New Study: 80% of Brands Don’t Truly Understand Their Customers

In this day and age of customer-centricity, it’s alarming to read that most B2C companies don’t understand their customers. According to a new study released by Yesmail Interactive, in conjunction with Gleanster, a stunning 80% of consumer-facing companies don't understand their customers beyond basic demographics and purchase history. 

According to the report, "Customer Lifecycle Engagement: Imperatives for Midsize-to-Large Companies," marketers think they know their customers well, but they lack the deep data insights that would allow them to send personalized, relevant campaigns.

Gleanster surveyed 100 senior-level marketers with online and offline sales models to gauge the state of customer engagement among companies with $10 million to more than $1 billion in revenue. What’s more, the research revealed that mid-size and large B2C companies are struggling to achieve customer intimacy, and many marketers lack the data and technology they need for more effective segmentation.

"Companies need access to more robust sources of data and technology that allows them to communicate via multiple channels and send meaningful, relevant message streams," Michael Fisher, President, Yesmail Interactive, said in a press release. "The battle for market share now rests on building customer relationships, not simply a promotional coupon approach.”

Brands that don't get to know their customers intimately and drive the value of the relationship won't survive, Fisher said.

“If brands are not relevant at scale, their customers will find another brand that is," he said.

According to the survey, marketers lack understanding when it comes to relationship-oriented customer data. But 88% of respondents still consider their customer engagement strategies -- including knowing the optimal message, channel, and time to send to each customer -- to be effective.

Some of the other key survey findings include:

When it comes to transactional data, 53% of marketers indicated they have an excellent understanding of customers' purchase history, followed by 42% for basic demographic information such as gender and age.

Fewer marketers have an excellent understanding of relationship data, including customers' level of participation in social media (20%), channel preference (21%) and household composition (27%).

The top two sources of customer data used for segmentation are transactional: CRM data (67%) and point-of-sale data (56%).

Less than half of marketers use data from sources that provide better targeting, including web browsing history and online behavior (41%), social data (38%), and third-party behavioral and attitudinal data (36%).

While 40% of marketers use customer transactions such as purchases to trigger automated campaigns, only 21% use life-stage triggers such as birthdays or having a baby.

A whopping 86% of marketers surveyed said they could do a better job with segmentation if they had better customer data. When it comes to the top challenges that stand in the way of personalized customer communications, the respondents blamed limitations in marketing tools (42%), fragmented marketing systems (34 %) and poor data quality (34%).

"Brands must build one-on-one relationships with their customers; but marketers don't know how to get there," Ian Michiels, Principal & Managing Director, Gleanster, said in the release. "Companies need to start thinking in terms of the customer lifecycle and relying more on the data and insight that informs and develops the applicable lifecycle strategy. This insight lets companies truly know their customers based on relationship customer data rather than just transactional data."

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