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Generative AI is everywhere now. You see it in content, campaigns, customer experiences, and even internal workflows. It promises speed, scale, and efficiency, but there’s a harder question sitting underneath all that progress; Do your audiences actually trust it?

Trust in the Age of AI: What Consumers Really Think About AI Generated Content

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

When you have a disappointing experience with a company, do you ever take to social media to voice your dissatisfaction? You’re not alone. It’s estimated that 67% of consumers use social media to complain directly to brands, and it’s easy to understand why. 

Why Is Social Media Customer Service Important?

What Are the Advantages of Social Media Customer Service?

What Are the Disadvantages of Social Media Customer Service?

How To Create an Effective Social Media Customer Service Strategy

What Are Social Media Customer Service Best Practices?

How To Improve Your Social Media Customer Service with Meltwater

People know that emails often get ignored and nobody wants to waste their time on hold to a call center, but if you complain on social media, your grievance is visible to the whole world. Companies are likely to be more motivated to help you quickly, demonstrating their great customer service to other potential customers.

Even though social media has become the preferred channel for customer complaints, businesses are allowing a third of all complaints to go unanswered despite the obvious risks of leaving unhappy customers without a response.

And it’s important to remember that customer service isn’t just about fielding complaints. Potential customers will often use social media to make enquiries during the consideration phase of the customer journey, because they hope it will be the fastest way to get an answer from the brand. Failing to respond to a consumer who is actively asking questions about your products is leaving cash on the table.

So, for many businesses, implementing a robust social media customer service strategy could be an easy win, improving customer experience and retention while working magic for their brand reputation. Before putting a strategy in place, it’s worth focusing on why exactly people complain on social media. Sure, the most obvious answer is that they see it as the speediest path to a resolution for their problem, but there are other, more surprising motivations.

Researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology looked into this very question, and here’s what they found: 

To bond with others who have experienced the same issues. A problem shared, as they say, is a problem halved. 

To get a self-esteem boost. Complaining about others can make us feel better about ourselves.

So, when thinking about your approach to social media customer care, it’s important to understand that there are sometimes other drivers behind a complaint beyond the need to get the problem fixed, and that can often cause people to use more negative language than necessary.

In the simplest of terms, social media customer service is just customer service delivered via social channels as opposed to more conventional mediums such as telephone or email. In practice, it’s a complex activity with lots of different elements that need to be considered.

First of all, there’s the question of how you actually identify complaints and enquiries on social media, when they can appear on any one of a growing number of platforms, and they might not directly tag your company profiles. To do this effectively, especially at scale, you need a third-party social listening solution like Meltwater Explore.

Engagement is also important. Not every social post that mentions your brand will require a customer service level response, in many cases a simple acknowledgement by way of a like or short comment will be enough. Again, a third-party social media management and engagement solution, such as Meltwater Engage, can facilitate this. 

The mechanics of identifying and responding to queries and complaints are only the beginning. The big issue is how to ensure a high standard of social media customer service is delivered using these tools, as there is a wide variety of issues that will need to be dealt with, for example: 

All of these issues have to be quickly assessed and then dealt with in the most appropriate manner. Do they need to be directed to some online resource that can provide help, or escalated to the support team? Can the social media team resolve the issue themselves, or do they need to obtain more information from the customer before progressing the enquiry? Should the rest of the conversation take place on the social channel where the customer instigated it, or does it need to be moved to another communications medium?

For large organizations, close integration between the social media team and customer support team will be essential, and often this means that the software platforms used to manage customer service and social media need to be integrated as well, so case details and progress can be passed seamlessly between them. Meltwater integrates with Salesforce, for precisely this reason. 

Social media customer service also plays a key role in crisis management, because disgruntled customers on social media can quickly snowball into a bigger problem, especially if the customer has a large social following. So as well as generally striving to respond to all customers on social, paying close attention to any complaints that are gaining visibility is important. 

It’s clear that social media and customer service come together to create a complex problem which can be difficult to tackle. It requires the right social media customer service software, well-trained staff, and a process of constant improvement. To achieve this, in-depth analytics and regular reports are used to measure how well the whole system is working, and where improvements can be made.

Tip: Take a look at these social media customer service examples to get inspired.

Delivering excellent omnichannel customer service (just like an omnichannel customer experience) is something that most businesses should aim for, because it’s an essential part of building a powerful brand. But the role of social media in customer service has become vital for a number of reasons.

Firstly, for better or worse, we live in a world where consumers simply expect businesses to be available and responsive on social media. Failing to meet that expectation leads to customer dissatisfaction, ultimately damaging their perceptions of your brand. All other things being equal, if your competitors are delivering great social media customer service and you are not, they have an advantage over you.

It’s not just a matter of customers being over-entitled either, it’s about accessibility and convenience. People have complicated lives, and the conventional customer service channels might not always work well for them, so being able to reach out to your business via a channel of their choosing, at a time that works for them, means a lot.

Don’t forget, what’s good for customers is good for you. By actively responding to customer queries and problems on social media, your company is very publicly demonstrating its values, showing the rest of the world that it takes customer satisfaction seriously.

In its own way, this is very powerful PR for your brand. It should come as no surprise that customers who enjoy a positive experience of social media customer service are far more likely to become repeat customers, and brand advocates. 

At the same time, all of these comments, complaints, and queries in social media can provide a valuable source of consumer intelligence and customer intelligence. Are similar issues and questions coming up regularly? Perhaps a new topic is suddenly being mentioned or asked about a lot.

By analyzing this data, businesses can gather information about customer preferences, pain points, and needs, which can be used to improve products and services. What’s more, all of the data gathered through social media customer service operations provides a lot of consumer insights and intelligence that will add rocket fuel to your marketing campaigns.

If you get social media customer service right, it can also reduce costs in a big way. Think about the time and resources expended every time a complaint or query goes through your customer service department. Much of that overhead can be eliminated with a smart social media customer care strategy, either by providing quick resolutions to common issues directly through the social channels, or deflecting them to self-service resources where they can resolve issues by themselves.

Let's take a look at five advantages of social media customer service:

Accessibility and Convenience
Offering customer service through social channels makes life a lot easier for your customers, empowering them to get answers to their questions and solutions for problems in a quick and convenient manner that suits them.

Reduces Costs
Responding to customers on social media can reduce the overall cost of customer service delivery, giving people quick resolutions or directing them to self-serve resources, so that fewer cases are passed to the customer service department.

Builds Brand Equity
By delivering excellent customer care in social media, your business is proving that it puts customers first in the most visible way possible. People can see that if they have a problem with any of your products or services, your company can be trusted to put it right.

Data and Insights
Social media customer service produces a lot of data about your customers and their relationship with your brand and products. This data can be harnessed in different ways to generate insights that could lead to improved products and better-targeted marketing campaigns.

Crisis Management
Many potential crises can be averted entirely by swiftly responding to customer service issues raised on social media. In the event that a brand crisis does begin to blow up, social media customer service can help mitigate it by quickly answering questions, addressing misinformation, and reassuring customers that your business is handling the problem.

Let's take a look at five disadvantages of social media customer service:

High Visibility
While showing off your commitment to customer service in public can be a positive, things are also very visible when they don’t go so well. For example, your team might struggle to placate a particularly upset customer, or to resolve a difficult issue. In these situations it’s important to escalate quickly and resolve the issue as soon as possible. 

Volume of Requests
For larger brands especially, the volume of requests for customer service in social media can be huge, making it an unwieldy problem to handle. The problem can be addressed with the right social media customer service tools, which will make managing the volume much easier, but also appropriate staffing levels and well-planned processes.

Trolling 
A common challenge for social media managers is dealing with trolls in their owned channels. This can take many shapes, from harmless jokers trying to have a little fun at a brand’s expense, to more vicious attacks from people who possibly have some real or imagined grievance. Appropriate training and processes are the best way to deal with this. 

Operational Silos
When a business begins to offer social media customer service, there’s a risk of a disconnect between that team and the existing customer service function, so you end up with two teams working at cross-purposes. Integrating your social media management solution with your CRM platform (e.g. Salesforce) is a good way to tackle this. 

Customer Expectations 
When communicating with a brand via social media, customers can often expect a much faster response than they would after using an email or online form for a similar request. Depending on your resourcing, this can be unrealistic. Set expectations in your support channel profile, stating hours of operation and typical response times.

Hopefully by now we’ve convinced you that social media customer service is something that can give your business a strong advantage, but also given you an understanding of the numerous challenges that need to be addressed in order to do it well. 

So how should you go about mapping out a social media customer service strategy?

As with any kind of strategizing, the first and most important task is to define your goals and objectives. We’ve already outlined the benefits of customer service in social media. Do you need to improve service response times, increase customer satisfaction, enhance your brand's reputation, or all of the above? What social media metrics will you use to measure progress towards those goals?

The second stage of your strategic planning should be to build a clear understanding of your audience in social media. Which channels are they most likely to use, and what topics do they typically discuss in relation to your business?

Good social media monitoring tools like the Meltwater will help you do this easily.

Get a free tour of our platform today to understand how we can help you advance in your social media customer service strategy!

Next you need to allocate the appropriate resources. This includes the right social media customer service software platforms, the right staff, and training where necessary.

But remember that this resource should not exist in isolation and, assuming you already have a fully functioning customer service team, you should work out how these two teams will work together to deliver optimal results.

Develop a triage system so that the frontline social media team understands what kind of queries it can respond to directly, when they should escalate to a different team, and what that escalation procedure looks like. As you build this plan, bake in reasonable Service Level Agreements for different types of engagement, so everybody understands what response times they should be aiming for.

It’s important to understand that your social media customer service team will be representing your brand in a very public arena. Clear policies and guidelines for how they should interact with customers on your brand social channels need to be developed and properly documented, and all staff should be trained extensively, with regular scheduled refreshers.

It’s also a good idea to develop a broader social media branding guide as well as an employee social media guideline for how staff talk about the business on their personal social media profiles.

As you create policies and guidelines, be sure to include planning for crisis scenarios. The team should be able to identify the early warning signs of a potential crisis, using a social media listening tool like Meltwater, and be fully trained in how to manage those situations. There should be a clearly established ‘chain of command’ so that when a difficult, fast-developing problem arises, there’s no question about roles and responsibilities. Everybody should know what part they have to play, and who has the authority to make decisions.

Finally, pay attention to legal and regulatory requirements for all of the countries your brand operates in, with regard to privacy, data protection, and any other relevant considerations. An enterprise-grade social media engagement solution like Meltwater can help streamline this.

While all of this might sound challenging, the good news is that social media customer service has been around for long enough for early adopters to learn the hard lessons on behalf of everybody else. So other businesses can benefit from their experience. 

Here are some best practice tips to employ in your own social media customer service efforts.

Be responsive: People tend to use social media as a customer service channel because they want a quick response, so even if you can’t provide a full resolution straight away, at least acknowledge that they’ve been heard and will get an answer soon.

Use a professional tone: It can be tempting to use a casual tone on social media, but remember to stay in your brand voice and keep things business-like and avoid over-familiarity, as this can annoy customers, especially if they have a complaint.

Be discreet when necessary: Providing positive customer experiences in a public channel is good, but when things aren’t going well, or sensitive topics are involved, it’s often better to move a discussion to a more private channel.

Know your business: Make sure your social media customer service team is kept up to date on the business and its products, so they can more readily understand customer concerns and offer better support. 

Set clear expectations: Communicate expected response times and next steps with customers. If a resolution will take time, make sure they have a realistic estimate of how long they can expect to wait. 

Maintain consistency: Ensure that your customer service interactions are consistent in tone and style across different social media platforms. This helps position your brand as one that is reliable and dependable. 

Keep up to date: The world of social media is constantly evolving, with new platforms emerging and growing their own audiences. Make sure you periodically take stock of where your customers can be found online, and whether there are conversations about your brand that you might not have spotted. 

Embrace feedback: Encourage customers to provide feedback on their social media service experiences. Use this feedback to improve your processes and social media customer service strategy.

Improve constantly: Use data and analytics to monitor the performance of your social media customer service team. Identify bottlenecks and weak-points, or areas that need better resourcing. 

Look after your team: Don’t underestimate the emotional toll of spending all day dealing with unhappy, sometimes angry customers, while maintaining a calm and professional demeanor. Celebrate success, check in on your team regularly, make sure they have the support they need to do a great job.

Building a strong social media customer service strategy can deliver huge rewards for your business; stronger customer relationships and repeat business, increased brand equity, better word of mouth, and so much more. But it’s no small undertaking. It needs to be implemented well if it’s going to pay off, and you need a partner with deep experience of helping global brands achieve these objectives.

Meltwater’s suite of solutions provides the perfect platform for your social media customer service strategy. Seamless integration with Salesforce makes it easy for your customer service teams and social media staff to work together to deliver consistently exceptional customer experiences. 

Our social media management solution, Engage,  is built for cross-team collaboration, with customizable workflows, role-based dashboards, and a unified inbox to make sure all customer engagements are identified and handled by a team member. 

For identifying brand mentions outside of your owned social media channels, our social listening solution, Explore, integrates seamlessly with Engage, monitoring a comprehensive range of social media channels. It offers automated reporting and alerts to warn you when your brand mentions suddenly spike so you can identify problems early and react quickly. 

If you need enterprise level insights into your customers based on how they discuss your brand and products in digital spaces, our consumer insights platform, Radarly can provide that.

Social Media Customer Service Best Practices

Have you ever had companies send you offers for items you were already thinking about buying? Maybe your preferred automotive shop sends you a coupon for an oil change right when you’re about to hit that 3,000th mile. Or maybe a mailer with an online deal magically appears in your mailbox when it’s time to buy new shoes. Businesses are getting smarter, thanks to customer intelligence — and yours can be among them.

Customer intelligence enables businesses to understand their customers on a deeper level. This means learning more about what your customers like and dislike or what they need and want, and even predicting their future behaviors.

Let’s explore how customer intelligence is reshaping how businesses understand and engage with customers.

What Is the Role of Customer Intelligence?

What Is a Customer Intelligence Strategy?

What Is the Difference Between CRM and Customer Intelligence?

What Are the Benefits of Customer Intelligence?

How Meltwater Puts Customer Intelligence in Your Hands

We define customer intelligence as the proactive process of collecting and analyzing customer data to learn more about them. Companies can use this data to identify patterns and gain insights across various customer touchpoints.

As a result, companies can use customer intelligence to:

Predict customer behaviors (especially purchases and churn)

Increase customer loyalty and satisfaction

Turning raw data into meaningful information can help companies achieve all of these goals.

Customer Intelligence is also known as CI and consumer intelligence.

Tip: Learn more about customer experience (CX) by developing a customer experience strategy, conducting customer experience analysis, creating a customer experience design, feeding customer experience dashboards, learning about CX trends and CX examples, measuring customer experience, and using customer experience software.

No longer satisfied with basic, surface-level data provided by sales receipts and website analytics, more companies are seeking deeper insights into their customers’ lives. 

Customer intelligence drills down into data from a myriad of sources to reveal what your customers think and feel. It identifies trends, sees what customers respond to or ignore, and analyzes sentiments and feedback to add context to data.

This next-level customer intelligence analytics empowers businesses with actionable insights to drive growth, foster loyalty, and effectively innovate products or services. Ultimately, businesses that leverage customer intelligence correctly can stay ahead in a highly competitive landscape.

To get the most out of your customer intelligence, businesses should develop a customer intelligence strategy.

A customer intelligence strategy is a framework that shows you step-by-step how to gather, analyze, and use customer data and ensures your actions and goals align.

What Are the Elements of A Customer Intelligence Strategy?

Here’s what a basic customer intelligence strategy includes:

The foundation of your customer intelligence strategy, data comes from numerous channels and customer touchpoints to shine a light on who your buyers are. A customer intelligence strategy needs to consider all possible data sources and the types of data available from each source. It also needs to define what types of data you’ll use and what you’ll ignore, as not all data is helpful and too much and can lead to overwhelm.

Reading Tips: The Fundamentals of Data Structuring, A Guide to Big Data for Beginners, How to Prevent Data Isolation with Meltwater's API, Data Lake vs Data Warehouse: Definition and Differences, What Is Data Analytics?, What Is Customer Intelligence Analytics?, Best Practices for Customer Data Management (CDM), How to Use A Customer Data Platform

The Meltwater Customer Intelligence platform provides a single source of truth and makes your customer intelligence data collection much easier.

Businesses need the right technology infrastructure to collect customer data. First-party options include:

Customer intelligence platforms like the Meltwater Suite can streamline how you collect and analyze data. It can also pull third-party data from various sources to enrich and expand your first-party intel. Our Consumer Insights Buyer Guide helps you with your decision-making.

Ideally, your customer intelligence technology will allow you to segment customers, identify patterns, and provide real-time insights into your customers’ actions and preferences.

Get a free tour of our customer intelligence suite and see how it can help you fuel your customer intelligence strategy!

Once you’ve collected and analyzed your customer data, you need processes to turn your findings into actions. Having documented processes allows you to act on new information as it arises, helping you stay ahead of the curve.

In addition, you should also have processes for updating your methodologies, verifying your data’s accuracy, and testing how your actions drive business results.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) offers excellent insights into the customer experience, but it stops short of what customer intelligence platforms can do. 

Both CRM and customer intelligence help companies understand and manage their customer relationships. CRM manages interactions with current and prospective customers. It provides a central database where companies can store information, track sales opportunities, and automate marketing campaigns. These systems can also analyze data about their customers’ behaviors, preferences, and purchasing history to improve sales performance.

Customer intelligence software picks up where CRM leaves off. It provides in-depth insights into customer behaviors and preferences by analyzing large volumes of data from multiple sources, not just CRM.

Such tools also use predictive analytics to anticipate what customers will need or identify potential issues before they occur. The level of detail is finer and more complete than what a CRM alone can provide.

Or, to put it another way, CRM provides the tools for interacting with customers, while customer intelligence extracts insights from CRM data for better decision-making. CRM is operational, while customer intelligence is strategic. The two tools complement each other and can help organizations adapt to changing customer demands.

With well-executed customer intelligence, businesses can develop deeper connections with their customers simply by being more data-driven. Stronger relationships can create a ripple effect across sales, customer loyalty, brand advocacy, and brand sentiment.

In addition to these perks, companies can anticipate a few other benefits:

Improved customer segmentation. Learning more about your customers allows you to see patterns, trends, and shared characteristics between customer segments, leading to more personalized offers and marketing campaigns.

Higher customer engagement. Better segmentation ensures you’re targeting the right customers with the right messaging, which increases engagement and customer loyalty.

Stronger competitive advantage. Customer intelligence can inform everything from products and services to marketing channels, allowing you to better align with your customers’ preferences.

Better product development. Companies can use consumer intelligence to develop new products and services, ensuring their offerings meet customer demands. What is more, when you make the most out of customer intelligence, you utilize human capital and optimize processes. This leads to better overall IT efficiency.

Lower churn. Identify at-risk customers early so you can intervene and address their needs before they switch to a competitor.

Personalized experiences. Granular customer insights allow you to meet customers where they are and market to customers based on their unique profiles, behaviors, and customer journeys.

Measurable ROI. Businesses can track the return on investment of their customer intelligence efforts to ensure they’re getting value from their software and strategies.

In theory, the benefits and value of customer intelligence are clear. Here’s what using customer intelligence can look like in practice:

Customer intelligence offers insights into a customer’s purchase history, allowing companies to detect trends and patterns.

For instance, a purchase history analysis for a retailer might reveal that most customers shop for clothes every March and November. The retailer might use this data to plan sales, send targeted apparel promotions, or stock up on inventory for these periods.

Tip: Take a look at some Consumer Insights Example Reports.

People don’t hold back on social media. It’s a great place to learn how customers really think or feel about a brand, a product, or an experience. Even when customers aren’t posting directly to your page or content, you can glean insights from social conversations that will help inform your next best actions.

Companies can use social listening via social media monitoring tools to monitor social media conversations and sentiment around their brand or related products and services. By analyzing social media mentions, businesses can gauge how customers feel about a certain brand or topic, identify potential issues that might impact their image, and respond to customer concerns. Or, if people are talking broadly about an issue or topic (e.g., a food company monitoring for sentiments around GMO products), the company can prepare a response to show its side.

Meltwater is specialized in social media monitoring. Get a free tour of our platform and set up your advanced social listening strategy today!

Tracking user behavior on a website can provide valuable insights into what customers are interested in. It can also surface potential issues with your conversion funnel, such as receiving lots of traffic to a product page but few or no purchases.

Customer intelligence plays a role in improving website experiences. For example, companies can use website intelligence to offer personalized product recommendations based on what the shopper has previously viewed or purchased.

Feedback surveys, online reviews, and customer service interactions are goldmines for customer intelligence. These are moments where customers are willingly sharing details of their experiences, especially those that could put a brand’s image in a bad light.

Businesses can use customer intelligence software to identify areas for improvement. For example, if multiple customers are sharing the same feedback about poor cleaning standards in a hotel, the hotel manager can offer more training to the housekeeping team, implement new protocols, and conduct quality control checks before guests enter their rooms.

Customer intelligence is critical to understanding your audience and connecting with them wherever they are. By knowing what they’re thinking, feeling, and wanting, you can align your communications, products, and services to satisfy their expectations.

Meltwater’s Consumer Intelligence platform puts always-on wisdom within your reach. A single source of truth tracks billions of data points in real time to help you identify and predict customer behaviors so you can respond accordingly. Learn what people are saying, where conversations are taking place, and what your customers expect you to do for them — you’ll always know what your next step should be.

Learn more when you request a free tour by filling out the form below.

What Is Customer Intelligence? Definition and Examples

Today’s successful companies aren’t built on only the best services, products, and web presence. Rather, much of their success lies in knowing exactly what their customers want, need, and expect — all of which are revealed by customer intelligence analytics.

Customer Journey

Social Media Customer Service Best Practices

What Is Customer Intelligence? Definition and Examples

What Is Customer Intelligence Analytics? Benefits & Examples

Ultimate Guide to Market Segmentation & Personas

How To Develop A Customer Experience Strategy

The Retail Customer Experience Guide

How Does AI Affect Customer Experience?

Customer Experience Statistics You Should Know About

The 11 Best Customer Experience Examples

Consumer Insights for Fashion: How Top Brands Keep up With Consumer Trends

What is Customer Experience? Definition, Challenges, Importance

How to Improve B2B Customer Experience [5 Steps]

Customer Journey

Social Media Customer Service Best Practices

What Is Customer Intelligence? Definition and Examples

What Is Customer Intelligence Analytics? Benefits & Examples

Ultimate Guide to Market Segmentation & Personas

How To Develop A Customer Experience Strategy

The Retail Customer Experience Guide

How Does AI Affect Customer Experience?

Customer Experience Statistics You Should Know About

The 11 Best Customer Experience Examples

Consumer Insights for Fashion: How Top Brands Keep up With Consumer Trends

What is Customer Experience? Definition, Challenges, Importance

How to Improve B2B Customer Experience [5 Steps]

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