Digital customer data

What is digital customer data — and how do the clickstream data, chat transcripts, social interactions, and form submissions generated through digital channels get collected, unified, and activated to personalize service and improve the automation that handles most digital interactions?

Four things digital customer data can tell businesses about their customer service.

The proliferation of digital activity has created a substantial increase in the creation and collection of digital customer data. By one estimate, 90% of all data was created in the last two years, and much of it is about people - what sites they visit, what they search for, which emails they open, and so much more.

For many companies, it's just too much data to process into usable information. But sophisticated analytics tools are changing that and helping organizations use digital customer data for various types of initiatives, such as client segmentation and targeted marketing efforts. Digital customer data can help organizations more completely understand their customers because it provides information about characteristics like online behavior and purchase preferences.

Digital customer data is often considered to be the "property" of marketing teams because it can inform so many marketing decisions. But digital customer data can also enlighten organizations about their customer service, especially when combined with contact center data.

Here are a few examples:

1. Customer paths to service

Digital customer data can help organizations understand more about the customer journey, specifically what path people took when they needed customer support. That can help leaders identify areas that need improvement. For example, if a high percentage of customers start their support journey by searching website FAQs but then end up chatting with support, that may indicate the FAQs need some work.

2. Demographics by channel

Businesses can flesh out their customer segments by analyzing demographics of users by support channel. This could help with personalization efforts, like guiding customers to the service channel that is likely to satisfy them the most.

3. Types of issues customers are using digital channels for

Sophisticated contact center interaction analytics tools can identify the nature of digital channel contacts. This information can then be used when making support channel decisions or to help identify future initiatives.

4. Sentiment analysis

Are chat users happier than customers who use phone support? Are customers more inclined to send an angry email than an angry text message? Sentiment analysis tools can sift through digital customer data from contacts and determine if customers were happy or hot under the collar. This information can be used for establishing procedures and agent qualifications.