Companies continuously strive to leverage the power of data to make informed decisions and gain a competitive edge in today's data-driven environment. Business intelligence and customer intelligence tools are two key concepts in this field. While they're similar sounds, they serve different functions and have different areas of application. Business intelligence BI and customer intelligence CI are related concepts that focus on different aspects of a company's data and information needs.
In this article, we'll cover all you need to know about the differences between these two critical aspects of data analysis in the following sections:
Companies use customer intelligence (CI) to find the most efficient methods to communicate and engage with customers by gathering and analyzing huge amounts of data. So, what is customer intelligence? It is the compass that guides businesses toward delivering exceptional customer experiences, enhancing satisfaction, and building long-lasting relationships.
Customer intelligence tools enable businesses to understand customer needs, problems, purchasing behaviors, preferred products, demographic information, and more. However, for the purpose of developing deeper comprehension and more significant commercial interactions, information and actions regarding customers are reviewed.
In addition, the goal of gathering CI data is to apply the knowledge to personalize the customer's experience. According to Google, 90% of leading marketers say personalization significantly contributes to business profitability. As a result, it makes it possible for agents to anticipate and respond to customer needs in a more conversational and sympathetic manner.
Business Intelligence (BI) is a comprehensive term that includes the procedures, equipment, and technology used to gather, analyze, and display data on the overall operation of a company. This involves data from various sources such as financial documents, operational measurements, and supply chain data. However, businesses are thereafter able to perform queries, generate reports, and do additional analysis on the data that is provided.
BI aims to provide insights into a company's overall health and performance, supporting decision-making across multiple facets of the business. Business intelligence tools are crucial for companies to maintain competitiveness by providing clear visibility of their data. The statistics present that nearly 50% of all businesses already use BI tools. Also, projections show continued growth in the coming years. However, businesses are able to take suitable action that will improve the company, such as cost-cutting, after reviewing and analyzing the data.
Business intelligence provides information on a company's internal operations, while customer intelligence provides information about customers.
CRM usually provides data to sales and marketing employees. They could find it simple to customize the program and generate reports, but CRM is about more than just reporting. To take full advantage of the tool in improving customer interactions and identifying trends that could help in providing a better customer experience, you need an experienced marketer or salesperson.
Understanding the main distinctions can help you combine CRM and business intelligence tools to enhance the efficiency of your company.
It's critical that the BI solution you use is appropriate for your specific company needs. It's important that the business intelligence tool integrates with your current CRM software via an application programming interface or front-facing integration. Select CRM and business intelligence systems that work well together and have strong integrated features. Integrating the product will enhance your customer profile, allowing you to segment and personalize interactions with your customer base.
Your customers will choose your key performance indicators (KPIs), which will help you achieve your business goals. Continuously evaluating key performance indicators is crucial for monitoring business environment changes, and identifying trends, competitors, and risks. Additionally, determine what specific data you want to extract from your CRM system and how you plan to use it with your BI tool.
To maximize the benefits of your program, you must also work with clean, reliable data, obtaining information from unreliable sources is enough. However, to clean and ready data for analysis, use ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) procedures. This could include normalizing, cleaning, and building data models that are appropriate for business intelligence reporting.
Today companies require business intelligence and a customer intelligence platform as essential capabilities. They provide a deep understanding of operations and customers, enabling data-driven decision-making. In today's data-driven business environment, you can gain a competitive edge by combining the wealth of customer data stored in your CRM system with the analytical capability of BI tools.
Businesses may promote a culture of informed decision-making and provide great customer experiences by recognizing their unique qualities and combined strengths, which will eventually lead to growth and success.
Don't hesitate to get in touch with us today if you want to learn more about how the Live product family can help you to boost your global customer experience strategy.
Learn more about how the Live product family can help you support and improve your customer experience strategy.