customer experience in marketing research

Everything You Need to Know About Customer Experience Research

Updated: January 20, 2023

Published: October 27, 2022

Think back to the last time you received amazing customer service . Remember how it made you feel and how you perceived that business before and after your experience. Compare that experience to the last negative encounter you had with a business, and the difference could not be more obvious.

With recent CX trends such as omni-channel marketing and support, along with the continued growth of e-commerce, it's necessary for companies to understand the customer experience (CX) from multiple angles to reduce pain points and improve customer satisfaction.

CX is not something that your company can just ignore, as nearly half of all customers report that CX is more important to them in 2021 than it was just a year ago. Given this surge in demand for a quality experience, how can your company pivot to meet your customers' rising expectations?

The answer lies in conducting extensive customer experience research. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about CX research, or use the links below to jump ahead:

What is customer experience research?

Why is customer experience research important, customer experience research tips, customer experience research methods, start conducting your own customer experience research.

Customer experience is the summation of every interaction that a customer has with your company throughout their journey. From a cold call to a service inquiry or a coupon in the mail, each interaction between your company and a customer helps to create individual impressions, perceptions, and behaviors that together make up the customer experience.

Meanwhile, customer experience research represents the actionable steps that your company can take to understand CX. This includes collecting customer data — both pre-and post-sale — and then analyzing that data for trends that can lead to process, product, or service improvements.

Best practices in customer experience research programs include focusing on three core components:

• Development

Image source

Your company's CS research journey starts with a customer experience strategy that lays out your vision of your company's goals and maps out the customer journey as it stands and how you hope it to be.

Once you have a strategy in place, you can then put your ideas into action and develop tools and practices for measuring, organizing, and deciphering the data you'll need to validate any changes you make.

Finally, the research process ends with the tracking and implementation of findings that your company can use as a foundation for continuous improvements to CX design.

Customer Satisfaction vs. Customer Experience

To truly understand CX research, we must first take a moment to differentiate customer experience from customer satisfaction. Although the two terms are often used interchangeably, they are actually quite different and should not be conflated with one another.

Customer satisfaction is a measurement used to gauge how happy a customer is with your company's products, services, or brand overall.

It pays to have happy customers, with 89% of consumers admitting that they are more likely to make an additional purchase after a positive customer service experience.

While customer satisfaction aims to measure how a customer feels about your company — whether good, bad, or neutral — customer experience attempts to measure every interaction that your customers have throughout their entire relationship with your company.

Customer experience research can help you tease out key CX data points and measure your company's success against them. A few of those data points are highlighted in the image below.

All of these metrics and more combine to make up the customer experience. With carefully planned and executed customer experience research, your company can glean insights from these interactions that you can then use to enhance your CX design and raise client satisfaction.

There's nothing worse than losing a customer to a competitor due to a poor experience. Unfortunately, this reality is all too common, with 58% of American consumers reporting that they will switch companies because of a negative customer service experience.

Regardless of the industry, CX is highly correlated with brand loyalty, with the customers reporting the most positive experiences also scoring highest on surveys measuring brand loyalty.

On average, there is a 38% difference in likelihood to recommend a company between customers that rated a company's CX as "good" versus customers that rated that company's CX as "poor."

The ROI of conducting customer experience research is well worth the expense, especially when you stop to consider the alternatives.

After all, it's well known that lead generation is one of the most daunting tasks faced by any company. Yet, at the same time, it costs between 5 and 25 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one.

It's no wonder that 48% of customer service professionals state that creating a positive customer experience is a top priority for their team.

There are as many methods to conduct customer experience research as there are ways that customers interact with businesses.

Some companies will choose to use deductive reasoning and use commonly held assumptions and perceptions from the market and their customers to map out the customer experience and make changes from there.

On the other hand, other companies will opt to use inductive reasoning and take small sample sets of observable data and use that information to create their CX map and inform their decision-making.

Whatever route your company chooses, it's important to drill down and identify the essential aspects of what you're hoping to gain from this research.

The questions highlighted in the image below are a great place to start.

These questions and more need to be addressed before your company attempts to analyze a shred of evidence. If you skip the planning and strategizing phase of the CX research process, then you're doomed to fail before you begin, because your company won't know what customer experience research questions it's trying to answer.

Once you've settled on your questions, it's time to start organizing the tools and resources you'll need to actually conduct your research.

Customer Experience Research Tools and Resources

Depending on your goals, you may choose to collect qualitative data that provides in-depth CX insights. However, this type of data is not easy to quantify. For example, long-form customer interviews provide a wealth of information about how customers see your CX but the results are difficult to reduce to actionable insights.

Alternatively, your company may decide to focus on measuring and tracking CX key performance indicators and highlight the collection of quantitative data. Surveys are one of the most commonly used mediums to collect quantitative data, as they allow companies to easily sort and organize responses into groups that can be used for statistical analysis and comparison.

Whatever customer experience research method your company chooses, it's essential that leadership is all on the same page to embrace CX research as a key aspect of your business. With as many as 93% of CX initiatives destined to fail, you want to make sure you're doing everything you can to make sure the time you're investing into CX research is well-spent and not just more money down the drain.

Traditionally speaking, most customer experience research was carried out by large marketing research firms that conducted the interviews, focus groups, and surveys that companies used to make changes to their CX design.

Today, the research landscape also includes data collection firms that help companies collate and store their data for easy retrieval and analysis.

That said, many companies also choose to conduct their own research in-house using a variety of research methods for collecting, organizing, and interpreting data.

As shown in the image above, some of the most common methods of collecting CX research data include:

• Feedback Software

Let's discuss each in more detail.

1. Interviews

Interviews provide a wealth of qualitative data, while surveys are highly customizable, allowing your company to tailor its surveys to collect any type of quantitative data. However, these methods are often more time-consuming and labor-intensive than other methods, so are usually conducted by larger organizations with more resources and time.

Two of the most popular surveys are also among the easiest methods of conducting CX research: NPS and CSAT.

Net promoter score (NPS) is a benchmark used to determine how likely a customer is to recommend your business to someone. NPS surveys are useful, as they measure how a customer feels overall about your brand, which allows your company to gather lots of big-picture information.

Then there's customer satisfaction score (CSAT), which measures customer satisfaction with a particular interaction, product, or service. CSAT surveys allow your company to get quantifiable data concerning every little detail of your business that can then be used to design specific solutions.

3. Feedback Software

In addition, many companies now turn to feedback software to help them collect, organize, and track CX data from multiple sources. These applications make it easy for companies to conduct CX research by bringing sophisticated analysis software and technology support all within one system.

Each type of CX method provides valuable information to the table that your company can use to improve the customer experience. Still, you'll need to make sure that you're following CX research best practices to ensure that you get the most out of your efforts.

Customers are no longer willing to settle for a bad shopping experience to get the best price or a superior product.

The new normal requires successful companies to be sensitive to their customers' needs and smooth pain points when and where they emerge. To do this, companies need to invest in CX research that paints a portrait of the customer journey, identifies areas of improvement, and urges leadership to implement actionable changes.

If your company is serious about prioritizing the customer experience, then you need to do the requisite research. That way, you can turn your assumptions into meaningful solutions that let your customers know you care about them.

And we all know there's nothing better than a satisfied customer.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Customer Experience Research: Steps, Methods, Best Practices

Have you ever wondered what sets successful businesses apart? The answer often lies in their commitment to understanding and enhancing the customer experience. How do industry leaders consistently deliver exceptional service? The key lies in strategic customer experience research.

Customer experience research is a systematic process of gathering and analyzing data to understand and evaluate the interactions between a customer and a company throughout the entire customer journey. 

It involves studying customer perceptions, expectations, and satisfaction levels to enhance and optimize the customer experience.

In this blog post, we will explore the essential steps, methods, and best practices for conducting effective customer experience research.

What is a Customer Experience Research?

Customer experience research is a systematic and strategic process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data related to customers’ interactions with a brand, product, or service. The objective of this research is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the overall customer journey, perceptions, preferences, and satisfaction levels. 

Through various research methods such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observational studies, businesses seek to uncover insights that can inform improvements in products, services, and customer interactions. 

The ultimate goal is to enhance customer satisfaction, loyalty, and the overall quality of the customer experience, contributing to the business’s long-term success. 

Importance of Customer Experience (CX) Research

The significance of customer experience (CX) research cannot be overstated, as it plays a pivotal role in various aspects of a business’s success. Here is a more detailed exploration of the importance:

Customer Retention and Loyalty Building

Customer experience research dives into understanding the intricate nuances of customer needs and expectations. Businesses can tailor their products, services, and interactions to create meaningful and positive experiences by gaining insights into what truly matters to customers. 

This, in turn, increases customer loyalty, as they feel understood and valued and are more likely to continue their association with the brand. Retaining existing customers is often more cost-effective than acquiring new ones, making customer retention a key focus for sustainable business growth.

Competitive Advantage in a Crowded Market

In a fiercely competitive marketplace, where products and services may be similar, the quality of positive customer experience emerges as a powerful differentiator. 

Companies that invest in understanding their customers and consistently deliver exceptional experiences gain a distinct competitive advantage. Positive customer interactions become the brand’s trademark, setting it apart from competitors and attracting a loyal customer base.

Driving Revenue Growth through Customer Satisfaction

Satisfied customers are likely to make repeat purchases and become brand advocates. Customer experience research helps identify the touchpoints that leave a lasting positive impression, encouraging customers to choose the brand repeatedly. 

Satisfied customers are more inclined to recommend the brand to their networks, effectively becoming brand ambassadors. This word-of-mouth marketing can significantly contribute to organic growth and increased revenue streams.

Operational Efficiency and Cost Savings

CX Research provides valuable insights beyond enhancing customer satisfaction by pinpointing pain points in the customer journey. It can lead to operational improvements within the organization. 

Streamlining processes, eliminating bottlenecks, and resolving pain points can increase operational efficiency and cost savings. This dual benefit of enhancing customer experience while optimizing internal operations is a strategic advantage that can positively impact the bottom line.

Steps Customer Experience (CX) Research

Conducting practical customer experience (CX) research involves a series of well-defined steps to ensure that you gather meaningful insights that can drive improvements in your products, services, and overall customer interactions. 

Here are the key steps for conducting customer experience research:

1. Define Objectives

At the outset of any customer experience research initiative, it is imperative to outline and define the goals and objectives meticulously. These should serve as the guiding principles throughout the research process, helping to maintain focus and relevance in enhancing the overall customer experience.

2. Identify Touchpoints

To comprehensively understand the customer journey, mapping out each touchpoint where customers interact with the brand is essential. This involves a detailed exploration of various phases, from initial awareness to post-purchase engagement. 

Identifying these touchpoints provides a holistic view of the customer experience, highlighting crucial moments that significantly impact satisfaction and loyalty.

3. Select Metrics

Choosing the right metrics is important to measure customer satisfaction, loyalty, and overall experience accurately. Metrics should align with the defined objectives and touchpoints, encompassing quantitative and qualitative aspects. 

Relevant metrics may include Net Promoter Score (NPS), customer satisfaction scores, and key performance indicators (KPIs) specific to each touchpoint.

4. Collect Data

Employing a multifaceted approach, customer data is collected through various methods, such as surveys, interviews, and analytics tools. Surveys offer structured insights, interviews provide in-depth qualitative information, and analytics tools offer quantitative data on customer behavior. 

This comprehensive data collection process ensures a well-rounded understanding of customer preferences and sentiments.

5. Analyze Data

Once the data is collected, a rigorous analysis is undertaken to discern patterns, identify trends, and pinpoint areas for improvement. Advanced analytical techniques may be applied to extract actionable insights. 

This phase transforms raw data into meaningful information that can guide decision-making and strategy formulation.

6. Implement Changes

With the insights from data analysis, strategic improvements are implemented in the customer experience. 

This phase involves making necessary adjustments to processes, communication channels, or any other touchpoints identified as potential areas for enhancement. The objective is to align the customer experience more closely with the defined goals and objectives.

7. Monitor and Iterate

The customer experience journey is an evolving process that necessitates continuous monitoring. Customer feedback, both solicited and unsolicited, is consistently reviewed. 

This iterative approach allows organizations to adapt swiftly to changing customer expectations, ensuring the customer experience strategy remains dynamic and responsive. Regular reviews and refinements based on ongoing feedback contribute to the sustained improvement of the overall customer experience.

Customer Experience Research Methods

Customer experience (CX) research employs various methods to gather insights into customers’ perceptions, expectations, and interactions with a brand. The choice of methods often depends on the research’s specific goals and the business’s nature. 

Here are some common customer experience research methods:

• Structured Questionnaires: Design surveys with clear and concise questions to collect quantitative data on specific aspects of the customer experience, such as satisfaction levels, ease of use, and overall impressions.
• Scale Utilization: Implement rating scales, Likert scales, or Net Promoter Score (NPS) scales to quantify responses and measure the degree of customer satisfaction or loyalty.
• In-Depth Exploration: Conduct one-on-one or group interviews to dive deeply into customer experiences, emotions, and perceptions, allowing for a nuanced understanding of their thoughts and motivations.
• Open-Ended Questions: Open-ended questions encourage customers to express themselves freely, providing rich qualitative data beyond predefined categories.

Observation

• Ethnographic Research: Immerse researchers in the customer’s environment, whether physical or digital, to observe natural behaviors and interactions, revealing insights that may not emerge through traditional surveys or interviews.
• Task Analysis: Break down customer interactions into specific tasks to identify pain points, bottlenecks, or areas where improvements can be made.

Social Media Monitoring

• Sentiment Analysis: Employ sentiment analysis tools to gauge the overall sentiment of customer conversations on social media platforms, helping identify positive and negative trends.
• Engagement Metrics: Track engagement metrics, such as likes, shares, and comments, to understand which aspects of the customer experience resonate most with the audience.

Usability Testing

• Task-Based Testing: Design usability tests with specific tasks for participants to complete, assessing how easily they can navigate products or services.
• Iterative Testing: Conduct iterative usability testing throughout development to identify and address usability issues early on.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

• Standardized Scoring System: Use the NPS scale to categorize customers as promoters, passives, or detractors based on their likelihood to recommend the product or service.
• Follow-up Qualitative Questions: Supplement NPS surveys with open-ended questions to gather additional insights into the reasons behind customers’ scores and their suggestions for improved customer satisfaction. 

Best Practices for Customer Experience (CX) Research

Practical customer experience (CX) research requires careful planning and adherence to best practices to ensure the insights gained are meaningful and actionable. Here are some best practices for CX Research:

Customer-Centric Approach

• Understanding Customer Personas: Develop detailed customer personas to comprehend different customer segments’ diverse needs, preferences, and behaviors.
• Journey Mapping: Create comprehensive customer journey maps that outline every touchpoint, from initial awareness to post-purchase support, ensuring a holistic understanding of the customer experience.
• Empathy Building: Encourage customer service teams to adopt an empathetic mindset to see the world from the customer’s perspective and better anticipate and meet their needs.

Multi-Channel Analysis

• Integrated Data Systems: Implement integrated data systems that consolidate information from various channels, including online and offline interactions, social media, and customer support, providing a unified and comprehensive view of the customer journey.
• Omni-Channel Strategy: Develop an omni-channel strategy that ensures a seamless and consistent experience across all customer touchpoints, regardless of their chosen channel.

Regular Feedback

• Real-Time Feedback Mechanisms: Implement real-time feedback mechanisms, such as post-purchase surveys, online reviews, and social media listening, to capture immediate customer sentiments and preferences.
• Periodic Surveys: Conduct routine surveys to dive deeper into specific aspects of the customer experience, allowing for more in-depth insights into identifying evolving trends.

Employee Involvement

• Training and Awareness Programs: Provide employees with comprehensive training on the importance of customer experience and equip them with the skills to understand and respond to customer needs effectively.
• Employee Feedback Loops: Establish feedback loops where employees can share insights from customer interactions, fostering a collaborative approach to improving the overall customer experience.
• Recognition and Rewards: Recognize and reward employees who contribute positively to the customer experience, reinforcing a customer-centric culture.

Data Security

• Compliance Measures: Implement robust data security measures to ensure compliance with privacy regulations, such as GDPR or HIPAA, and build customer trust in handling sensitive information.
• Transparent Data Practices: Communicate openly with customers about data collection and usage, providing clear information on how their data is stored, protected, and utilized.

Continuous Improvement

• Agile Implementation of Findings: Adopt an agile approach to implementing research findings, allowing quick adjustments to products, services, or processes based on customer feedback.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Establish KPIs to measure the impact of changes implemented due to customer experience research, ensuring that improvements align with business goals.
• Benchmarking: Regularly benchmark against industry standards and competitors to identify areas for differentiation and innovation, fostering a commitment to continuous improvement beyond immediate customer feedback.

How QuestionPro CX Can Help in Customer Experience Research

QuestionPro is a survey and research platform that offers various tools for conducting customer experience (CX) research. It provides a range of features to help businesses gather feedback, analyze data, and make informed decisions based on customer insights.

Here’s a general overview of how QuestionPro CX can be used for customer experience research:

NPS & Churn Risk

• The NPS Survey Dashboard provides an advanced analytics platform for measuring Net Promoter Score (NPS) and predicting churn risk.
• Isolate, identify, and predict customer churn based on NPS data, allowing businesses to address issues and retain customers proactively.
• Leverage customer interactions to make informed decisions for improving products and services.

Sentiment Analysis

• Sentiment analysis helps classify text feedback as positive, negative, or neutral, offering more profound insights into the quality of interactions between customers and the organization.
• Move beyond numerical ratings to understand the emotional tone and sentiment behind customer feedback.
• Identify areas for improvement based on sentiment trends and patterns.

Advanced Dashboards

• Access customizable dashboards with various widget configurations, enabling you to tailor your dashboard to specific needs.
• Customize filters, chart types, labels, and month-tracking widgets to effectively visualize and analyze customer feedback.
• Gain a holistic view of customer experience data through visually appealing and insightful dashboards.

Workflow Setup

• CX Workflow allows you to assign and send surveys to customer segments within the same data file.
• Automate survey reminders to improve response rates and gather more comprehensive feedback.
• Streamline survey processes for efficient data collection and analysis.

Disposition Metrics

• Monitor emails sent continually to collect valuable data at every engagement point.
• Track changes in customer behavior over time and identify key touchpoints influencing customer satisfaction.
• Use disposition metrics to refine communication strategies and enhance customer engagement.

Closed Loop

• Capture the customer journey at various touchpoints in real time.
• Share feedback with different teams to foster collaboration and implement organizational improvements.
• Implement a closed-loop system to address customer issues promptly and enhance the overall customer experience.

Incorporating customer experience research into your business strategy is a proactive approach to building strong, lasting customer relationships. By following these steps, employing effective research methods, and embracing best practices, you can gain valuable insights that drive positive change and elevate the overall customer experience. 

Remember, a satisfied customer is not just a one-time buyer but a potential brand advocate who can contribute to the long-term success of your business.

QuestionPro CX empowers customer experience research through advanced NPS analytics, sentiment analysis, customizable dashboards, workflow automation, disposition metrics monitoring, and closed-loop feedback. 

This comprehensive toolset enables businesses to proactively identify issues, understand the sentiment, and continuously enhance customer interactions, ensuring a superior and informed customer experience.

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Customer Experience Research 101: A Comprehensive Guide

February 7, 2024

Every customer expects quality treatment from the company they interact with, seeking positive interactions to nurture lasting relationships. The key to ensuring this consistency at every touchpoint lies in customer experience research. By understanding and addressing the customer's journey, identifying gaps, and actively working to fill them, your brand can guarantee a positive experience every single time.

Keep reading to explore more about CX research, understand its importance, and find effective strategies for its successful implementation.

What is Customer Experience Research?

Customer Experience Research is a systematic and comprehensive approach to collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data related to customers' interactions with a company's products or services. It encompasses various research methods, such as surveys, interviews, and feedback analysis, with the goal of understanding, improving, and optimizing the overall customer experience.

​​CER is essential for enhancing customer satisfaction, reducing churn, and gaining a competitive edge. It empowers businesses to make informed decisions, delivering better-tailored solutions and fostering loyalty. Positive customer experiences, guided by CER insights, not only ensure brand loyalty but also contribute to a favorable reputation, attracting new customers and establishing the company as a customer-centric leader in the market.

Types of Customer Experience Research

Now that we have understood what is customer experience research, let us explore popular customer experience research methods.

Surveys and Questionnaires

Surveys and questionnaires involve structured sets of questions designed to gather quantitative data about customer experiences. These can be distributed through various channels, including online platforms or email.

Benefits: Surveys allow for the collection of large-scale, quantitative data, providing measurable insights into customer satisfaction, preferences, and trends.

When to Use: Surveys are effective when seeking to quantify specific aspects of the customer experience, such as overall satisfaction, likelihood to recommend, or feedback on specific products or services.

Example:  Airbnb utilizes Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys to gather valuable feedback from both guests and hosts. By employing this customer-centric approach, Airbnb gains insights into user satisfaction, identifies areas for improvement, and hones in on the elements that resonate positively with their community.

In-Depth Interviews

In-depth interviews involve one-on-one conversations between a researcher and a customer, allowing for open-ended discussions about their experiences. These interviews provide qualitative insights into customer perceptions and emotions.

Benefits: In-depth interviews offer a deep understanding of individual perspectives, motivations, and underlying reasons behind customer behaviors.

When to Use: Use in-depth interviews when you need detailed, nuanced insights into customer experiences, especially for complex products or services.

Example: As per the  State of UX in the Enterprise survey conducted by UserZoom, in-depth interviews have emerged as the preferred UX research method, surpassing A/B testing, surveys, and focus groups. This underscores their effectiveness in capturing valuable insights directly from users.

Customer Feedback and Reviews Analysis

Analyzing customer feedback and reviews involves collecting and interpreting data from various online platforms, such as social media, review sites, and customer support interactions.

Benefits: This method provides real-time, unfiltered insights into customer sentiments, opinions, and concerns, helping businesses stay attuned to customer feedback and make timely improvements.

When to Use: Customer feedback and reviews analysis is valuable for continuous monitoring and responding to customer sentiments. It is particularly useful for identifying emerging issues and trends.

Example: Amazon utilizes advanced Generative AI to analyze extensive customer feedback , identifying patterns, sentiments, and emerging trends in real-time. This technology provides deeper insights into customer preferences, informing strategic decision-making for product development and customer service improvements.

Customer Journey Mapping

Customer journey mapping involves visualizing and understanding the entire customer experience, from the initial interaction to post-purchase support. It helps identify touchpoints, pain points, and opportunities for improvement.

Benefit: Customer journey mapping provides a holistic view of the customer experience, enabling businesses to optimize interactions at each stage and create a seamless and satisfying journey.

When to Use: Use customer journey mapping when you want to identify and improve specific touchpoints within the customer journey or when launching a new product or service.

Example:  Starbucks leverages customer journey mapping to enhance the overall customer experience. By visualizing the entire customer journey, Starbucks identifies and refines key touchpoints, streamlining processes and improving specific interactions. This approach guides informed decision-making, contributing to Starbucks' success in delivering exceptional and seamless customer experiences.

Why Is Customer Experience Research Important?

In the fiercely competitive business landscape, where  companies lose $1.6 trillion annually due to customers switching brands because of poor customer experience (CX), the significance of Customer Experience Research (CER) cannot be overstated. Successful organizations prioritize customer loyalty, understanding that strong correlations exist between delivering exceptional CX and increased sales. A staggering  87% of customers who perceive a great experience with a company express their likelihood to make repeat purchases.

CX Research is crucial for businesses, serving as a strategic tool to gauge satisfaction, identify needs, enhance CX, and foster increased loyalty.

Other key benefits of customer experience research include:

• Increased Customer Retention: CER helps businesses understand the reasons behind customer churn and provides actionable insights to improve customer retention.
• Improved Customer Experience: Through CER, businesses identify customer pain points, enabling the development of targeted strategies for enhancing overall customer experience.
• More Effective Marketing: CER aids in understanding customer behavior, leading to the development of effective marketing strategies.
• Improved Customer Segmentation: CER assists in identifying distinct customer segments and developing strategies to target each segment effectively.
• Increased Sales: By identifying customer needs and crafting strategies based on deep customer understanding, CER becomes a catalyst for increased sales..

Key Metrics in Customer Experience Research

Here are three key  contact center metrics that will help you in customer experience research.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS, or Net Promoter Score®, gauges customer satisfaction by asking, "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend company/organization X to family, friends, or colleagues?" Widely used and recognized, NPS provides a quick snapshot of a brand's overall image. A low NPS score means more Detractors than Promoters, suggesting customers are dissatisfied with a company's overall performance.

​​While NPS provides a valuable numerical benchmark for gauging customer loyalty and satisfaction, complement it with qualitative feedback for a deeper understanding of customer sentiments and actionable insights.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

CSAT measures post-purchase or post-service satisfaction, predicting loyalty and revealing customer experience weaknesses. It uses a quick survey with a simple question like, "How satisfied are you with your recent experience with or purchase from company X?" often employing a five-point scale.

While CSAT offers a prompt measure of customer satisfaction and loyalty, it enhances its effectiveness by incorporating qualitative research through feedback. This deeper insight into customer sentiments provides actionable insights, enriching decision-making and driving continuous improvements.

Customer Effort Score (CES)

CES is an index measuring the effort customers invest in their interactions with your company. Respondents rate their effort on a 5- or 7-point scale. A higher CES is favorable, indicating an effortless experience.

Map Customer Journeys for Targeted Improvements - Identify high-effort points in the customer journey, map these touchpoints, and focus on streamlining processes or providing additional support to enhance the overall customer experience.

How to do Customer Experience Research?

Improve customer experiences with this 7-step guide, offering a thorough and organized approach to successful Customer Experience Research.

Step 1: Team Building

Form a diverse team with members from CX, UX, and market research, fostering collaboration and leveraging varied perspectives.

Step 2: Objective Setting

Clearly define research objectives, outlining what you aim to achieve and the specific information you seek to uncover about the customer experience.

Step 3: Context Establishment

Understand the broader market context to align research objectives with market dynamics, providing a comprehensive understanding of your business landscape.

Step 4: Key Performance Indicators (KPI) Identification

Identify  contact center KPIs such as Likelihood to Recommend, NPS, Overall Satisfaction, Response and Wait Times, and Overall Value Delivered.

Step 5: Timeframe and Scope Definition

Set specific timeframes and scope objectives to maintain focus and ensure a manageable research process.

Step 6: Research Method Selection

Choose appropriate research methods, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, customer feedback analysis, field research, online collection, and data analysis.

Step 7: Data Gathering and Analysis

Implement chosen research methods to collect qualitative and quantitative data. Utilize data analysis tools to identify trends and insights, translating data into actionable strategies for improving customer experience.

This comprehensive guide ensures you can effectively navigate the complexities of understanding and improving customer experiences.

Five9: Your Ally for a Successful Customer Experience Research

Five9, a premier cloud-based contact center solution, is your ally for successful CX research. It ensures efficient and focused customer feedback analysis through:

• A unified platform supporting diverse channel
• Real-time analytics for proactive insights
• Seamless  CRM integration for a holistic customer view
• Predictive dialing optimizing survey data collection
• Workflow automation streamlining processes

Together, these features empower organizations to excel in customer experience research, leveraging comprehensive capabilities of Five9. Discover more about Five9 through  success stories showcasing how companies have elevated their CX. 

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Successful Customer Experience Research Strategies

Customer experience research is vital for understanding clients and their needs. Use this guide to get started and optimize customer interactions.

Your customers are the most important part of your business. Without them, you wouldn't have a company to run. But unfortunately, far too many small business owners don't realize the importance of their customers. Instead, they don't engage with them at crucial touchpoints or find new ways to enhance their experience.

Your customers' experiences with your brand can impact your business in a significant way. Customers with poor experiences are more likely to voice negative opinions about the business, which may impact sales and customer retention. However, good customer experiences can benefit every aspect of the company, from product development to support, allowing you to meet the needs and demands of clients.

Customer experience (CX) research is the only way to measure the effectiveness of your CX strategies. How happy are your customers at each touchpoint throughout the journey, and are they satisfied after making a purchase? Many companies don't invest in research because it seems daunting or expensive. However, knowing how your clients perceive your business can help you make better decisions and earn more customers while promoting loyalty.

Keep reading to learn about the benefits of customer experience research and how you can begin learning about your customers' experiences.

What is customer experience research?

Customer experience research is the process of collecting and analyzing various types of customer data based on their interactions with a brand. That research can then be used to improve the buyer's journey, leading to more conversions and repeat purchases.

Customers demand a good experience, whether directly interacting with a product or browsing your website. If you can't offer them a personalized experience across channels, they'll look for a business that can. CX research lets you put your clients at the forefront of your organization, allowing you to address their pain points and elevate your company.

How well do you know your customers and what they expect from your brand? CX research provides the data necessary to deliver a quality experience regardless of the touchpoint.

To perform CX research, you need to collect data. Both qualitative and quantitative research is crucial for helping you understand your customers. You can use tools like surveys, net promoter scores, and qualitative insights to learn more about customer expectations and provide them with a better experience.

The ultimate goal of CX research is to provide your company with solutions. For example, how do you attract and retain clients to reduce your marketing and advertising spend? Investing in CX research can help identify needs and expectations to reduce friction throughout the customer journey .

Why is customer experience research important?

Customer experience research is the foundation required to improve your customer experience strategy . It provides insight into customer expectations, allowing you to deliver everything they need to make a purchasing decision.

You already understand the impact of negative reviews. You may have even gotten some on social media or Google Business already. One way to mitigate the risk associated with bad reviews is to learn about your customers' expectations and provide them with a better experience, going beyond traditional customer service to delight them at every touchpoint or stage of the customer journey.

Here are a few of the benefits of CX research:

• Identifies areas for improvement. CX research can help you build a more customer-centric business model to provide your valued customers with personalized experiences. The data provided from customer service research can identify pain points and help you find ways to solve those issues.
• Helps businesses understand customer needs. Your customers have certain expectations and needs when shopping with your business. CX research enables you to understand what customers need from you, whether it's a streamlined checkout process or better communication.
• Increases a business's competitiveness. Customer experience is a requirement for all businesses. Unfortunately, not all business owners realize its importance. If you can improve the customer experience, it might be just what you need to stand out from the competition.
• Improves customer satisfaction. CX research aims to identify ways to improve customer satisfaction. The happier your customers are, the more likely they will become loyal to your business.
• Boosts revenue. Since happy customers are loyal customers, you can expect a boost in sales and revenue.

How do you conduct customer experience research?

Now that you understand why CX research is so important, it's time to roll up your sleeves and begin. Remember, you can't improve the customer experience without data and insights to support your process. Starting with the right data can ensure your customer experience strategy is a success.

Here's how to begin conducting CX research:

Set research goals

Before investing in customer experience market research, you must establish your goals. What type of customer experience are you trying to achieve? You should start with a strong research question defining why you're investing in CX research. For example, your questions could center around negative reviews or specific parts of the buyer's journey, such as checkout. Apart from having a strong research question, you must identify the data and information to help answer it.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are quantitative metrics described by numbers or values that can help you easily determine your customers' satisfaction. You can use any metrics you see fit, but some of the most common are net promoter score (NPS), overall customer satisfaction score, and likelihood to recommend your brand or its products and services to friends and family.

Create a customer journey map

A customer journey map represents the steps customers take when interacting with your business, ultimately leading to a conversion or purchase. Creating a customer journey map can help you visualize each customer touchpoint and interaction. In addition, mapping the entire customer journey can help you determine where prospects fall out of the funnel and brainstorm ways to prevent it.

Determine your research methodology

There are several customer experience research methods, such as qualitative and quantitative research. The best CX research consists of both to give you a more thorough understanding of your customers' experiences at each touchpoint.

Qualitative CX research can take the form of open-ended customer satisfaction surveys , heat maps, segmentation, and observational studies. In contrast, quantitative data focuses on CX research methods that involve numbers, such as satisfaction ratings or net promoter scores.

Quantitative CX research will provide valuable insights that can improve the customer journey and monitor success and progress over time. For example, if you're using your net promoter score, you can analyze that number monthly to determine if your modifications have had an effect. On the other hand, qualitative research can give you more actionable insights since it encourages customers to provide direct feedback.

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Collect and analyze data

Regardless of your customer experience research strategies, the goal is to collect and analyze data to make better decisions that directly impact your clients and business.

Best practices for collecting data include:

• Have clear research objectives. Objectives are crucial for understanding and evaluating any data you collect from CX research. With these goals in mind, you can answer your research question to ensure your collected data is valuable.
• Use reliable data. Your data must be reliable to make impactful changes to the customer experience. The best way to ensure reliability is to use customer experience automation and other apps to improve the customer experience . Doing so makes collecting feedback data about the customer journey easy.
• Minimize bias. All data collection methods introduce some bias because a human interprets it. You can reduce bias by using several research methods and tools, such as your website and sales analytics, to collect customer data. A mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods is best because it allows you to support claims with concrete information.
• Ensure participant privacy. When using qualitative data to answer your research question, you should ensure participant privacy. The easiest way to do that is by making surveys anonymous and not sharing their data with other companies or customers.

After collecting data, you can start analyzing it. How you analyze it will primarily depend on the types of data you've collected. In most cases, you should have both qualitative and quantitative data.

There are several ways to analyze the information you collect, such as:

• Regression analytics. Regression analysis is a type of quantitative data analysis that can help you compare dependent and independent variables. For example, you can compare how sales change based on your net promoter score. If your sales increase alongside your NPS, there's a direct connection.
• Qualitative data analysis. Qualitative research analysis is trickier because you're not working with numbers. Instead, you have to find a way to interpret text written by customers. For example, if you used open-ended questions in your survey, you must find the most efficient way to examine the data. The easiest way to interpret this information is to look for themes or use certain words to find patterns.
• Descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics are another way to analyze quantitative data by summarizing your findings. For example, if you ask all your customers to rate their satisfaction with numbers, you'll add up all their scores and give yourself an average. This average is an example of descriptive statistics because it describes your customer's average sentiment.

Develop actionable insights

What's most important is how you use the data you've collected because it can help you determine areas of improvement and create an action plan for fixing issues. Identify your customers' pain points or problems throughout their journey and brainstorm ways to resolve them. For example, if your clients have complained about shipping times, it might be time to find a new partner who can deliver orders faster without increasing internal costs.

Apply research insights

Having an action plan for reducing friction in the buyer's journey through customer success research is only helpful if you apply the insights you obtain. You must implement changes based on the data you've collected and any conclusions you've drawn while continuing to monitor the impact of those modifications.

Use the same metrics you used to set goals to identify the impact of your CX modifications to ensure a uniform system for analyzing data and applying solutions. Your main goal should be to improve the experience, not necessarily enhance your quantitative metrics like NPS or customer satisfaction numbers. Instead, focus on your customers to meet their expectations, and the results will follow.

How can you improve customer experience with research?

Customer experience research strategies provide you with data and actionable insights that enable you to improve the customer experience by addressing customer pain points and increasing overall satisfaction. For example, let's say you sell accounting software for small businesses and allow users to utilize it through the web or an app on their phone.

In this case, your customers might have issues with the app, which you've noticed because you've analyzed its metrics and seen that they're not using it. CX research can help you pinpoint why customers aren't using the app and brainstorm ways to fix it. For example, you've already used quantitative data to determine your app has fewer users than expected.

Next, you can use qualitative survey data to identify why customers aren't utilizing the application. By using CX research, you might find that customers don't like the interface. So what does this tell you? It means you need to redesign the interface. After doing so, you can measure the impact, determine if more customers are using it with data from your app analytics program, and send a second survey to measure customer sentiment.

Improve customer experience

Customer experience research relies on data to help you learn more about your customers and determine how they feel about your products and services throughout each touchpoint in their journey. In addition, it can help you identify areas of improvement and ensure you have metrics to measure the impact of the modifications you make.

Customer surveys are one of the most straightforward and effective ways to learn about customer expectations. Mailchimp makes it easy to collect client feedback, so you can find ways to improve your business fast. Try Mailchimp today.

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8 Best Practices for Creating a Compelling Customer Experience

• G. Tomas M. Hult

Takeaways from an analysis of the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

How can a company best create a compelling customer experience? Based on the author’s research involving thousands of companies and analyses of millions of customer data points from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the eight areas that companies need to focus on are: Orchestrating the marketing ecosystem, aligning company and customer needs, delivering amazing customer convenience, reinforcing digital marketing, adjusting customer incentives, cultivating customer evangelists, handling customer complaints, and managing product returns.

Every interaction between a company and a customer is an opportunity . For the company, it’s a chance to reinforce brand quality and value with the goal of achieving customer satisfaction and loyalty. For the customer, it’s a chance to provide input on their needs, satisfaction with previous experiences, and expectations for future engagements with your brand.

• GH G. Tomas M. Hult is part of the leadership team at the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI); coauthor of The Reign of the Customer: Customer-Centric Approaches to Improving Customer Satisfaction ; and professor in the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. He is also a member of the Expert Networks of the World Economic Forum and the United Nations’ World Investment Forum.

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January 10, 2022

Five Customer Experience and Market Research Predictions for 2022

Alchemer’s 2022 predictions emphasize the growing importance of CX.

by Chris Benham

CMO at Alchemer

The Customer Experience (CX) discipline, including market research, is continuously changing, and being enhanced as more organizations understand how critical CX is to future growth. And even though CX and market research are key for business success, the programs are often in their early stages, even in modern offices.

2022 will be the year CX and market research explode

Customer data is too important to ignore. And the pandemic altered our normal routine enough to fundamentally change buying behavior, for both B2B and B2C – maybe forever. Modern businesses fall behind sometimes, especially with this year’s uneven return to the workplace. And even a good program can improve. The predictions in this article will help your team act with foresight to build the best and most-responsive organization possible in 2022.

Prediction #1: Brand loyalty rebooted

COVID-19 killed brand loyalty . Brand loyalty took a nosedive during the pandemic with 75% of consumers trying a new shopping behavior since the COVID-19 pandemic started. This includes trying new brands, new retailers, and new generics.

During the pandemic, consumers vented their need for novelty by ordering new toothpaste, a different cereal, or engaging in a fully new routine. When consumers couldn’t browse grocery store aisles, getting new products delivered scratched the itch for something outside the routine.

But the great brand realignment isn’t over. McKinsey reports that consumers intend to continue these new habits after pandemic restrictions ease. Eighty percent of consumers intend to continue use of private labels and almost as many intend to continue using new brands (73%) and new retailers (79%).

Market Research Predictions for 2022 (Part One)

Why loyalty matters.

Smart marketers and researchers know that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase company revenue by 25-95%. In short, it can be easier and more profitable to keep the customers you have than attract net-new customers. Loyalty matters because regular customers tend to be your best customers.

If consumers tried new or private labels during the pandemic, it should then come as no surprise that Forrester reports that loyalty and retention marketing budgets increased by 30% in 2021. CMOs are attempting to shore up loyalty by putting the customer at the center of everything they do. Expect to see customer experience, marketing, and market research grow ever closer in 2022.

Why consumers switch

The pandemic forced consumers to change behavior, but that isn’t the full story around consumers’ lack of loyalty. It’s simply easier these days to produce products, purchase advertising, and find a receptive audience. This speed to market is part of the reason there are so many small direct-to-consumer brands appearing recently.

How to earn wandering consumers back

Some experts encourage a return to marketing and research basics to improve brand-customer relationships. At Alchemer, we recommend making that brand-customer relationship your highest goal. Growing relationships takes effort, but we’ve found that our best relationships typically lead to our best growth opportunities.

So, we put customers and their feedback at the center of our work. Our recommendation to business and research leaders is to become customer-obsessed in 2022. It’s a huge task to orient away from a product-first or company-first mentality. But shifting to a customer-first mentality makes all the difference.

Prediction #2: Surveys are just the start

Customer experience programs are far more than surveys. Prepare for CX and research to get more complex in 2022. Surveys will always play a part in customer experience and market research. Surveys allow researchers to benchmark performance, capture post-purchase feedback, and develop a data cache with periodic surveys.

In 2022, CX programs will grow far more comprehensive in scope. Executives have been trying (and often failing) to integrate customer feedback in a meaningful and profitable way – in a way that allows for quick customer interaction and issue resolution , not just data collection. That real-time relationship building has been difficult or impossible in the past, but no longer. Technical advances will finally allow CX managers and market researchers to contribute meaningfully to relationships in real-time.

No playing around

CX leaders need surveys to collect data, but then that data must feed into other systems, triggering automated workflows and providing solutions quickly.

In fact, McKinsey declares that “survey-based systems can no longer meet the demands of today’s companies “,  because they are:

• Limited . Only 13% of CX leaders express full confidence that their measurement system provides a representative view of their customer base.
• Ambiguous . Only 16% of CX leaders think that surveys allow them to address the root causes of performance.
• Unfocused . Only 4% of CX leaders believe their CX measurement system enables them to calculate a decision’s return on investment (ROI).

In fact, our prediction for 2022 is that customer data becomes one important piece of your larger CX and research program – a broader view empowered by connected data sets.

Prediction #3: From data collection to data action

Many CX and market research teams lack the data integration of their sales and marketing counterparts.

Sales departments tend to operate using a customer relationship management (CRM) tool like Salesforce (SFDC) and, by 2022, have likely already integrated with other data sets like Jira for product or Salesloft for cadences. Likewise, marketing tends to run the marketing automation platform with data that syncs not only to Salesforce but other publishing or analytics tools.

Integrated data is how sales and marketing get done. Less so for CX.

In 2022, expect the CX and market research functions to evolve in many organizations. CX has collected numerous potential data sets just waiting to be leveraged:

• Internal customer behaviors, transactions, and profiles
• Third-party data on customer attitudes, purchase preferences and digital actions
• Social media activity
• IoT data collected in-store or on-location regarding customer health, usage, and sentiment
• Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

We predict that this next year will see CX departments and market researchers evolve from data consumers to data contributors, sharing critical customer interactions throughout their journey.

Learning how to share

Customer data needs to flow to frontline employees and tools, like a company CRM, via an application programming interface (API). The API can serve as a catalyst for automated actions based on metrics like lead score.

In a recent Forrester Consulting Thought Leadership Paper, commissioned by Alchemer, “ Smoke And Mirrors: Why Customer Experience Programs Miss Their Mark “, only 29% of CX respondents say they can meaningfully act on the data they collect and only 17% say that feedback is communicated to the appropriate internal teams to act on it.

Companies have invested heavily in creating customer programs that do a pretty good job of listening and analyzing feedback, but are terrible at responding to the input from their customers.

Collecting and seeing data is one step. But acting on data is a trend Alchemer expects to see much more in 2022, a key differentiating feature for market research teams.

Prediction #4: Automation embraced by employees

Automation provokes anxiety in many people including market researchers. PwC reports that 60% of people are worried about automation putting many jobs at risk.

In 2022, Alchemer predicts a shift in the way we view automation. We believe this coming year will herald a new relationship with automation; an acceptance of our human foibles and the automation we will now call upon to continue our evolution.

Acceptance of automation should not come as a surprise. We know brands are becoming more transparent about data collection and market research. We know that consumers care less about businesses collecting particular pieces of information, like email addresses. And we know we cannot stop the onset of better software, better AI and ML, better…everything.

Fear of automation is overstated

In the United States, 52% of respondents received automation training within the past year and 94% credit the training with an improved job performance . Almost all respondents claim that automation makes them better at their job.

But acceptance of automation doesn’t end at training. When considering future careers, 63% of workers see automation skills as critical to their career growth.

So, let’s face it: We are cautiously optimistic about the future of technology. The same PwC study reveals that 64% of respondents say technology presents more opportunities than risks (only 9% disagree).

Increasing human potential

So, why are workers so bullish on automation these days? An early indicator could be exactly the type of work being automated – humans may be delighted that their repetitive, mundane work can be automated freeing more time for strategy and analysis.

A second indicator appears to be a renewed focus on other skills. With the introduction of AI, executives are more likely to look at processes and roles, and to consider different modes of working. Many business leaders are incorporating training on uniquely human skills: 59 percent of AI practitioners reported that their organizations are focusing on “process skills, like active listening and critical thinking”.

We may already be seeing this type of training pay off. People learned a lot of new skills during the COVID pandemic. And not just how to bake sour-dough bread. Four in five workers learned new skills from home during the pandemic (82%) and 72% report feeling more confident in their ability to do their job. While many experienced The Great Recession or Realignment, those of us reporting to work are feeling better about it than the recent past.

In 2022, we finally embrace automation.

Prediction #5: B2B more like B2C

Many of us spent a good portion of the pandemic making purchases from our phones, downloading media onto our devices, and playing games online with family members. We were living B2C lives where purchases were only a click away.

Now, as workers return or plan to return to work , we are back to living B2B lives during part of the day. We’re required to speak with Sales teams to get information. We access wonky vendor portals or employee intranets to find solutions.

When will a software company homepage give us the same warm and fuzzy feelings as Netflix?

The pandemic changed business relationships forever

The bar has been raised for customer experience and market research teams and how they develop relationships with consumers.

As workers shifted to remote work, they found a lot to love. Self-serve options, common in B2C e-commerce, have grown for business buyers too. Top-of-funnel activities like identifying and evaluating new suppliers offer more self-service options – up in a new McKinsey study from 22% of respondents in August 2020 to 34% in February 2021.

We don’t hate human interaction; we just want to complete our work. McKinsey shows that two-thirds of buyers prefer remote human interactions or digital self-service. A Forrester study found that 59% of B2B buyers and sellers prefer not to interact with a sales rep and 74% prefer buying directly from a website. The message: Let us do it ourselves.

What do B2B consumers want?

B2B consumers want everything that B2C consumers have – easy service, quick product purchase, digital content, and responsive support. Forrester Principal Analyst Kathy Contreras says, “[t]he future B2B buyer will expect buying experiences to be increasingly open, connected, intuitive, and immediate “.

B2B buyers want access to information – access that is possible through ubiquitous digital channels, available anywhere, on any device. With more people confined to their homes this past year and more reliant than ever on digital tools, customer expectations for a frictionless experience have risen.

“Personalization” is the term most often tossed around when discussing tactics for customer focus. But we predict a bigger focus than just adding someone’s first name to their email introductions.

This personalization is different. This personalization is about the whole experience – the content, the product, the offer, the look, and feel. This personalization starts to sound a lot like B2C to CEO Gal Oron :

“Performing analytics on customers’ product content interactions can help businesses better understand what each customer needs and tailor their experiences – from the content they’re served to the offers and promotions they receive – in a way that feels just as customized and relevant as their video streaming feeds.”

Personalization is about providing answers for the consumer. If these experiences are as profitable as they seem – Epsilon says 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when offered a personalized experience – then expect to see a lot more personalization in B2B sales during 2022.

We predict personalized, relevant experiences for B2B buyers on digital channels to greatly increase as the lines between B2B and B2C continue to blur. It may not be Netflix, but perhaps it can come close.

A version of the preceding article was originally published via a series of posts on the Alchemer blog: CX Prediction 2022.1 – Brand Loyalty Rebooted;   CX Prediction 2022.2 – Surveys Are Just the Start ; CX Prediction 2022.3 – From Data Collection to Data Action ; CX Prediction 2022.4 – Automation Embraced by Employees ; and CX Prediction 2022.5 – B2B Becomes More like B2C .

Chris Benham

The views, opinions, data, and methodologies expressed above are those of the contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect or represent the official policies, positions, or beliefs of Greenbook.

Comments are moderated to ensure respect towards the author and to prevent spam or self-promotion. Your comment may be edited, rejected, or approved based on these criteria. By commenting, you accept these terms and take responsibility for your contributions.

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What is Customer Research? Definition, Types, Examples and Best Practices

By Nick Jain

Published on: June 26, 2023

Table of Contents

What is Customer Research?

Types of customer research, how to conduct customer research: 10 key steps, examples of customer research questions, top 10 best practices for customer research.

Customer research is defined as the systematic process of gathering and analyzing information about customers, their behaviors, needs, preferences, and experiences. It involves qualitative and quantitative studies to understand the target audience in order to make informed business decisions and develop effective strategies to meet expectations on customer experience and product/ service demands.

Customer research aims to provide insights into various aspects of the customer journey, including their motivations, purchase behaviors, satisfaction levels, and pain points. It helps organizations gain a deep understanding of their customers, enabling them to tailor their products, services, and marketing efforts to better meet customer expectations.

The key components of customer research typically include the following:

• Research Objectives: Clearly defining the objectives and goals of the research is crucial. This involves determining what specific information or insights the organization aims to gather from customer research. Research objectives help guide the research process and ensure that the collected data is relevant and aligned with the organization’s needs.
• Target Audience Definition: Identifying the target audience or customer segment is essential. This involves determining the specific group of customers or potential customers that the research will focus on. The target audience should be representative of the organization’s customer base or the intended market.
• Research Methodology: Choosing the appropriate research methods and techniques is important to gather relevant data. The methodology may include a combination of quantitative and qualitative observation approaches such as surveys, interviews, focus groups , or data analytics. The chosen methods should align with the research objectives and provide the desired depth and breadth of insights.
• Data Collection: Conducting data collection activities is a core component of customer research. This involves implementing the selected research methods to collect data from the target audience. It may include distributing surveys, conducting interviews or focus groups , observing customer behaviors, or analyzing existing data sources. Proper data collection techniques ensure the accuracy and reliability of the gathered information.
• Data Analysis: Once the data is collected, it needs to be analyzed to extract meaningful insights. Data analysis involves organizing, categorizing, and interpreting the collected data. This may include quantitative research using statistical techniques, such as descriptive statistics or regression analysis, and qualitative research involving the identification of patterns, themes, and trends in the data. The goal is to derive actionable insights that can inform decision-making.
• Findings and Insights: Communicating the research findings and insights is a critical component. This involves summarizing and presenting the results in a clear and understandable manner. The findings should address the research objectives and provide valuable insights into customer behaviors, preferences, needs, or pain points. Visualizations, reports, presentations, or dashboards may be used to effectively convey the information.
• Recommendations: Based on the research findings, recommendations are made to guide business decisions and actions. Recommendations should be practical, actionable, and aligned with the organization’s goals. They may involve suggestions for product improvements, marketing strategies, customer experience enhancements, market segmentation approaches, or any other relevant areas.
• Iteration and Continuous Improvement: Customer research is an iterative process. Organizations should continuously gather customer feedback and update their understanding of customer needs and preferences. The insights gained from research should be regularly incorporated into business strategies and practices. This iterative approach ensures that the organization remains responsive to customer expectations and market changes.

There are various types of customer research that organizations can conduct to gather insights into customer experiences , behavior, and preferences. Some of the common types of customer research include:

• Customer Satisfaction Research

Customer satisfaction research focuses on measuring customer satisfaction levels with a product, service, or overall experience. It often involves surveys or feedback forms to gather customer opinions and perceptions. Customer satisfaction research helps organizations identify areas for improvement, gauge customer loyalty, and track changes in customer satisfaction over time.

• Customer Needs and Preferences Research

This type of research aims to uncover the needs, preferences, and expectations of customers. It helps organizations understand what customers value, what drives their purchasing decisions, and what features or attributes they desire in a product or service. Customer needs and preferences research can involve surveys, interviews, focus groups , or ethnographic research methods.

• Customer Experience (CX) Research

CX research focuses on understanding how users interact with a product, website, or service. It involves observing and analyzing user behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions to identify usability issues, pain points, and opportunities for improvement. The insights gained from CX research help organizations enhance the customer experience and increase satisfaction.

• Brand Perception Research

Brand perception research aims to understand how customers perceive a brand and its reputation in the market. It involves gathering customer feedback on brand awareness, brand image, brand associations, and brand loyalty. Brand perception research helps organizations assess the effectiveness of their branding strategies, identify brand strengths and weaknesses, and make informed decisions to enhance brand positioning.

• Customer Segmentation Research

Customer segmentation research involves grouping customers into distinct segments based on common characteristics, behaviors, or needs. It helps organizations understand their customer base and tailor their marketing strategies and offerings to specific customer segments. Customer segmentation research can involve data analysis, surveys, or clustering techniques to identify meaningful customer segments.

• Competitive Research

Competitive research focuses on analyzing competitors’ strategies, products, and customer experiences . It aims to gain insights into the competitive landscape and identify opportunities for differentiation. Competitive research involves analyzing competitors’ websites, conducting mystery shopping, monitoring social media, and gathering intelligence through industry reports or secondary research.

• Customer Journey Mapping

Customer journey mapping involves visualizing and understanding the end-to-end customer experience across various touchpoints and interactions with a company. It helps organizations identify pain points, gaps, and opportunities for improvement at each stage of the customer journey. Customer journey mapping can be done through a combination of data analysis, customer feedback , and qualitative research methods .

These are just a few examples of the types of customer research organizations can conduct. The choice of research type depends on the specific research objectives, the nature of the industry or market, and the information needed to make informed business decisions.

Learn more: What is Customer Feedback?

Conducting customer research involves a systematic approach to gathering insights about customers and their preferences. Here are the key steps to conduct customer research effectively:

1. Define Research Objectives: Clearly define the specific objectives of your customer research. Determine what information or insights you seek to gather and how you plan to use the research findings. This will guide the entire research process and ensure that it remains focused and aligned with your goals.

2. Identify Target Audience: Identify the specific target audience or customer segment you want to study. Consider factors such as demographics, location, behavior, or any other relevant criteria. The target audience should be representative of your customer base or the market you wish to understand.

3. Choose Research Methods: Select the appropriate research methods (such as quantitative , qualitative research ) and techniques that will help you gather the desired information from your target audience. This may include surveys, interviews, focus groups , observational research (such as quantitative , and qualitative observation ), data analytics, or a combination of these methods. Consider the advantages, limitations, and resource requirements of each method.

4. Develop Research Instruments: Design the research instruments, such as survey questionnaires, interview guides, or discussion protocols, based on your research objectives. Ensure that the instruments are clear, concise, and structured to gather the necessary data. Use validated scales or questions when available and pilot test the instruments to identify any issues or areas for improvement.

5. Recruit Participants: Recruit participants who fit your target audience criteria and are willing to participate in the research. Depending on the research methods chosen, recruitment can be done through various channels such as online panels, customer databases, social media, or targeted advertising. Clearly communicate the purpose and benefits of the research to encourage participation.

6. Conduct Data Collection: Implement the chosen research methods to collect data from your participants. Administer surveys, conduct interviews or focus groups , observe customer behaviors, or analyze existing data sources. Ensure that the data collection process follows ethical guidelines, respects privacy, and maintains data confidentiality.

7. Analyze Data: Once the data is collected, analyze it to derive meaningful insights. Use appropriate data analysis techniques based on the nature of your data and research objectives. This may involve quantitative research and analysis using statistical methods, qualitative research and analysis using thematic coding or content analysis, or a combination of both. Ensure that the data analysis is rigorous, systematic, and aligned with your research objectives.

8. Interpret Findings: Interpret the research findings to gain insights into customer behaviors, preferences, needs, or perceptions. Analyze patterns, trends, and relationships in the data and relate them back to your research objectives. Look for key themes, outliers, or significant findings that can inform your decision-making.

9. Communicate Results: Present the research findings in a clear and concise manner. Prepare reports, presentations, or visualizations that effectively communicate the insights to stakeholders. Tailor the communication format to the needs and preferences of your target audience, ensuring that the findings are easily understandable and actionable.

10. Apply Insights: Apply the insights gained from customer research to inform your business decisions and strategies. Use the findings to enhance product development, refine marketing strategies, improve customer experiences , or address specific pain points. Regularly revisit the research findings and incorporate them into your ongoing business practices.

Remember that customer research is an iterative process. As you implement the insights gained, monitor the outcomes and consider conducting follow-up research to assess the impact and gather further insights. Continuous customer research helps organizations stay informed about evolving customer needs and preferences, enabling them to stay competitive and customer-centric.

Learn more: What is Quantitative Market Research?

​​Here are some examples of customer research questions that businesses might ask:

• What factors influenced your decision to purchase our product/service?
• How did you first hear about our company?
• What specific features or aspects of our product/service do you find most valuable?
• What improvements or enhancements would you like to see in our product/service?
• How likely are you to recommend our product/service to others? Why?
• What obstacles or challenges did you encounter when using our product/service?
• How does our product/service compare to competitors in the market?
• How satisfied are you with the level of customer support you received?
• What are your expectations for pricing and value in relation to our product/service?
• How frequently do you use our product/service, and for what purposes?

These questions can help businesses gain insights into customer preferences, satisfaction levels, purchasing behavior, and areas for improvement. It’s important to tailor the questions to the specific industry, product, or service being researched to gather the most relevant information.

When conducting customer research, it’s essential to follow best practices to ensure accurate and valuable insights. Here are some best practices for customer research:

1. Clearly define research objectives

Start by identifying the specific goals and objectives of your customer research. What do you want to learn or achieve through the research? This will guide your research approach and help you focus on the most relevant questions and areas of investigation.

2. Use a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods

Combining qualitative and quantitative research methods can provide a comprehensive understanding of your customers. Qualitative methods , such as interviews or focus groups, offer in-depth insights and allow you to explore customer motivations and experiences. Quantitative methods , like surveys or data analysis, provide statistical data and help you identify patterns and trends.

3. Identify your target audience

Clearly define the characteristics and demographics of your target audience. This will help you select the right participants for your research and ensure that customer feedback represents your customer base accurately.

4. Create unbiased and neutral questions

Formulate questions that are clear, unbiased, and neutral to avoid leading or influencing participants’ responses. Use open-ended questions to encourage participants to provide detailed and honest feedback.

5. Use a variety of data collection methods

Explore various data collection methods to gather customer insights. These can include surveys, interviews, focus groups , social media listening, website analytics, customer feedback forms, or online reviews. Employing multiple methods (such as quantitative research methods , qualitative research methods , etc.) can provide a more comprehensive view of customer opinions and behaviors.

6. Engage with customers at different touchpoints

Interact with customers throughout their journey with your product or service. This can include pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase stages. Collect feedback at different touchpoints to understand the entire customer experience and identify areas for improvement.

7. Maintain confidentiality and anonymity

Assure participants that their responses will be kept confidential and anonymous. This encourages honest and unbiased feedback. Respect privacy regulations and data protection guidelines when collecting and storing customer data.

8. Analyze and interpret data systematically

Once you have collected the data, analyze it systematically. Look for patterns, trends, and common themes. Identify key insights and use them to inform your decision-making process. Consider using data visualization techniques to present findings in a clear and concise manner.

9. Continuously iterate and improve

Customer research should be an ongoing process. Regularly revisit your research objectives and update your research methods to reflect changing customer needs and preferences. Continuously gather customer feedback and make improvements based on customer insights.

10. Communicate findings and take action

Share the results of your customer research with relevant stakeholders within your organization. Communicate the key findings, insights, and recommendations. Use the research findings to inform strategic decisions, product development, marketing strategies, and customer support initiatives.

By following these best practices, you can conduct effective customer research that provides valuable insights and helps you better understand and serve your customers.

Learn more: What is Qualitative Research?

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Improving customer experiences with market research.

Read to discover:

• The most common customer experience research methodologies
• Why customer experience research needs to be agile and continuous
• The ROI of research and how it leads to increased loyalty & retention

Do you know how satisfied your customers are? Delighting your customers with quality products and services, impeccable customer support, and continual innovation is key to the long-term success of your business. According to The Harvard Business Review , increasing customer retention rates by 5% can increase profits by a whopping 25-95%. Although most companies understand that customer experiences matter, it can be difficult to truly understand and measure their experiences. 

Luckily, customer experience market research can give businesses of all sizes the insights they need to understand their customers, improve their products and operations, and create brand loyalty that stands the test of time. With customer experience (CX) research, you can understand what drives your customer’s behavior, what features/benefits they crave, how you can stand out amongst the competition, and how you can optimize their journey for ultimate satisfaction. This article will discuss the importance of market research for CX, the different methods for collecting data, how to stay agile in an ever-changing business landscape, and the return on investment (ROI) of CX research. 

Common Customer Experience Market Research Methods to Better Understand Your Customers 

In order to meet or even exceed your customer’s expectations, you must understand who your customers are and what they are looking for in the products and services they purchase. Market research, specifically CX, helps businesses take a deep dive into their customer’s demographics, minds, motivations, and purchasing behaviors. With the knowledge collected from CX research, brands can fine-tune their product and service offerings to meet their target market’s current and future needs. Here are the methods that CX researchers use to capture this rich data. 

Sentiment Tracking

Have you ever received a text message from a friend and felt unsure about what kind of tone they were conveying? While face-to-face conversations allow people to see gestures, facial expressions and hear the tone of voice, digital communication makes deciphering sentiment nearly impossible. Just like text between friends, sentiment tracking helps businesses uncover their customers’ true feelings towards their products, services, marketing campaigns, and more. Researchers can use a sentiment analysis tool to determine the tone, intent, and emotion behind customer messages for accurate CX analysis. Sentiment tracking is crucial for brands that engage with customers on social media, text, live chat, and e-mail, where it can be challenging to understand the sentiment behind the customer’s words. 

Sentiment analysis allows brands to learn more about customer perception using qualitative feedback. By leveraging an automated system to analyze text-based conversations, businesses can get to the heart of their customers’ needs. 

Innovation Testing

The only constant in this world is change, and businesses that fail to innovate will fail to retain their market share. A critical component of customer delight is providing that “Wow” factor with products and services; To achieve that “Wow,” however, businesses must continually innovate. However, innovation without data can lead to disastrous results, poor sales, and products/services that customers don’t want. To achieve the best results, brands should consider innovation testing to test new business ideas, new services, new strategies, new campaigns, and new offerings before launching them to the public. 

Companies must move away from guessing what their customers want and push towards data-driven business decisions. Innovation testing can help them achieve the latter and craft comprehensive business strategies that continuously align with customers’ needs, wants, and preferences, even as they evolve.

Competitor Tracking

Customer perceptions are not static; they change with society, culture, and current events. Brands that are not aware of what their competitors are doing may quickly become outdated as similar companies offer better products and services that meet the market’s current needs. With competitor tracking, competitive analysis, company profiles, real-world case studies, and market trends reports, companies can identify important industry trends and opportunities to stay ahead of the competition. 

Competitor tracking allows brands to understand the key players in their industry, what customers like/dislike about competitors’ offerings, what marketing strategies other companies are using, what customer expectations are, and how they have shifted over time.

Customer Journey Mapping

Another critical component of customer experience market research is customer journey mapping. When a customer purchases an item, multiple steps lead them to that point. Perhaps they saw a social media ad, clicked through to a website, browsed product categories, left the website, came back later via Google, looked at specific items, purchased an item, and received a product order confirmation. Each one of these steps is an integral part of the customer journey. CX research aims to understand the entire customer journey by measuring every touchpoint and stop along the way. 

With customer journey mapping, researchers create a customer journey map, i.e., a visual story of a customer’s interactions with your brand, from awareness to consideration, purchase, and beyond. This research tool helps businesses step into their customer’s shoes and see any bottlenecks or areas for improvement from the customer’s perspective. It allows brands to gather insights into common customer pain points and how to improve.

Customer journey mapping is essential because it helps researchers understand customer expectations to optimize or personalize their experience. 

Why Consumer Experience Market Research Needs To Be Continuous

Businesses of all sizes in all industries need to understand their customers in real-time to provide the best experiences, products, and services that will leave their competition in the dust. Gone are the days of formulaic and lengthy market research campaigns that quickly go stale. Companies that utilize agile market research focus on what is working for their customers right now and what isn’t.

With agile CX research, companies continuously collect data to incorporate customer and employee needs into products, communications, and services. By understanding what their audience wants and needs with real-time qualitative agile research, they can quickly make decisions that lead to long-term success. When implemented, new products are launched rapidly, changes to existing products are made swiftly, and new ideas are vetted more efficiently.

ROI Of CX Research: Increasing Customer Loyalty With MR

One of the main benefits of customer experience market research is that it uncovers the underlying motivations behind consumer purchase decisions. Customers are the heartbeat of every organization. From product performance to market penetration and beyond, the success of your business is determined by the satisfaction of your customers. 

How can your brand drive customer-centricity to deliver optimal results? More and more often, the answer we hear is community. Online communities have become the #1 tool for major brands to put the customer at the center of every business strategy. Learn more with our downloadable e-book, Driving Customer Centricity with Online Communities . 

Author: Victoria Shakespeare

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Experience-led growth: A new way to create value

The world’s largest companies have a thorny problem in common. Airlines, insurers, telcos, utilities, and other major incumbents are all struggling to achieve sustainable, profitable growth in a world in which their offerings are increasingly commoditized. Alongside mounting competition from their peers, they face disruption from nimble digital-native firms that are targeting their customers with innovative, convenient, and often personalized offers.

Frequently, their response is to take on the attackers at their own game—that of acquiring customers as aggressively as possible. But as they obsess about new customer acquisition, many incumbents are neglecting their most powerful competitive advantage: their vast existing customer bases.

Two key numbers from McKinsey’s work underscore the case for a shift in focus. On the downside, compensating for the value of one lost customer can require the acquisition of three new customers. On the upside, 80 percent of the value creation achieved by the world’s most successful growth companies comes from their core business —principally, unlocking new revenues from existing customers.

These companies have honed a powerful strategy for driving profitable growth that their most nimble and disruptive competitors cannot emulate: providing a distinctive customer experience (CX), consistently and proactively, that entices existing customers who choose their brand. These customers change their behaviors, and such behavior changes can be measured by concrete financial metrics like share of wallet, repeat purchases, or net revenue retention (NRR). 1 McKinsey defines net revenue retention as the percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over a given time period.

We call this strategy “experience-led growth.” To succeed with it, companies start by defining their desired financial outcome and then prioritize the CX improvements that will deliver that outcome. They have the boldness to rethink their corporate culture and operating models, to ramp up innovation and technology adoption, and to build new CX measurement and analytics capabilities. Sometimes they must reexamine and redefine their very reason for being.

Shut up and listen to your customers

A mobile telecom operator faced an existential crisis: its customers were deserting it as competitors promised better network coverage and enticed switchers with cut-price offers. Attempts to use contracts to lock in customers backfired, creating resentment that caused many to defect anyway. The company tried to counter its competitors’ aggressive acquisition tactics with its own eye-catching offers to new customers—but excluded existing customers, compounding dissatisfaction.

The CEO had a wake-up call on his morning commute when he listened in to customers’ calls to the telco’s call centers. Their frustration shocked him—and spurred a turnaround that saw his team line up and tackle pain point after pain point. The company eliminated contracts and allowed anytime upgrades, made every new customer offer available to existing customers, and improved its network. In parallel, the company reinvented its approach to service.

The results were dramatic: as customer satisfaction ratings jumped from worst to first in the industry, customer churn rates were cut by 75 percent. Over a three-year period, the company’s revenues nearly doubled—outstripping its key competitors’ revenue growth threefold. As the CEO said: “It’s amazing the things you can do when you shut up and listen to your customers.”

This story is a classic case of experience-led growth. Growth is always hard to achieve, especially for incumbents. But those that get growth right deliver 30 percent higher TRS and nearly double the shareholder value than their industry peers, on average. 2 Over a ten-year period, more value defined as xTRS (excess total return to shareholders above peers), data 2005–2019, N>5,000. Our research shows that strategies focused on delighting customers allow companies to earn greater value from their current customer base—which results in concrete financial outcomes.

That’s why there is such a strong correlation between companies’ CX ratings and their revenue growth. In the United States, for example, McKinsey analysis shows that companies that are leaders of CX achieved more than double the revenue growth of “CX laggards” between 2016 and 2021. The revenues of CX leaders also rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic more quickly than those of other companies (Exhibit 1).

Growth outperformers take the long road

Growth outperformers are much more likely to know their customers personally, to have a compelling growth story to tell their employees and shareholders, and to use predictive analytics to deliver the right messages to the right customers at the right time. A clear focus on long-term growth makes them outliers, as most companies optimize for shorter-term profit.

Indeed, a common factor in companies that fail to achieve sustainable growth is that they put too much focus on short-term acquisition measures, and insufficient investment in customer engagement and retention, thereby falling into the “acquisition trap.” CX leaders, by contrast, are masters at the art of “cultivating” growth from existing customers by making it enjoyable to use ever more of the company’s products and services over time (Exhibit 2).

We have observed that successful experience-led growth strategies—those that increase customer satisfaction by at least 20 percent—can deliver a range of significant financial benefits. In particular, they can increase cross-sell rates by 15 to 25 percent, boost companies’ share of wallet by 5 to 10 percent, increase cross-sell rates, and improve customer satisfaction and engagement by 20 to 30 percent.

Experience-led growth strategies, in our experience, rest on three pillars (Exhibit 3):

• Setting a clear growth aspiration and purpose, and a roadmap that links CX to value.
• Committing to transforming the business with decisive action through redesigned customer journeys, products, services, and business models.
• Enabling the transformation through new mindsets, capabilities, technologies, governance, and effective CX measurement.

In the next sections, we shine a spotlight on each of these imperatives in turn—and for each of them we explore the successes and lessons learned from CX leaders across sectors.

Set an audacious aspiration—and link it to value

Leaders of companies executing experience-led growth strategies start by painting a vision—often three to five years in the future—that describes how they will deliver on their brand promise.

These companies do not drive CX for its own sake. Rather, they “flip the script” by starting with the desired financial outcome—for example, improving customer retention by six points—and then prioritizing the customer experiences that will deliver these outcomes. Companies that succeed with experience-led growth also identify the metrics they will use to measure success, such as share of wallet, repeat purchases, or NRR.

As an example of a company that set out a bold aspiration—and linked it clearly to value—consider the story of a major logistics company. After a period of sustained price increases, the CEO realized that his ability to increase prices would soon evaporate. The CEO tackled this issue head on, prioritizing CX as a path to distinguish his company from competitors and to build long-term, value-generating relationships with customers.

The company’s experience-led growth transformation started with a bold vision: to become the logistics player of choice not only for its business customers but also for those companies’ end-customers. It was an audacious goal, as most consumers are oblivious to who delivers their goods. But leaders in the company imagined a future in which their customers would renew larger contracts because their end-customers experienced care and trust.

The logistics company’s bold aspiration has spurred a radical effort to reimagine and redesign customer journeys, and to anchor customer experiences around the personal relationship between end customers and their local drivers. To support a culture of customer care and problem solving, the company rolled out an immersive culture-change program. The entire transformation—and the overarching aspiration—was closely tied to value, with the company targeting hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenues.

Transform the business: Reinventing customer-centricity

Leaders in companies executing experience-led growth strategies take care to understand customer pain points standing in the way of growth—such as complicated buying processes, tracking and delivery issues that hinder recurring purchases, or a lack of integration between channels. They translate their ambitions for experience-led growth into customer-journey redesign and an effective cross-functional operating model for implementing these redesigned customer journeys. They are also savvy at expanding their revenue pools by inventing new offerings and experiences.

As an example of this second pillar of experience-led growth—transforming the business through redesigned customer journeys—consider the case of a global B2B power-tools company. It already had a strong foundation of CX strengths: an iconic brand and products, committed customer-facing teams, engineering “maniacs” who relentlessly focused on quality, and effective digital customer interfaces. But rising customer expectations meant that customers increasingly demanded more effort for their engagement and loyalty. In addition, the company was building an increasingly diverse product and solution portfolio—creating complexity in service, billing, and logistics. A step change was needed in how the company approached CX if it were to remain ahead of its competitors.

The CEO recognized that CX excellence had to become the top priority for his company. It began by setting a clear aspiration for its CX transformation: a commitment to faultless reliability, accessibility, and transparency. To deliver on this commitment, the company set about creating proactive solutions—such as automatic replacement of any tools that needed servicing—that would strengthen customers’ business performance and exceed their expectations.

Where previously there had been over 20 different customer journeys for various categories of client and service type, the company put in place one carefully designed life-cycle journey, and identified several “moments of truth” with the greatest impact on CX—like receiving the order on time and in full, with an easy-to-understand invoice.

To measure impact, the company put in place actionable, real-time “voice-of-the-customer” metrics—as well as relevant operational KPIs that captured process efficiency and effectiveness. Within just a few months, the new focus on CX was widely embraced by the organization. It led to tangible improvements in customer journeys, which in turn supported continued double-digit annual revenue growth.

Enable the change: Reimagining culture and capabilities

Large, incumbent companies implementing experience-led growth strategies must also devote resources to shifting organizational cultures and building new capabilities, both among executives and frontline staff. These new capabilities—ranging from design thinking, to cross-functional collaboration, to effective use of CX measurement insights—help ensure that improvements in wallet share, cross-sell rates, and retention rates are sustained over time.

An example comes from a major regional healthcare provider that launched a multi-year transformation. To enable and sustain the improvements in its financial performance, it trained its employees on agile ways of working while also implementing powerful new advanced analytics capabilities by developing a customer data hub—this aggregated millions of records from multiple data sets across five years. The new predictive analytics capability allowed the healthcare provider to build machine-learning models that use data-driven analysis to trigger proactive interventions—such as following up with patients who hadn’t seen their healthcare provider in the previous 18 months. 3 For further details on predictive analytics, see “ Prediction: The future of CX ,” McKinsey, February 24, 2021. This wholesale improvement in its capabilities enabled the company to sustain the benefits of its transformation over time.

The challenge of achieving sustainable, profitable growth is especially tough for large, incumbent companies. It is tempting to try to kick-start growth through acquisitions, with the risk of feeding an overheating acquisition engine of customers who quickly churn again. Experience-led growth is a radically different approach—providing an exceptional experience to existing customers that delivers improvements in key financial metrics such as wallet share, cross-sell, and net revenue retention along the entire customer lifecycle. These improvements translate directly into sustainable revenue growth.

Victoria Bough is a partner in McKinsey’s Denver office, Oliver Ehrlich is a partner in the Düsseldorf office, Harald Fanderl is a senior partner in the Riyadh office, and Robert Schiff is a senior partner in the San Francisco office.

The authors wish to thank Ewan Duncan, Andreas Giese, Divya Mittagunta, Kevin Neher, and Alfonso Pulido for their contributions to this article.

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How to improve the B2B customer experience with market research

January 10, 2024

B2B customer experience research can explore all of your customer touchpoints in detail and measure your performance, then show you where and how to improve. Many studies show that a better customer experience in B2B drives growth.

The customer experience (CX) in B2B

Finding the right way to improve your customers’ experience in B2B isn’t easy, but it pays off long-term.

It leads to higher satisfaction scores, plus up to 15% revenue growth and 20% lower costs to serve them, according to McKinsey .

By the same token, over time you risk losing business to competitors that offer better customer experiences than you. Out of frequent B2B customers, Accenture reports that 80% change suppliers at least once every two years, mainly because the last provider didn’t meet their needs.

Similarly, the vast majority – 87% – say they would switch or consider changing providers if they are difficult to do business with, according to Deloitte .

However, in many ways, the customer experience is more difficult to analyze and optimize in B2B industries compared to consumer ones. B2B purchases usually cost more – therefore, they can be more business-critical and involve more risk.

To minimize the risk of making wrong decisions, B2B decision-making units feature multiple people, so there tend to be several individuals at every interaction or touchpoint.

And a B2B buying process can last months and go through many steps. The person who makes a purchasing decision may not be the one ultimately using the product or service.

In short, the B2B customer experience is more complex and involves more people than in consumer markets.

That makes it harder to optimize, but brands doing it well see major benefits and enjoy a competitive advantage. Another study from Deloitte found that B2B buyers are 34% more likely to buy from brands getting the customer experience right and 32% more likely to renew a contract with them.

How customer preferences evolve

Defining the B2B customer experience

Identifying and mapping customer experience touchpoints

Measuring the B2B customer experience

Analyzing and addressing areas of improvement

Best practices for customer experience B2B research

Customer expectations, preferences, needs, and wants change over time. Therefore, the customer experience you provide must adapt accordingly.

Things a business learned about its customers’ preferences several years ago could be out of date by now, particularly for insights from before COVID-19. For example, compared to pre-pandemic years, 70% of B2B decision-makers are now comfortable making large buys via remote human or digital self-service channels, according to McKinsey .

The customers are changing too – Millennials have now replaced Gen X as the most represented generation in the workforce and therefore, among B2B buyers.

Many of them are decision-makers, with studies showing they spend more time researching products online than previous generations. Arguably, age now matters in B2B when before, the prevailing wisdom was that it was only really a key factor in B2C purchases.

There have been other shifts and without doubt, there will be other new widespread trends across B2B industries soon. For example, advances in generative AI look set to have a major impact on customer relationships.

But to keep your customer experience at a consistently high level, there’s much more to it than staying up-to-date with digital or technological trends.

As a catch-all term, it’s easy to fall into the trap of talking about the customer experience or being customer-centric, in a vague and nonspecific way. But in reality, the specific customer experience for any brand is often complex and multifaceted.

So before trying to improve things, it helps to think about your current customer experience in more granular detail. In other words – who, what, when, where, why, and how customers interact with your brand.

Depending on your business model and industry, it could include the following, but this list is merely a starting point:

• Marketing touchpoints that raise awareness and interest in your brand
• Purchase journey touchpoints
• Activation touchpoints e.g. proofs of concept
• Usage touchpoints
• User experience (UX)
• Support touchpoints e.g. customer service teams
• Lapsing or switching touchpoints e.g. closing an account

It’s also worth thinking about how these touchpoints link together and form complete customer journeys or lifecycles.

By establishing a granular understanding of your buyers’ journey , you can pinpoint where specifically the customer experience needs to improve. A detailed, visual map of all the customer experience touchpoints helps to achieve this.

Alongside this, an analysis of the current experience at key touchpoints should outline where you need to make the biggest changes and how. Evaluate the importance of each one and prioritize the make-or-break moments.

There are several ways to do this via B2B market research – for example, by exploring at key touchpoints:

• Customers’ motivations and emotions that affect their behavior or thoughts
• Their needs and expectations
• Their typical actions
• The individuals or business functions involved
• Who or what is responsible for delivering the customer experience
• What questions customers are asking and how easy or difficult it is to get answers
• What drives customer success outcomes

For a fresh perspective, often it helps to use jobs-to-be-done research that identifies what customers expect to ‘hire’ your solutions for specifically.

Want to know how to achieve your customer experience objectives? 

The steps above usually need qualitative research to explore the customer experience in detail.

But to get more insights required to improve the customer experience, you can use both quantitative and qualitative research to collect customer feedback.

There is no set quantitative metric to measure the customer experience specifically, but typical perception tracking metrics can be useful.

Some non-bespoke metrics are:

• Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) : On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with [company/service]?
• Customer effort score (CES): How easy was it to [action] today?
• Net promoter score (NPS): How likely are you to recommend [company] to a friend or colleague?
• Five-star rating: Please rate the service you received today: ☆☆☆☆☆

However, there are challenges with the last two metrics in B2B research. Asking customers to use five-star rating systems is simple and straightforward – but limited.

And because there are different types of customer loyalty in B2B industries, NPS questions are not as useful as in B2C studies, in our experience. Arguably, metrics such as these only provide valuable insights if combined with more in-depth research.

Use bespoke metrics in combination with exploratory questioning, exploring exactly why customers give good or bad scores. If you have a North Star goal, it’s a good idea to base the bespoke metric on this – for example, how many times do you use [service] each week, on average?

For a complete picture of the customer experience, you also need to get insights from those choosing to abandon it.

Lapsed or churned customers can give you important findings that current ones cannot. Ask them questions such as – what was the main reason why you stopped using [company]?

Similarly, you can get useful insights by conducting a win-loss analysis interrogating the key touchpoints between lost prospects and your brand.

Identify the most significant pain points that customers recognize. Explore the barriers preventing customers from having a strong experience – analyze your fieldwork results to find:

• Customers’ biggest frustrations in their experience with your brand
• Occasions and touchpoints that are the biggest contributors
• Reasons why

Then work out how to improve these aspects of the customer experience. This approach helps you allocate budget and resources more efficiently – some improvements might be slight tweaks, but others may require a complete overhaul.

For example, it could require that:

• Account managers or the customer service team act more proactively at key touchpoints
• Sales teams anticipate customer journey needs and information gaps better
• Marketing teams communicate different messages at the right time
• Website teams restructure the homepage and optimize the content
• Product teams design new offerings that better suit customers’ needs
• Operational decision-makers remove unnecessary processes (potentially reducing costs in the process)

Sometimes the solution will be clear, or customers may know what they want and tell you in interviews if you ask the right questions.

But sometimes the answers won’t be straightforward. In that case, you may need to run a brainstorming session or some ideation exercises at an in-person or virtual workshop with relevant stakeholders to come up with potential solutions.

#1 Keep it confidential and anonymize the customer feedback

When recruiting decision-makers for B2B market research projects, many request anonymity anyway – but confidentiality is key for this type of research.

It encourages honest and – if needed – blunt, constructive feedback to help you identify and make improvements. If using metrics, it also reduces the likelihood of any manipulation.

For example, sometimes account managers or sales reps encourage customers to give high scores beforehand, particularly if the scores are linked to their bonuses.

Alternatively, they may follow up afterward asking why they gave a specific score, potentially harming that customer’s trust.

#2 Consider segmenting your results

A tailored market segmentation can provide a deeper understanding of different experiences in your customer base.

Segmenting your customers divides them into groups with similar traits – such as behavior, needs, wants, purchase habits, profitability potential, and so on.

This is a valuable approach if you have a broad range of customer types and a large CRM database. Ensure you have permission to use customer data for research purposes first.

Different groups may have varying perceptions of a positive customer experience, in which case you’ll need to make the improvements with a more targeted approach.

#3 Ask about competitors’ customer experience too

Even if your customer experience is strong, if competitors offer a better one, you should consider making improvements to keep up with them.

You may need competitive intelligence research to find out from prospects what other brands are doing that you’re not.

Prioritize your biggest competitors. In particular, if you’re running international market research , the longlist of competitors can be lengthy so you’ll need to shorten it.

But don’t overlook smaller competitors that could be providing an outstanding customer experience. They may be growing and set to become more of a threat in the future.

#4 Track the customer experience over time – but not too regularly

While some B2C brands survey customers on their perceptions and collect metric scores every quarter or even monthly, often this isn’t viable or necessary in B2B industries.

Usually, there aren’t enough B2B customers for this kind of frequency. Key decision-makers won’t take part regularly in research.

Also, since it can often take months to sell business to business, it takes time to shift customer perceptions. It will also take you time to make internal changes that will improve the customer experience and show different results in your research.

Leaving longer gaps – e.g. 12 to 18 months – between each study increases the likelihood that you will see your changes reflected in the research data.

Looking to run some B2B customer experience research?

B2B customer experience research explores your customer interactions and touchpoints in detail, measures your performance, and shows you where to improve. Studies show that better customer experiences drive business growth.

Depending on your business model and industry, it could include the following, but this list is merely a starting point: marketing touchpoints that raise awareness and interest in your brand; purchase journey touchpoints; activation touchpoints; usage touchpoints; user experience; support touchpoints; and lapsing or switching touchpoints.

There are several ways to do this via B2B market research, exploring: customers’ motivations and emotions that affect their behavior or thoughts; their needs and expectations; their typical actions; the individuals or business functions involved; who or what is responsible for delivering the customer experience; what questions customers are asking and how easy or difficult it is to get answers; what drives customer success outcomes.

Some non-bespoke metrics are: customer satisfaction score (CSAT); customer effort score (CES); net promoter score (NPS); and a five-star rating. Lapsed or churned customers can give you important findings that current ones can’t and similarly, you can get insights by conducting a win-loss analysis.

Analyze your fieldwork results to find: customers’ biggest frustrations in their experience with your brand; occasions and touchpoints that are the biggest contributors; and the reasons why.

We recommend that you: keep it confidential and anonymize the customer feedback; consider segmenting your results; ask about competitors’ customer experience too; and track the customer experience over time – but not too regularly.

Chris Wells

Chris Wells is a B2B marketing researcher and strategist. He was previously on the management team at B2B research specialist Circle Research, winners of the Best Research Agency at the 2016 MRS Awards. Chris has helped to deliver hundreds of research and strategy projects for B2B organizations.

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The Neuroscience of Customer Experience

When neurological insights inform design thinking, companies can innovate with greater precision.

• New Product Development

Thanks to brands like Sephora, Disney, Bass Pro Shops, and American Girl, consumers have come to expect extraordinary experiences — and companies are under increasing pressure to create them. 1 Even the pros continue to up their game. Take Starbucks, where it has long been understood that a cafe is much more than a place to get coffee. Starbucks Reserve locations elevate the cafe experience to a new level. Patrons watch green coffee beans being roasted and then brewed onsite, while “mixologists” host coffee tastings and prepare unique cocktails. People can shop for local artwork and gifts with drinks in hand. They can also take tours, eat dinner, and attend classes.

Of course, extraordinary customer experiences are not always upmarket. For instance, low-cost airline Avelo flies only to and from small airports that are easy to navigate. It encourages passengers to check their bags in order to speed up boarding and deplaning, and it has eliminated flight-change fees. Avelo’s focus makes affordable travel easy and comfortable — major upgrades when you consider the treatment that budget-conscious passengers usually get.

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While the variety of extraordinary experiences is wide, they do have a common objective: building brand attachment and customer loyalty. A single bad experience can drive away customers for life, but one that is fantastic creates a desire to buy again. However, trying to create something “mind-blowing” or “amazing” lacks the precision needed to consistently engineer the extraordinary.

Over the past 20 years, my research team has identified a set of brain signals that make experiences feel valuable and emotionally charged , rendering them memorable . Our work has shown that this combination produces a desire to repeat the experience.

Having measured people’s brain activity during thousands of experiences, both in my lab and in businesses, I have augmented widely used design thinking principles with neuroscience so that anyone can create extraordinary experiences. I’ll describe how, but first, let’s look at the science in a little more detail.

The Components of Immersion

Powerful emotional responses supercharge memories of experiences. 2 Think about how easily you can recall where you were on 9/11, for example, or how vividly you remember a film that moved you deeply.

An emotional response is an unconscious one, so it cannot be reflected in consciously delivered user feedback such as survey scores and ratings. Indeed, such ratings have almost no predictive value for movie ticket sales, online streaming, sales bumps from advertising, or other product performance measures. 3 The subjective poorly predicts the objective.

When people are asked to quantify their unconscious emotional responses, their brains do not give them access to that information with any degree of accuracy. Unconscious neural activity cannot be made conscious no matter how hard one tries. Without meaning to, people lie. They feel that they must conjure an answer because a researcher has requested one. Furthermore, the answer given is subject to a large set of biases, such as social acceptability, congruence with one’s self-identity, and framing effects, further degrading its veracity.

Self-report inaccuracy, a challenge that researchers continually wrestle with, can be avoided by measuring neurologic activity. After my initial research identifying neurochemical predictors of experiences was published, my lab received government funding to measure around 150 brain signals simultaneously to hunt for the neuroelectric signatures that provoke the brain out of homeostasis and compel people to take an action after an experience. 4 Through this body of research, we identified a neurologic state I call immersion . 5

Immersion has two main components. The first is the binding of the neurotransmitter dopamine to receptors in the brain’s prefrontal cortex. This alerts the brain to pay attention because something that may be of value is nearby. 6 The second component is the release of the neurochemical oxytocin from the brain stem, triggering emotional resonance with the experience one is having. The electrical activity of these signals can be tracked second by second, and they provide a granular, physical measure of what consumers’ brains value and what gives people joy — that magic combination that makes experiences memorable and worth repeating.

In studies that used pharmaceuticals to turn up emotional resonance in the brain and analyze its effects, my research team found that immersion influenced spending decisions. For instance, it substantially increased the number of charitable causes to which people donated and the amount of money they gave after they viewed public service advertisements. 7 Additional studies showed that the administration of synthetic oxytocin increased what people would pay for products, their perceptions of brand competence, and their use of emotional language when describing brands. 8

When consumer experiences lack emotional resonance, the attentive brain does not value what is happening because the neurological “tagging” is missing. Essentially, physiologic arousal goes unchecked without the calming effect of oxytocin. This is a neurologic state I term frustration . Identifying immersion and frustration points can help businesses create extraordinary customer experiences and prevent unsatisfying ones.

Since conducting my early lab research, I have built an automated platform to gather and analyze data from hundreds of businesses. This data shows that immersion generates a mood boost in activities as varied as shopping for clothes, listening to music, and eating sweets.

Design Thinking + Neuroscience

Researchers and innovation teams studying consumer insights often use design-thinking principles to understand and improve consumer experiences. Critically, design thinking attempts to gauge people’s emotional responses. But, as discussed above, emotions are inaccurately reported by the conscious brain. Applying insights from neuroscience to design thinking allows us to bridge the gap between what people report and what they feel. This approach can help businesses empathize with customers more effectively, define problems to solve with new products or services, and prototype and test their solutions. No direct brain measurement is needed to apply the underlying ideas, although measuring immersion can help companies accelerate and refine the practice of creating the extraordinary.

Here, we’ll look at how all this can play out in three key steps of the design-thinking process.

Empathize. Design thinking starts with observing and interviewing people who are using an existing product or service or for whom no good solution exists. The goal is to empathize with customers to better understand their needs.

Neuroscience research shows that you will get a better result if you take steps to ensure that participants feel psychologically safe before they are observed. In the absence of psychological safety, norepinephrine, one of the brain’s arousal neurotransmitters, inhibits the release of oxytocin, a key source of emotional resonance during an experience. This thwarts people’s ability to immerse themselves in an experience and give observers useful feedback. 9 Consumer insights teams often hurry participants into study mode in the name of efficiency, not realizing that they are degrading the quality of the information they acquire. Rather than rushing participants into observation or discussion, give them a chance to relax. Putting them in a familiar setting increases psychological safety, as does offering them a snack. Provide time for a bio break if you spend more than one hour with them to ensure that they remain comfortable. Making people feel safe is itself an act of empathy.

Research also shows that consumer ethnographers who are highly empathic more effectively elicit emotional responses. 10 Hire interviewers who have this personality trait to get the most from customer interviews. In addition, interviewers should adopt an empathic style by asking open-ended questions to elicit emotionally revealing words rather than asking participants to do the impossible: rate their feelings on a meaningless numerical scale. Active listening allows one to explore aspects of an experience that cause pain and pleasure and encourages storytelling, the default style people use to describe experiences. 11

Here’s an example to illustrate this: A midsized casino in southern Nevada that was planning to expand invited and incentivized a diverse set of customers to enjoy the facility while consumer ethnographers shadowed them to understand patron experiences. Before entering the building, each individual or couple was seated on a couch in a comfortable anteroom and offered soft drinks and snacks while the ethnographers introduced themselves by name and described the study. This put people at ease. Then participants were handed $50 and invited to explore the casino any way they wanted, giving them a sense of control during the observation and further enhancing psychological safety. Participants’ impressions were solicited, and as they explored gaming locations and restaurants, neurologic immersion was tracked with app-enabled smartwatches. 12

After an hour in the casino, participants returned to the anteroom, where they could use the restroom and have more snacks and drinks. Only then did the ethnographers query them about what they would value in a new casino. The neurologic data and interviews revealed significant frustration when obstructions slowed progress as people tried walking toward gaming tables. Customers also had difficulty finding restaurants when they left the gaming areas, and older participants struggled to read menus. The most immersive parts of the experience were the interactions with dealers and servers. These insights informed subsequent stages of the design-thinking process and were incorporated into the expanded casino’s layout and employee training.

Define. The next step, defining the problem to be solved, involves identifying sources of frustration and deciding which ones to address. Frustration manifests neurologically as a stress response, producing physical indicators such as feet-shifting, head-scratching, and curt responses to questions. Product-use frustration can be seen in the repetition of steps to get a device to work or clumsy fumbling with buttons or knobs.

Tolerance for frustration varies substantially across individuals and contexts, so it’s important that researchers control for differences when analyzing pain points. Then designers can rank customer pains to identify the core problems to solve. Neurologic measurement allows for greater precision, but the physical indicators of frustration also provide valuable information.

A major point of frustration during many customer experiences — such as shopping for groceries, renewing a driver’s license, or spending time at a crowded amusement park — is waiting in line. To understand this problem, Walt Disney Imagineering, which designs the Disney theme parks, builds a variety of mock-ups, from storyboards to scale models to virtual reality simulations, so that designers can search for frustration points and reduce or prevent them. This is how Disney discovered that having guests snake into an attraction decreased the feet-shifting associated with standing still and that posting signs with wait times decreased stress responses associated with uncertainty, like finger tapping. The Disney team also discovered that they could prevent frustration by eliminating obstacles to traffic flow between attractions. For example, they smoothed out choke points by reducing the size of planters people needed to walk around.

My team tested Imagineering’s attention to detail in park design by collecting neurologic data at Disneyland from visitors we outfitted with smartwatches to measure immersion and frustration. The data showed that periods of neurologic frustration in lines were surprisingly rare. Attraction entrances are richly designed, giving visitors’ brains puzzles to solve. A full day’s worth of data showed that half the time, entering a ride was more immersive than the ride itself. We were impressed by the astute design insights and execution by Disney’s Imagineering team.

Across a variety of experiences at Disneyland and elsewhere, we also found that immersion is contagious — and pain points are diminished — when groups of people share an experience. Watching someone discover an “Easter egg” while entering the Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland provides enjoyment and excitement to others, reducing the frustration of a long wait.

Prototype and test. It’s essential to prototype ideas and give them a small-scale trial run before committing to production — and to continue testing and improving them after they enter the market. Conducting surveys and focus groups to gauge which prototypes and products people like the most is a flawed approach for several reasons. For starters, iterative design changes are typically only unconsciously perceived, so it is difficult for people to assess them during interviews or through ratings. Even if you explicitly highlight changes for people to rate, the ratings are still unanchored (that is, no two customers’ “10 out of 10s” or “likes” are the same) and are largely unpredictive. When prototyping and testing more innovative or unusual experiences, you’ll run into a different obstacle: People lack a reference point when trying to describe whether and, especially, why they like or dislike the offering.

Determining whether customers will buy a product requires data on the emotional value people derive from it; it is emotions that drive purchase decisions. 13 As discussed above, the brain hides emotional responses from conscious awareness. As a result, intentions to purchase in the future poorly predict actual purchases of new products. 14 One way to ground predictions in observation is to see how long testers engage with the prototype or product. When I ran tests for a new virtual reality product, time of use increased along with the number of positive emotional words people used to describe the experience. And measuring neural responses gave us time-linked objective data on immersion or frustration that were paired with videos of the prototype in use. Another observable measure is how many early testers ask to buy prototypes.

The global appliance maker Electrolux has a consumer science lab in Stockholm that looks and feels like a kitchen in a typical home but has 15 hidden cameras that capture how consumers use prototype appliances. Staff members also query study participants for usage insights as they try new gadgets. Some tests include the collection of neural data via smartwatches that enables emotional responses to be tracked in real time. For example, neural signals can distinguish peak immersion moments that produce joy from moments of frustration when a participant is spending more time than expected adjusting the controls on a dishwasher. Real-time neural data can also inform the questions consumer insights team members ask. Whether or not direct neural measurement is included, members of the insights team ask open-ended questions about what consumers are experiencing as they try new products, track the time spent getting each appliance to start, and take note of any physical indicators of emotional responses. The new-product team then reviews videos of the lab experiences to determine whether a prototype is ready to go to market or needs more work.

As customers in the marketplace use a product or service, behavioral feedback (such as adoption rates and usage times) can reflect immersion and identify the next set of feature improvements. Even without direct measurement of dopamine and oxytocin, examining the behavior of “superfans” can reveal whether this important, extremely enthusiastic group of customers is delighted or frustrated.

Superfans experience high levels of immersion while using a product or service, building neurologic tension that is relieved through social media shares. Because these posts positively correlate with immersion, companies can use them to gauge how effectively they are meeting superfans’ needs. Natural language processing software provides additional insights by quantifying positive and negative emotional words in posts. The ratio of positive to negative emotional words is a metric that can be tracked along with sales to assess whether a company should continue to refine a product or feature or kill it. If superfans complain about a feature, it should be investigated for improvement or elimination, since typical users will have much less tolerance for frustration.

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Superfans can also participate more directly in the product development process, cocreating extraordinary experiences for themselves. For example, a mobile gaming company engaged its superfans to iterate on character assets for a new game release. After inviting them to participate in beta testing, the company used social media posts and direct immersion measurement to segment superfans based on their favorite characters. They were then microtargeted: Beta testers received a “share” link that included a cartoon rendering of themselves as their game character. The message asked them to replace their social media picture with the cartoon and to tell the world why their character was best. Characters and game play were then tweaked accordingly before the broad release of the game. This deep engagement of superfans enabled the company to improve its product and boost game adoption during its wide release.

Product and consumer experience teams are increasingly using neural insights to determine what consumers really value, what brings them joy, and what reduces or eliminates their pain and frustration. The payoff? Smart product design that provides extraordinary experiences, boosting customer loyalty and profitability. As technologies and devices continue to shrink in cost and size, more businesses can move away from consciously filtered self-reports and embrace brain-based measurement in their quest to innovate and better serve customers.

About the Author

Paul J. Zak ( @pauljzak ) is a professor of economic sciences, psychology, and management at Claremont Graduate University. He also founded the neuroscience-as-a-service platform company Immersion Neuroscience. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Immersion: The Science of the Extraordinary and the Source of Happiness (Lioncrest, 2022).

1. B.J. Pine and J.H. Gilmour, “The Experience Economy: Competing for Customer Time, Attention, and Money,” rev. ed. (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2019).

2. This has long been established. See, for example, K.S. LaBar and E.A. Phelps, “Arousal-Mediated Memory Consolidation: Role of the Medial Temporal Lobe in Humans,” Psychological Science 9, no. 6 (November 1998): 490-493.

3. L.K. John, O. Emrich, S. Gupta, et al., “Does ‘Liking’ Lead to Loving? The Impact of Joining a Brand’s Social Network on Marketing Outcomes,” Journal of Marketing Research 54, no. 1 (November 2017): 144-155. For findings that show more broadly that self-report measures are not predictive, see A.F. Kraig, J.A. Barraza, W. Montgomery, et al., “The Neurophysiology of Corporate Apologies: Why Do People Believe Insincere Apologies?” International Journal of Business Communication, July 9, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488419858391.

4. J.A. Barraza and P.J. Zak, “Empathy Toward Strangers Triggers Oxytocin Release and Subsequent Generosity,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1167, no. 1 (June 2009): 182-189.

5. For more details, see P.J. Zak, “Neurological Correlates Allow Us to Predict Human Behavior,” The Scientist, Oct. 1, 2020, www.the-scientist.com.

6. G. Jocham, T.A. Klein, and M. Ullsperger, “Dopamine-Mediated Reinforcement Learning Signals in the Striatum and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Underlie Value-Based Choices,” Journal of Neuroscience 31, no. 5 (February 2011): 1606-1613.

7. P. Lin, N.S. Grewal, C. Morin, et al., “Oxytocin Increases the Influence of Public Service Advertisements,” PLoS ONE 8, no. 2 (February 2013): e56934.

8. J. A. Barraza, X. Hu, E.T. Terris, et al., “Oxytocin Increases Perceived Competence and Social-Emotional Engagement with Brands,” PLoS ONE 16, no. 11 (November 2021): e0260589.

9. S. Het, D. Schoofs, N. Rohleder, et al., “Stress-Induced Cortisol Level Elevations Are Associated With Reduced Negative Affect After Stress: Indications for a Mood-Buffering Cortisol Effect,” Psychosomatic Medicine 74, no. 1 (January 2012): 23-32. See also E.T. Cox, T.M. Jarrett, M.S. McMurray, et al., “Combined Norepinephrine/Serotonergic Reuptake Inhibition: Effects on Maternal Behavior, Aggression, and Oxytocin in the Rat,” Frontiers in Psychiatry 2, no. 34 (June 2011): 1-14.

10. T. Kelley, “The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm” (New York: Broadway Business, 2001).

11. P.J. Zak, “Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling,” Harvard Business Review, Oct. 28, 2014, https://hbr.org.

12. P.J. Zak and J.A. Barraza, “ Measuring Immersion in Experiences with Biosensors — Preparation for International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies ,” Proceedings of the 11th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (2018): 303-307.

13. C. Yoon, R. Gonzalez, A. Bechara, et al., “Decision Neuroscience and Consumer Decision Making,” Marketing Letters 23, no. 2 (June 2012): 473-485.

14. V.G. Morwitz, J.H. Steckel, and A. Gupta, “When Do Purchase Intentions Predict Sales?” International Journal of Forecasting 23, no. 3 (July-September 2007): 347-364.

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What is Marketing Research? Examples and Best Practices

12 min read

Marketing research is essentially a method utilized by companies to collect valuable information regarding their target market. Through the common practice of conducting market research, companies gather essential information that enables them to make informed decisions and develop products that resonate with consumers. It encompasses the gathering, analysis, and interpretation of data, which aids in identifying consumer demands, anticipating market trends, and staying ahead of the competition.

Exploratory research is one of the initial steps in the marketing research process. It helps businesses gain broad insights when specific information is unknown. If you are seeking insight into how marketing research can influence the trajectory of your SaaS, then you have come to the right place!

• Market research is a systematic and objective process crucial for understanding target markets, refining business strategies, and informing decisions, which includes collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data on customers, competitors, and the industry.
• Primary market research gathers specific data directly from the target audience using tools like surveys and focus groups, while secondary market research utilizes existing data from various sources to provide broader market insights.
• Effective market research combines both qualitative methods, which explore consumer motivations, and quantitative methods, which provide measurable statistics, to create comprehensive insights that guide business strategy and decision-making.

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Defining marketing research

Launching a product without knowing what your target audience wants is like walking in the dark. Market research lights the way, helping you collect, analyze, and understand information about your target market. This allows you to refine your business strategies and make decisions based on solid evidence.

Gone are the days when just intuition or subjective judgment was enough. Objective insights from market research help avoid costly mistakes and meet consumer needs by identifying trends and changes in the market. This is crucial for assessing a product’s potential success, optimizing marketing strategies, and preparing for market shifts.

Market research is a systematic approach that provides essential information, helping businesses navigate the complexities of the commercial world. Partnering with market research companies can offer additional benefits, leveraging their expertise in understanding market demands, trends, market size, economic indicators, location, market saturation, and pricing. Whether starting a new business, developing products, or updating marketing plans, understanding how to conduct effective market research is key to success.

To conduct market research effectively, businesses must determine study goals, identify target consumers, collect and analyze data, and use the findings to make informed decisions. This process is vital for evaluating past performance, measuring changes over time, and addressing specific business needs. It guides businesses in product development, marketing strategies, and overall decision-making, ensuring a better ROI and providing an eye-opening view of the market through various research methods, whether conducted in-house or outsourced.

The purpose of marketing research

Conducting marketing research is more than just gathering data; it’s about turning that data into actionable insights to refine your business strategies. This process helps you understand what motivates your customers, enabling you to tailor your products and services to minimize risks from the start. Importantly, market research plays a pivotal role in measuring and enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty, which are critical for understanding key demographics, improving user experience, designing better products, and driving customer retention. Customer satisfaction is measured as a key outcome, directly linked to the success of marketing strategies and business activities.

For SaaS product managers, market research, including competitive analysis, is crucial. It evaluates past strategies and gauges the potential success of new offerings. This research provides essential insights into brand strength, consumer behavior, and market position, which are vital for teams focused on sales, marketing, and product development.

A key aspect of market research is analyzing customer attitudes and usage. This analysis offers detailed insights into what customers want, the choices they make, and the challenges they face. It helps identify opportunities in the market and aids in formulating effective strategies for market entry.

Overall, market research equips SaaS entrepreneurs with the knowledge to meet their target audience’s needs effectively, guiding product adjustments and innovations based on informed decisions.

Key components of market research

Conducting market research is analogous to preparing a cake, requiring precise ingredients in specific quantities to achieve the intended outcome. Within this realm, necessary components consist of primary and secondary data gathering, thorough analysis, and insightful interpretation.

Primary research techniques such as exploratory studies, product evolution inquiries, estimations of market dimensions and shares, and consumer behavior examinations play a crucial role in collecting targeted information that can be directly applied. These methods afford a deeper understanding of your target demographic, allowing for customized strategy development.

In contrast, secondary research enriches the specificity of primary findings by adding wider context. It taps into external resources encompassing works from other investigators, sector-specific reports, and demographics data, which provide an expansive yet less particularized landscape view of the marketplace.

The subsequent phase involves meticulous analysis of collated data offering unbiased perspectives critical for identifying deficiencies while recognizing emerging patterns. Technological progress now facilitates examination efforts on both structured and unstructured datasets effectively addressing large-scale analytical complexities.

Ultimately, it’s through expert-led interpretation that value transcends raw figures, yielding strategies grounded in deep comprehension. Akin to decoding recipes using selected ingredients—this interpretative step enables crafting optimal business maneuvers just as one would bake their ideal confectionery creation utilizing proper culinary guidance.

Types of market research: primary and secondary

Now that you know the importance of clear research objectives, let’s explore the different types of market research and the techniques available to achieve these goals. Market research methods can be divided into two main categories: primary research and secondary research . The choice between these depends on factors like your budget, time constraints, and whether you need exploratory data or definitive answers.

Primary research involves collecting new data directly from sources. This process is like mining for precious metals, as it requires using various methods to gather fresh insights.

• Surveys (here – in-app survey templates from Userpilot ).

• Interviews.

• Focus groups.
• Product trials.

This approach gives you first-hand insight into your target audience.

Conversely, secondary research uses already established datasets of primary data – which can add depth and reinforcement to your firsthand findings.

Conducting your own market research using primary research tools can be a cost-effective strategy, allowing businesses to gather valuable insights directly and tailor their research to specific needs.

Let’s look a bit deeper into them now.

What is primary market research?

Market research uses primary market research as an essential tool. This involves collecting new data directly from your target audience using various methods, such as surveys , focus groups, and interviews.

Each method has its benefits. For example, observational studies allow you to see how consumers interact with your product.

There are many ways to conduct primary research.

Focus Groups : Hold discussions with small groups of 5 to 10 people from your target audience. These discussions can provide valuable feedback on products, perceptions of your company’s brand name, or opinions on competitors. Additionally, these discussions can help understand the characteristics, challenges, and buying habits of target customers, optimizing brand strategy.

Interviews : Have one-on-one conversations to gather detailed information from individuals in your target audience.

Surveys : These are a common tool in primary market research and can be used instead of focus groups to understand consumer attitudes. Surveys use structured questions and can reach a broad audience efficiently.

Navigating secondary market research

While marketing research using primary methods is like discovering precious metals, secondary market research technique is like using a treasure map. This approach uses data collected by others from various sources, providing a broad industry view. These sources include market analyses from agencies like Statista, historical data such as census records, and academic studies.

Secondary research provides the basic knowledge necessary for conducting primary market research goals but may lack detail on specific business questions and could also be accessible to competitors.

To make the most of secondary market research, it’s important to analyze summarized data to identify trends, rely on reputable sources for accurate data, and remain unbiased in data collection methods.

The effectiveness of secondary research depends significantly on how well the data is interpreted, ensuring that this information complements the insights from primary research.

Qualitative vs quantitative research

Market research employs both qualitative and quantitative methods, offering distinct insights that complement each other. Qualitative research aims to understand consumer behaviors and motivations through detailed analysis, while quantitative research collects measurable data for statistical analysis.

The selection of qualitative or quantitative methods should align with your research goals. If you need to uncover initial insights or explore deep consumer motivations, qualitative techniques like surveys or interviews are ideal.

On the other hand, if you need data that can be measured and analyzed for reliability, quantitative methods are more suitable.

However, these approaches don’t have to be used separately. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods in mixed-method studies allows you to capture both detailed exploratory responses and concrete numerical data. This integration offers a comprehensive view of the market, leveraging the strengths of both approaches to provide a fuller understanding of market conditions.

Implementing market research tools: Userpilot’s role

Similar to how a compass is essential for navigation at sea, businesses need appropriate instruments to carry out effective market research. Userpilot’s suite of product analytics and in-app engagement tools are critical components for this purpose.

Acting as a Buyer Persona Research instrument, Userpilot’s product analytics provide key quantitative research capabilities. This helps clearly define and comprehend the attributes and behaviors of potential customers, providing you with insights into your ICP (Ideal Customer Persona), user preferences, and product-market fit.

Beyond product analytics, Userpilot offers robust in-app engagement features such as modals and surveys that support real time collection of market research information. These interactive features work synergistically with the analytical tools to enable companies to gather detailed data and feedback crucial for informed business decision-making.

Marketing research process: Step-by-step guide

Marketing research conists of several critical stages:

• Defining precise goals.
• Delving into the knowledge of your target demographic.
• Collecting and scrutinizing data.
• Revealing insights that can be translated into tangible actions.

Following these steps allows you to gather critical information that guides business decisions.

An effective research strategy is crucial and involves:

• Properly allocating funds.
• Formulating testable hypotheses.
• Choosing appropriate methods for the study.
• Determining the number of study participants.
• Considering external variables.

A well-planned strategy ensures that your market research is focused, efficient, and produces useful outcomes.

After collecting data, the next step is to analyze it. This involves comparing the data to your initial questions to draw conclusions relevant to your business strategies.

Userpilot makes your data analysis easier by providing handy analytics dashboards for key user metrics such as activation, engagement, core feature adoption, and retention out of the box:

Finally, you report the findings and the process, providing recommendations based on the evidence. This is like solving a puzzle: each piece helps to complete the overall picture.

Challenges and best practices in market research

Delving into market research comes with its own set of hurdles. Those conducting the research must deliver more profound insights within increasingly shorter timespans, and they need to cultivate strategic, continuous research methods to stay abreast of an ever-changing business landscape.

Ensuring high-quality data can be demanding due to issues such as disjointed tools or insufficient analytical expertise. New solutions like Userpilot are surfacing that make these obstacles less daunting by offering accessible and user-friendly options. Maintaining clear lines of communication with your market research team is crucial for achieving both punctuality and quality in outcomes.

The advantages of engaging in marketing research cannot be overstated.

Real-life examples of successful market research

Real-life examples of market research in the SaaS industry often showcase innovative approaches to understanding customer needs and product-market fit.

For instance, Slack, the communication platform, utilized extensive market research to identify gaps in communication tools and understand the workflows of teams. This led to the development of features that seamlessly integrated with other tools and catered to the needs of various team sizes and structures.

Another example is HubSpot, which conducted market research to understand the pain points of small to medium-sized businesses in managing customer relationships. The insights gained helped shape their all-in-one inbound marketing, sales, and service platform, which has become integral to their users’ daily operations. These examples demonstrate how SaaS companies can employ market research to inform product development, improve user experience, and strategically position themselves in a competitive market.

Choosing the right market research tools

For B2B SaaS product managers aiming to do market research, having the right set of tools can make a significant difference. Here’s a list of valuable SaaS tools that can be leveraged for effective market research:

• Userpilot : A comprehensive Product Growth Platform offering in-depth product analytics, a code-free in-app experience builder, bespoke in-app survey capabilities, and robust integration options with platforms like Salesforce and Hubspot. This tool is particularly useful for understanding user behavior, enhancing user engagement, and gathering targeted feedback.
• Qualtrics : Known for its powerful survey tools, Qualtrics helps businesses gather and analyze customer feedback effectively. Its advanced analytics features are ideal for testing market hypotheses and understanding customer sentiments.
• SurveyMonkey : A versatile tool that enables product managers to create, send, and analyze surveys quickly and easily. SurveyMonkey is suitable for gauging customer satisfaction and collecting feedback on potential new features.
• Mixpanel : Specializes in user behavior analytics, offering detailed insights into how users interact with your product. This is essential for identifying patterns and optimizing product features.
• Hotjar : Combines analytics and feedback tools to give teams insights into user behavior and preferences. Hotjar’s heatmaps and session recordings are invaluable for understanding the user experience on a deeper level.
• Tableau : A leading platform for business intelligence and data visualization, Tableau allows product managers to create comprehensive visual reports that can inform strategic decisions based on user data analysis.

Each of these tools provides unique functionalities that can assist SaaS product managers in conducting thorough market research, thereby ensuring that their products are perfectly aligned with user needs and market demands.

Measuring the impact of market research

The pivotal challenge for market research lies in demonstrating its return on investment (ROI) and overall influence on corporate success sufficiently enough to justify regular financial commitment from company leaders. The worth attributed to a market research firm hinges not only on their ability to deliver relevant and high-caliber information, but also on their pricing structures and their contribution towards propelling organizational growth.

To gauge how effectively business choices made based on market research findings succeed, various metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) are utilized. These numerical tools act as navigational aids directing enterprises toward achieving objectives while simultaneously verifying that efforts invested in conducting market analysis are yielding fruitful guidance.

Throughout our look at market research, we’ve seen its importance and impact. Our discussion covered the basics of market research, its key components, and different types, including both qualitative and quantitative methods, and the role of Userpilot’s tools. We’ve examined the details of the market research process, tackled challenges, identified best practices, and shared success stories. We also provided advice on choosing the right market research partner and how to measure the effectiveness of your market research.

In today’s data-driven world, comprehensive market research is crucial for companies that want to succeed. It acts like a guide, helping businesses navigate the complex market landscape. Start your own detailed research today, supported by insightful analytics to help you succeed.

Frequently asked questions

What is market research and why is it important.

Understanding your target market, honing business strategies, and making informed decisions are all essential components that depend heavily on effective market research. It offers objective insights to help avoid expensive errors and foresees the needs of customers .

What is the difference between primary and secondary market research?

Primary market research is characterized by the direct gathering of data, in contrast to secondary market research which leverages existing information from alternative sources for addressing research inquiries.

Such a distinction can guide you in selecting an approach that aligns with your precise needs for conducting specific research.

What are some examples of successful market research?

Examples of successful market research are evident in the operations of well-known companies such as Starbucks, Apple, and McDonald’s. They have harnessed this tool to fine-tune their business strategies and make decisions based on solid information.

By employing market research, these businesses have managed to gain insight into their customers’ desires and needs, which has contributed significantly to their success.

How can I choose the right market research partner?

Selecting an ideal market research ally involves identifying a firm that resonates with your project requirements, financial plan, and corporate goals while also verifying their track record of dependability and consistency via reviews from previous clients.

Best wishes on your endeavor!

How is the impact of market research measured?

The effectiveness of market research hinges on the precision, representativeness, and pertinence of its data, along with how successful business decisions are when they’re based on the findings from this research. These elements define the impact of the research conducted.

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8 Ways to Improve Customer Experience

Natalie Gagliordi | Content Strategist | April 23, 2024

In This Article

What Is Customer Experience?

How important is customer experience, why should you improve customer experiences, impact of bad customer experiences, measuring cx, 8 steps to improve customer experience, deliver meaningful customer experiences with oracle cloud, improving customer experience faqs.

More than just a marketing buzzword, customer experience is the sum of every interaction a person has with a company, whether it’s using a product or hearing about a brand from friends at a party. For a company, great customer experience involves a commitment to building lasting customer relationships that foster growth. Today's consumers have no shortage of places to purchase the services or products they want, so it’s the business’s job to deliver memorable, positive, and personalized experiences that will keep customers coming back.

But what exactly is customer experience and how can businesses improve at providing a pleasant one? These days, delivering a consistently great customer experience requires a multipronged approach that extends beyond the marketing and customer care teams. That means incorporating the latest technologies to support a data-driven understanding of customers and shape reliable and relevant digital experiences.

Customer experience (CX) is an umbrella term that can include anything an organization does to support, engage with, and delight customers throughout their evaluation, purchasing, and post-purchase processes. A good or bad customer experience can be a key differentiator for businesses. Providing a positive customer experience means prioritizing customer needs in a way that keeps them engaged and happy with the business and ultimately inspires loyalty. Behind the scenes, customer experience efforts are supported by an array of software systems and technologies including customer relationship management software, cloud services, and chatbots powered by AI and machine learning.

Customer Experience vs. Customer Service

While very closely related, customer experience and customer service are separate functions within a business. Customer service generally refers to the ways a company assists the customer before or after they purchase a product or service, such as providing answers to general questions or resolving specific issues and complaints. Delivering helpful and responsive customer service is a key component in shaping a positive customer experience.

Customer service also plays an important part in developing brand loyalty, as the way a business responds to unhappy customers can affect consumer perceptions about the company overall. Customer experience, by contrast, is even larger in scope. It includes every interaction a customer has with a product or brand. In addition to the customer service aspect, it also covers other aspects of the customer relationship, such as when they use the product, see its advertising, or research it online.

Customer experience is extremely important for any business and can have a major impact on a company’s growth and success. Extraordinary customer experiences not only pave the way for growth through cross-selling and upselling opportunities, but also foster customer advocacy and word-of-mouth marketing, thereby boosting sales and bringing new customers to the business at a low cost. Customer experience efforts can also create new avenues for customer feedback, providing valuable insights into how and where the business could improve its products, services, and the overall customer journey based on a greater understanding of what people want, need, and value. Conversely, bad customer experiences can drive away potential and existing customers while tarnishing a business’s reputation overall.

The rationale for improving a customer experience strategy is very straightforward. When a business creates positive experiences for customers, it can improve customer retention and acquisition, increase sales, strengthen loyalty, and help differentiate itself from its competitors. Focusing only on closing a sale can mean missing the chance to establish the strong customer connections that are key to business longevity.

A key part of delivering this positive experience is the technology a business uses to power customer interactions. Outdated technology usually lacks the analytics, automation, and personalization capabilities needed to craft the unique and memorable customer experiences that can set a company apart. Older systems also may not integrate well with newer, cloud-based technologies or applications, resulting in disjointed and fragmented customer experiences, operational inefficiencies, and slow business responsiveness.

Say a company wants to add a chatbot capability to quickly answer simple customer questions online. This capability lets customer service reps focus on more complicated problems. It’s also often a preferred channel for customers to ask certain types of questions. Companies need a computing infrastructure that can either provide that chatbot capability or quickly integrate a third-party service. The kind of digital experiences customers expect today often require a combination of technological capabilities and data streams from multiple sources, which can exist in the cloud or in on on-premises data center. Businesses that can quickly leverage new technology and innovations within their customer experience strategy are better equipped to meet customer expectations and stay relevant in a competitive marketplace.

Consumer choice has never been more abundant, with ever-increasing options on where, when, and how to purchase products and services. Loyalty is hard to come by, as consumers will abandon companies that don’t treat them the way they expect. In a study of consumer behavior and how CX is tied to brand loyalty, the CX software and services company Emplifi found that 86% of consumers will ditch brands they once liked after only two to three bad experiences. Negative customer experiences—whether from product or service issues or a poorly performing website—are a primary contributor to diminishing business growth.

Moreover, when customers come away with unfavorable perceptions of a business, a segment of those customers will voice their negative feedback on social media or via online review platforms. Such grievances have the potential to reach millions of people, with lasting effects for the business. If bad customer experiences are the result of technology problems or software shortcomings, other operational areas may also be suffering from a similar lack of innovation. Optimizing digital touchpoints and giving employees the data analytics and automation they need to offer personalized experiences can all contribute to the quality of customer interactions.

Businesses employ various methods and metrics to measure CX, such as conducting customer feedback surveys, analyzing customer support interactions and tickets, and using website analytics to track user behavior. According to a study from PwC , nearly 80% of US consumers say that speed, convenience, knowledgeable help, and friendly service are the main contributors to a positive customer experience. Those findings can provide a starting point for companies to assess whether they have the means to measure their performance in those areas.

Whatever the approach or focus area, actively seeking and listening to customer feedback is crucial to understanding customer opinions, preferences, and concerns. It also helps businesses identify areas for improvement and adapt to changing customer needs. The exact method a company uses to measure its CX strengths and weaknesses depends on the nature of the business, its goals, and the specific aspects of the customer experience it aims to evaluate.

Whether internal or external, the expectations around customer experience are always changing. Successful businesses understand the need to continually assess and improve the customer experience, evaluating strategy, commitment, and technology to make sure that their CX program succeeds.

1. Understand customer pain points

Customer satisfaction surveys, Net Promoter Scores, and customer effort scores are common tools that businesses use to understand customer pain points. These assessments let customers provide targeted feedback, both good and bad, that a company can use to improve the overall customer experience. Usability testing on products or digital platforms, mystery shopping, and analysis of online reviews and ratings are also ways to recognize where the business is falling short and understand how and where to improve.

2. Personalize experiences

Personalization, which can involve targeted marketing, customized product recommendations, or tailored communication, leverages data to create a more relevant customer experience. Technologies such as data analytics and machine learning let companies customize product recommendations, content, and marketing messages to individual customer preferences, making interactions more relevant and effective. Providing this kind of custom fit can foster lasting emotional connections between customers and the brands they love.

3. Audit customer experience

A customer experience audit is a way for businesses to take stock of their entire CX strategy and pinpoint what products, services, or interactions need improvement. It involves doing a systematic evaluation of various touchpoints and processes to make sure they align with customer expectations. For example, a CX audit can look at how customers discovered a business, why they chose to buy from that business, the sales and delivery process, any customer service interactions, and all customer communications after the sale. If done correctly, a CX audit can boost customer insights and help reduce friction points in the customer journey.

4. Use customer journey mapping

A customer journey map is used to illustrate a customer’s interactions with a business from beginning to end. Customer journey mapping involves plotting out the entire customer lifecycle to understand touchpoints, interactions, and pain points, and to gain a realistic view of the customer experience. It helps businesses visualize how customers interact with the brand and identify areas for improvement, essentially charting out the best path for the ideal customer journey. Customer journey mapping also forces businesses to really consider the customer’s perspective and view the interactions customers are having with the business through that lens.

5. Improve customer service

The quality and effectiveness of the interactions that customers have with customer service representatives, online chat support, and self-service options can have a make or break the overall customer experience. Insufficient empathy or understanding of customer needs can leave customers feeling undervalued, while service representatives who aren’t adequately trained may struggle to address customer inquiries or concerns. Reducing the time it takes to resolve customer inquiries, harmonizing and delivering the data needed to solve problems, providing engaging self-service options, and ensuring close alignment across support channels are a few of the ways to improve customer service experiences.

6. Implement technology to elevate experiences

Mobile app glitches, slow website performance, or clunky user interfaces on digital platforms can frustrate customers and sink a company’s credibility, and these are only a few of the many ways underperforming technology can undermine a company’s CX efforts. Technologies such as scalable cloud infrastructure, multicloud computing environments, and cloud integration services help companies manage the mix of apps and data needed to effectively orchestrate a seamless digital experience for customers.

7. Innovate to stay ahead of customer expectations

Customers expect companies to keep pace with innovation, and they’re going to compare their online banking or B2B procurement experience to all their consumer app experiences, whether it’s a fast-food ordering app or a fitness app. That means companies need computing infrastructure that lets them add capabilities regularly so they don’t fall behind what’s expected. Personalization using data analytics, enhanced customer service with conversational AI chatbots and virtual assistants, optimized websites, and intuitive mobile applications all can contribute to better customer experiences.

8. Build an omnichannel strategy

Whether it’s through social media, emails, or online chats, consumer preferences are highly varied when it comes to how they interact with brands. Usually, they just pick whatever option they find most convenient in the moment. That means that businesses should be prepared to manage a range of omnichannel touchpoints at once and ensure that they’re getting customers the right information when they need it. Connecting these channels requires effective integration of data and applications to close communication gaps and help provide consistency and continuity throughout the customer journey.

Businesses use a combination of methods to understand and improve the customer experience. To make positive customer experiences more likely, businesses must first decide on the right strategy, and then find the right technology to help execute and continually enhance their customer interactions.

From a technology standpoint, customer experience relies on a diverse mix of applications, data sources, and platforms. Cloud technology can reduce the operational complexity and IT overhead that often stalls CX innovation . The high performance, security, and reliability of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) allows businesses to run a wide range of workloads, from traditional enterprise applications to cloud native applications, and scale resources as customer demand moves up or down. OCI integration services enable the level of automation and contextually aware conversations between customers, employees, and systems required to improve customer experience. With OCI, businesses can synchronize applications, data, and partner ecosystems for event-based, multimodal, end-to-end process automation and continuous CX innovation.

What are the 5 Cs of customer experience? The 5 Cs of customer experience are a framework that outlines the key aspects of creating a positive, memorable customer experience. These aspects include customer centricity, consistency, communication, customization, and culture.

How do you optimize customer experience? Optimizing the customer experience can involve the use of customer segmentation and persona mapping to better understand customers, personalized interactions to suggest relevant products or services, and analytics to understand customer behavior and tailor experiences accordingly.

What are three points in achieving good customer experience? Three fundamental pain points to overcome to achieve a good customer experience are understanding customer needs, communicating effectively, and providing consistent and reliable service.

Oracle has been named a Leader in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Strategic Cloud Platform Services.

KPMG Personalization

• The Six Pillars

Many years of research has shown that outstanding customer relationships have a universal set of qualities – they are The Six Pillars.

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For the last 20 years, offers have been synonymous with experience. The Six Pillars of experience excellence have been repeatedly established as the universal set of emotional qualities. They define outstanding customer experiences which can create loyalty and drive growth. More relevant than ever, these pillars are providing businesses with an essential way to navigate the coming change.

Organizations that understand and deliver against The Six Pillars have showcased enhanced outcomes, quick growth, and greater shareholder value.

Being trustworthy and engendering trust.

Integrity is an outcome of consistent organizational behavior that demonstrates trustworthiness. There are trust-building events where organizations have the need to publicly react to a difficult situation, and trust building moments where individual actions by staff add up to create trust in the organization as a whole. For all customers, it is the degree to which the organization delivers on its promises that is consistently top of mind.

Turning a poor experience into a great one.

Customer recovery is highly important. Even with the best processes and procedures things will go wrong. Great companies have a process that not only puts the customer back in the position they should have been in as rapidly as possible, but also make the customer feel really good about the experience. A sincere apology and acting with urgency are two crucial elements of successful Resolution.

Expectations

Managing, meeting and exceeding customer expectations.

Customers have Expectations about how their needs will be met, increasingly set by the best brands they have encountered. Understanding, delivering and, if possible, exceeding Expectations is a key skill of great organizations. Some organizations are able to make statements of clear intent that set Expectations (e.g. “never knowingly undersold”) while others set the Expectation accurately (“delivery in 48 hours”). And then delight the customer when they exceed it.

Time and effort

Minimizing customer effort and creating frictionless processes.

Customers are time poor and are increasingly looking for instant gratification. Removing unnecessary obstacles, impediments, and bureaucracy to enable the customer to achieve their objectives quickly and easily have been shown to increase loyalty. Many companies are discovering how to use time as a source of competitive advantage. Equally, there are clear cost advantages to saving time, as long as the other Pillars are not compromised.

Personalization

Using individualized attend to drive an emotional connection.

Personalization is the most valuable component of most experiences. It involves demonstrating that you understand the customer’s specific circumstances and will adapt the experience accordingly. Use of name, individualized attention, knowledge of preferences and past interactions all add up to an experience that feels personal.

Achieving an understanding of the customer’s circumstances to drive deep rapport.

Empathy is the emotional capacity to show you understand someone else’s experience. Empathy creating behaviors are central to establishing a strong relationship and involve reflecting back to the customer that you know how they feel. Then going that one extra step because you understand how they feel.

Empowered consumers, digital disruption, rising costs and shifts in purchasing behavior are challenging today’s consumer and retail businesses.

Today's challenges include digital disruption, rising costs and shifts in purchasing.

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Customer experience management: toward implementing an evolving marketing concept

• Original Empirical Research
• Published: 19 August 2015
• Volume 45 , pages 377–401, ( 2017 )

Cite this article

• Christian Homburg 1 ,
• Danijel Jozić 1 &
• Christina Kuehnl 1  

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Although research continues to debate the future of the marketing concept, practitioners have taken the lead, appraising customer experience management (CEM) as one of the most promising marketing approaches in consumer industries. In research, however, the notion of CEM is not well understood, is fragmented across a variety of contexts, and is insufficiently demarcated from other marketing management concepts. By integrating field-based insights of 52 managers engaging in CEM with supplementary literature, this study provides an empirically and theoretically solid conceptualization. Specifically, it introduces CEM as a higher-order resource of cultural mindsets toward customer experiences (CEs), strategic directions for designing CEs, and firm capabilities for continually renewing CEs, with the goals of achieving and sustaining long-term customer loyalty. We disclose a typology of four distinct CEM patterns, with firm size and exchange continuity delineating the pertinent contingency factors of this generalized understanding. Finally, we discuss the findings in relation to recent theoretical research, proposing that CEM can comprehensively systemize and serve the implementation of an evolving marketing concept.

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Homburg, C., Jozić, D. & Kuehnl, C. Customer experience management: toward implementing an evolving marketing concept. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 45 , 377–401 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-015-0460-7

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Received : 09 December 2014

Accepted : 07 July 2015

Published : 19 August 2015

Issue Date : May 2017

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-015-0460-7

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