Customer knowledge analysis
Having gathered a large amount of customer knowledge, it is important that you are able to perform analysis across the customer base to help you make better decisions, and to identify gaps in your knowledge.
There are two types of information in customer knowledge databases, unstructured news style reports and more formal structured data such as questionnaires.
Looking at structured information
Companies have structured customer knowledge in the form of databases monitoring transactions, contact records, questionnaires and surveys (which although anonymous, provide an overview of the customer base) and areas such as Quality of Service Reviews..
A straightforward example of structured analysis is simply to investigate whether your customer's revenue is increasing, static or declining. If you combine this with an overview of the strategic value of each customer, you can start to identify key customers and key segments along similar lines to the well known Boston Consulting Group (BSG) portfolio matrix.
Ideally, what you are looking for from structured data are opportunities to group and harmonise customers together who have similar needs allowing the business to develop more streamlined operations which meet the needs of a large enough group of customers, while avoiding cutting corners and service for those customers who are most important to you. The streamlined operations may include more flexible products and production, increased and better controlled communication looking for cross-sale and up-sale opportunities.
However, you may also want to look at individual cases, looking for accounts worthy of extra care and attention. A critical question is how much you are willing to invest in each account based on the return that you hope you might get.
Analysing ad hoc data
Ad hoc data, by its nature has the potential to be extremely rich in content, but all too often it is dealt with on a case-by-case basis, often only by the account manager. The value in ad hoc data comes from uncovering common truths and wider opportunities across the customer base which signal the potential for new products and services.
Ad hoc, or unstructured data can be analysed only by going through the data, pulling out key trends or valuable information. Tools such as a search engine or keyword filters help the analyst extract the relevant information but it can be useful to try and build pictures too, using ideas such as knowledge maps and case study approaches that allow a range of information to be seen together.
The most common method of analysing ad hoc data is a simple historic approach, putting the information in a chronological order and looking for the underlying story. This is made far easier by having a centralised means of collecting and sharing the information as patterns occur that could not be seen with single or partial pieces of information.
However, there are other approaches to analysis. For instance, you can also take a diary approach - looking for key dates and moments that occur regularly. The simplest is just having knowledge of a customer's accounting year, but they may also launch products at a particular time or with a particular interval for example.
Another approach is to look at the customer's network of relationships - who are their strategic partners, customers and competitors. Can you plot and spot how these relationships work from the ad hoc data that you have to hand. Simple examples of how this might be used include helping your customer keep track on their competition, or partnering with one of your customer's other suppliers so you both increase your value to the customer.
You might also consider looking at the stream of communications by volume and type to identify recurring themes within the relationship and so identify latent needs or areas that have not been covered in other ways.
An effective way of leveraging and exploring the ad hoc information your business has is in the form of workshops where customer facing staff are invited to talk about what they think customers want.
Where the ad hoc information does start to reveal useful information, then this is when more formal and structured approaches can be used to assess the value of this data.
For help and advice on building customer, competitor or marketing knowledge systems contact info@dobney.com or take a look at Notanant our on-line solution.