Data Is Key For Designing Holistic, Emotional Customer Experiences

Exceptional experiences happen at the intersection of data and design.

As customer expectations evolve alongside digital capabilities and channels, it’s not enough to offer “cool” experiences. Now they must be cool personal experiences that anticipate the customer’s needs and desires before even she knows about them.

This change requires marketers to think much more broadly about how they use personalization. Already, brands adopting strategies and tools for personalized experience design are gaining a sustainable competitive advantage over brands that aren’t.

Many times when marketers first set out to design a new, personalized experience, they start with the medium—such as an app or website. But that isn’t the right approach. According to Brian Solis, principal analyst at Altimeter Group, “Designing for a medium is not the same as designing for experience, and the types of media you’re designing for are going to keep evolving. It’s better to think beyond [the medium].”

Likewise, marketers can’t just think about the message either, meaning the headlines, copy, and images that will resonate with customers and persuade them to take action. Yes, these are essential to creating the right experience, but there is more to consider beyond how customers interact with brands through looking, typing, clicking, touching, speaking, or swiping.

The best customer experiences start with data that informs and predicts customers’ needs and wants at every moment. And because today’s customers are constantly moving among screens, channels, and devices, understanding how they experience your brand as a whole takes a deep level of customer intelligence.

In other words, data and design must intersect in meaningful ways to create personal, timely experiences that delight customers and encourage them to share them with others, driving engagement and revenue.

Only by listening to what the data tells us can we understand what customers think and feel and then use design to inspire them. Companies that have already invested in integrated data systems to optimize and personalize incrementally can use these same systems across the entire customer experience.

Designing holistic, emotional customer experiences is a major differentiator for successful brands. Click here to learn how data can help.