ needs and drive desired results. Their SlideShare, From Customer Insights to Action, explores how to divide the customer journey into seven elements and use customer analytics to gather insights and take action.

Three key tips we like from From Customer Insights to Action:

• Develop an enterprise data science culture
• Enterprises should approach insight-driven value as a crucial business KPI
• Empower your people with insights at the point of action

46. Get the Right Customer Insights & Validation
@michielcambron

Michiel Cambron is an innovation and technology transfer consultant at Verhaert. His customer insights SlideShare explores the need to gain understanding of customers that is not obvious for companies that want to find significant opportunities.

Three key tips we like from Get the Right Customer Insights & Validation:

• Talking with customers is valuable because it helps companies discover opportunities and takes the risk out of innovation
• Keep in mind that people make purchase decisions rooted in emotion and logic
• Spend time determining customers’ perceptions about their problems so you can offer a product or service to solve them

47. From Customer Insight to Business Growth
@implcg

On a mission to help organizations change more quickly and with greater impact, Implement Consulting Group combines analytical thinking and intuitive understanding and balances theory with sensitivity to people and organizational dynamics. They shared their strategies for proactively using market intelligence and customer insight to achieve business growth at a Commercial Excellence Forum and present it now in a SlideShare for companies that want to better utilize customer insights.

Three key tips we like from From Customer Insight to Business Growth:

• Understanding customer needs and building customer insights must be the focal point for developing any business
• Do not underestimate the customer value chain’s role in growth
• Shift your thinking to outside-in, from customer motivations and drivers to actions that foster customer loyalty and retention

48. Using Analytics to Drive Customer Insight, Profitability & Loyalty
@alteryx

A leader in self-service data analytics that deliver deeper insights in hours rather than weeks, Alteryx understands the value of customer insight, profitability, and loyalty. Their customer insights SlideShare is part of a webinar from the Marketing Cloud virtual conference B2B Marketing & Sales Trends. As Alteryx points out, customer insight and loyalty requires a faster, yet thorough approach to customer analytics in order to gain a complete view of the customer.

Three key tips we like from Using Analytics to Drive Customer Insight, Profitability & Loyalty:

• Listen to what your customers say through your data and use your insights to implement customer-driven marketing strategies to improve revenue and customer loyalty
• Ensure your customer analytics solution collects data from all sources and is easy for you to access and use
• Industry knowledge and specific skills are required to take full advantage of analytics and customer insights

49. Turning Big Data Into Actionable Customer Insights and Opportunities
@Gartner_inc

One of many Gartner webinars available on demand to individuals who complete a quick, free of charge registration form, Turning Big Data Into Actionable Customer Insights and Opportunities, is hosted by research director Bill O’Kane and research VP Kimberly Collins. This customer insights webinar highlights how companies can manage customer-related Big Data and leverage customer analytics to identify customer patterns and insights to develop actionable customer opportunities.

Three key tips we like from Turning Big Data Into Actionable Customer Insights and Opportunities:

• Take advantage of opportunities created by the intersection of Big Data and CRM
• Collect and manage Big Data to drive customer-centric strategies
• Leverage analytics to create actionable customer insights and opportunities

50. Transform Your Business through Customer Insight
@Medallia

Brands rely on Medallia to deliver superior experiences. Their customer insights webinar, available on demand upon completion of a free registration form, features Medallia vp of marketing Michelle de Haaff and TNS global head of customer experience Stefan Schmelcher. The webinar guides viewers through the value of developing a business in which every decision is informed by real-time customer insight.

Three key tips we like from Transform Your Business through Customer Insight:

• Customer-centric businesses know the customer touch points that impact success and align every aspect of their operations accordingly
• Companies must connect customer feedback tools and strategic customer insight to channel the voice of the customer to frontline employees on a daily basis
• Responding to customer issues at speed is necessary, or even satisfied customers will churn