The-Data-Guy: Know your data, know your Customer, know yourself.

2016-01-07

Know your data, know your Customer, know yourself.

Knowing your data is the first step of knowing your customers.

English: Somerfield, Spilsby One of the last customers to shop at Somerfield before Sainsburys take over is, coincidentally, using a Sainsburys shopping bag. Photograph taken with permission, courtesy of the manager, the shop assistant and the customer. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In small stores, shops and restaurants the folks behind the counter get to know your name, what you buy or order on a frequent basis, and how often you visit.

Today we are connected to our customers in many ways. Not everyone has the in person touch and feel of the customer. For many organizations the customer is a visitor on the web site, or a card swipe at one of the locations they manage.

How do you get to know the customer when the people making decisions that affect the entire organization may have never even met a customer?

Know your data

Isn't this the point of Business Intelligence, Data Science, and Data warehousing projects? As we report and analyze our data our goals are to understand what the data is telling us.

Know your Customer

This data then begins to give us an idea of what our customer needs, and wants. There may not always be the opportunity for a one on one conversation with the customer. However, by closely listening to what their data says, you can know and understand how to meet their needs.

This will never replace the meet and great opportunities of seeing for yourself how customers interact with your product or organization.

It is a good start.