Holding on to the customer nowadays is as important for organizations as acquiring newer ones. But retention of customers was never as difficult as it is in today’s world. With impatient customers ready to shift to an alternate brand at the slightest pretext, delivering on a superior customer experience seems to be the only way in which they can be retained. It is not only the mantra for survival, but also for business growth.

But how do you ensure a superior customer experience, and most importantly, how do you know whether your customer experiences are great.

How to Understand the Customer?

For starters, you need to first understand the customer. This is possible today like never before. Each click, hit, impression or purchase can be recorded for a host of parameters. But this surfeit of data is proving to be a challenge for marketers. The task is not as much as data gathering as it is data deciphering. This is where analytics comes in to the picture.

Why Analytics?

Let’s assume that you run an apparel store online. Won’t it be helpful if you are able to segregate the merchandise that is bought by a particular set of people, say, those that are getting married and target them with a sales and marketing campaign. Or, if you market furniture online, and are able to identify households with children to whom you can market personal study tables and chairs during the beginning of the school session.

How Does Analytics Help?

Analytics can give you precious insights into the how, why, who, and when of the purchasing process. By employing analytics, you, as a retailer, can cull the data to find out how you can personalize your sales messaging to appeal to your target audience. Analytics is like the satellite that helps you to make sense of the winds of change and navigate you through to the headed destination.

Analytics helps the user of the data to maximize his understanding of customer preferences so as to discover and leverage opportunities of improving customer experiences, thus resulting in increase in customer base.