Today, customer experience (CX) should be number one with brands wanting to retain current customers – and draw more in. Some brands do this exceptionally well; they’re the CX superstars among us. And they use consumer and market intelligence to win. We’ll be sharing a few with you here.
We’ll see how they use CX-focused intel to win, including:
- Trusting consumer behaviors and opinions as a roadmap to success
- How market intelligence combined with social media analytics fuels campaigns
- Using social listening to zero in on what consumers want and need – or dislike about products/services
Customer experience is critical to success, and our stats support this, revealing:
- 89% of consumers are willing to pay more for optimal CX
- 74% of consumers say word of mouth is a deciding factor in buying a product
- Customers are lots more loyal to brands offering amazing CX
Consumer Behavior Supporting CX Success
Not all brands have a CX department, and they should. At the very least, they should have the right tools to check in on what consumers are feeling and saying. Here’s why: consumers are no longer loyal to a product based on price or name. Increasingly, they are loyal to companies who’ve given them a personalized, or even just good customer experience. The bar is surprisingly low.
Kristian Foged is Senior Consultant Insights & Analytics at Archetype, a global agency focused on brand strategy and digital communications. They provide clients with the best in social media analytics and market intelligence enabling them to scout fresh ideas. And they accomplish this by following and trusting the customer experience.
They create searches around conversations – for example, ‘coffee beverages.’ (as seen below) By typing in a few keywords, in minutes we get accurate real-time results on how consumers feel about their caffeinated friend:
This search brings insight from social channels, blogs, forums, review sites, news articles, comment data and more, placing it all in one spot for analysis.
Here we see Coffee Beverages has 137,242 mentions in the last month, with potential impressions through the roof. And with a sentiment score of 66% (on a scale from -100 to 100). This indicates there’s loves of love for coffee.
And the devil’s in the details, according to Pamela Mittoo of Coca-Cola. This drink diva zeros in on how consumers are talking about not only theirs, but a variety of caffeinated offerings, paying close attention to whether people are drinking coffee for the flavor or if it’s just for fuel. For example, Coca-Cola might find it interesting that cinnamon is enjoyed mixed in coffee for extra flavor.
While it looks like people here love coffee just as it is, black with the option of sugar.
Understanding how consumers are talking is key to a successful product launch or campaign, after all. If the majority of consumers are returning to drinking coffee the way their grandparents did, putting out a super sweet and creamy drink may not bring in the consumers, nor the money. And that’s where comparing both market intelligence and social media analytics is crucial.
Campaign Planning for Killer Content & Promotions
If your brand is still in the planning stages, there’s no better time to see how news media interacts with consumer conversation, according to Steve Yuan, former EVP of Commercial Innovation at Edelman, noting they have value together.
Below, our network map collected new stories, article and blogs from around the world on Coffee Beverages, continuing our caffeinated example. Everything from coffee brands to how coffee shops have adapted to meet the needs of a post-COVID-19 world, are present.
A timeline view in the Quid product gives us a better idea of how some of the top segments are being talked about over the past six months. The focus on New Cold Brew Coffee Drinks allows us to see what is capturing media attention:
Using the market intelligence above, we’ve arranged a bar chart to show primary company mentions and how they rank in sentiment within the stories present. Everyone’s favorite, Starbucks is seeing mostly green, while a surprise competitor makes an appearance towards the bottom – Chick-fil-A:
Digging deeper reveals this chicken giant flapping its competitive wings and bringing customers a new trendy cold brew.
All of this intel can be used to strategize and it this solidifies what Andrew Brown of H&L Partners , a full service agency, says about NetBase Quid’s ability to narrow down important information! It provides actionable insights around consumers and brands. Cold Brew’s draw is growing, and social media analytics provides posts from everyday social media users confirming this fact:
And a Woman’s Day blogger with 216K+ followers is raving about Amazon and their cold brew:
Our sentiment wheel, organized by popular terms consumers are posting in relation to this trending beverage, reveals top favorite flavors such as Caramel Flavored Cold Brew Coffee. Tasty insight to have, indeed:
And launching a successful campaign requires being on top of what consumers want, specifically, as getting it right is almost a sure thing from a sales perspective: 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for great customer experience, which hinges on knowing who they are and what they really, really want. This is why brands need both market intelligence and social media analytics to test the waters before launching. And then monitor consumer sentiment as they go.
Social Listening & the Consumer Journey
Will Sandwick, Chief Data Officer at Wunderman Thompson New York also recognizes the importance of CX. His global digital marketing agency, uses NetBase Quid to capture consumer emotion to power decisions. Not only that, but to map consumer emotions to different stages in the consumer journey.
For example, our word cloud below shows top emotions people expressed about coffee – with words like love, sweet and enjoy. And behaviors that include what they “want” or “need,” intel around what makes them want to “switch” and attributes they’re “looking for” as well as what they “recommend” and “do not like” and so much more. Each word is clickable and able to be explored down to a granular level to tease out very specific insight to inform all phases of the consumer journey:
Understanding the CX journey goes beyond just what products consumers like though – it also requires intel around who they like, follow and listen to. All of this plays a role in how a brand is perceived. And which brands they buy!
And in NetBase, we can create an Influencer Dashboard to help us identify possible influencers. In this example, we used Starbucks.
This Twitter user has high potential impressions, as well as 480 retweets, each one seen by a different set of potential customer eyes. He’s a micro-influencer, for sure, but one with a genuine message – and oftentimes those smaller influencers offer big bang for a brand’s buck:
And we can explore a bunch of others as well, separated by followers, mentions, engagements and more:
With 74% of consumers identifying word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their shopping habits, social media can’t be overlooked. It’s the telephone of today and deeply influences the consumer journey.
Increase your brand’s energy online with an extra shot of CX strategy powered by market intelligence and social media analytics. Be sure to reach out for a demo from one of our analytics baristas today!
