Customer Data Collection Best Practice to Follow

Customer information collection is considered one of the most important steps in the market research process. Understanding customers helps businesses have a sturdy basement to boost their products and services, leading to the increase in the business performance.

As soon as the business conducts the right strategy and meets the demand of customers thanks to the information collection, it is possible to expand the market share  and develop sustainably.

But the question is, “How to collect customer information most effectively?” as the data volume is quite huge. Follow us to explore.

What Is Customer Information?

Customer information is what consumers or partners provide to businesses through the web, mobile apps, media channels, social networks, or online or offline marketing campaigns.

Customer information is the main foundation for building a successful business strategy. Therefore, businesses must follow the correct process of collecting customer information to ensure accurate and realistic results.

Standard customer information collection process

Commonly Used Types of Customer Information

Typically, businesses collect customer information at many different touch points. Throughout the customer journey, data is stored. Below are some commonly used types of customer information.

1. Personal Information (PII And Non-PII)

Personal customer information is divided into two categories: personally identifiable information (PII) and non-personally identifiable information (Non-PII). 

• The PII information includes the following data: Full name, address, email, driver's license, citizen identification, passport, credit card, birth certificate, and phone number. 
• Non-PII is private data that an individual cannot use, such as IP address, Cookie, electronic device ID, interaction information, or customer information, ...

Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

2. Interactive Information

Interactive information includes the data customers leave on the business's marketing channels.  

• Customer interactions on websites, social networks, or mobile applications.
• Website visits, brand loyalty, views, time on site, and total user actions.
• The number of interactions like comments, shares, and video views on social networking applications.
• Email open rate, bounce rate, link clicks, email forwarding.
• Customer information from several tickets, queries, and feedback.

3. Behavioral Information

From customers' behavior, businesses will know the basic needs and want to determine the target audience. Interaction data is part of behavioral information. Through customer actions, you will determine behavioral information. Some behavioral information may include:

• Transaction data
• Number of product purchases, reuse, and usage time
• Qualitative data, including user actions on social platforms

Customer behavior information

4. Vertical Information

Vertical information is data-driven by customer and business emotions. This is how customers perceive and evaluate your products and brands.

Longitudinal data is qualitative and subjective, so it needs to be combined with quantitative data to get specific results. Enterprises collect data through surveys, reviews, and feedback from customers, including:

• Satisfaction with service, product
• Customer sentiment for the brand.
• Hobbies, needs, desired products,...
• Purchase Criteria

Online Customer Data Collection Methods

When collecting customer information online, businesses often use some of the following customer data collection methods:

1. Social Network

Social networks have grown to become great tools for collecting customer information. Facebook, Tiktok, and Instagram have become indispensable spiritual food for Internet users.

Social networks have a huge amount of traffic. Therefore, collecting customer information is quite simple. At the same time, this is also the most effective method of collecting customer data.

Using social networks to collect customer data

2. Media Channels

One of the ways to collect customer data is to utilize media channels. Media channels are quick and effective places to gather the information of customers. It is possible to leverage television, newspapers, or other media, helping businesses attract more potential customers.

3. Commercials

Commercials videos are also an effective method of collecting customer data. However, this method often costs a lot of investment. At the same time, have an effective marketing and communication campaign.

Video advertising helps products appear many times in the eyes of customers. Thereby increasing product brand awareness.

Video ads

4. Create Online Surveys

Currently, online survey forms are very diverse. Businesses can create surveys to collect customer data on the Internet. Some online survey channels are highly effective such as social media, email, website, etc.

Offline Customer Data Collection Methods

Besides collecting customer data Online, you can also apply offline methods below.

1. Talk Directly With Customers

Talking to customers is the most traditional and simplest method of collecting data. You will understand more about customers' preferences, behaviors, and needs through stories. From there, come up with an appropriate business and communication strategy.

The advantage of talking face to face is cost savings. However, at present, this survey method no longer meets the development needs of enterprises. At the same time, few customers agree to participate in the oral survey.

Talk directly to customers

2. Transaction Data Tracking

When customers buy products, transaction data will be saved on the system. You can find valuable customer information. Collecting their information is very simple for customers who have purchased products or used services.

3. Events

Event attendance lists are also an important source of data for businesses. Therefore, collecting customer data from events is also a highly effective method.

4. Personal Networks

You can tap into your network to help you gather customers. Although it takes time, this method will give businesses a source of quality customer data.

Collecting customer data from a personal network

5. Learn From Competitors

It is possible to learn market research strategies of competitors to help businesses expand their customer networks effectively. The management could find out the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors to offer better products and services; thereby, creating an effective competitive advantage.

Difficulties of Conventional Customer Data Collection

Market staff often face many difficulties when collecting customer information offline in the traditional way.

One of the biggest disadvantages when collecting information by paper is that it takes a long time and is not effective, not to mention requires a high amount of workforce to meet the volume of the collection.

Very few customers are willing to take the time to chat with you these days. Therefore, the survey process will not bring the desired effect.

Collecting customer information offline without software takes a lot of time and cost

Besides, collecting customer information offline without supporting software makes customers uncomfortable and offensive. They are not willing to help you.

For those who agree to an interview, they may provide false information. It will be difficult for the market staff to verify the correct information.

Finally, offline methods often store heterogeneous information. You can record customer information on paper or books that are difficult to preserve and easy to lose if not compiled promptly.

FieldCheck Supports Consumer Information Collection

FieldCheck customer data collection software supports to collect the information of customers and integrate many preeminent features that can help businesses:

• Optimize the time and cost of reaching customers to convince them to exchange and provide information.
• Collect information from thousands of customers in minutes with a simple mobile survey.

FieldCheck optimizes the time and cost of reaching customers for businesses

Data collection takes place quickly and professionally, creating trust so that customers are willing to share information with businesses.

FieldCheck also supports businesses in verifying customer information through phone numbers. As a result, fake information will be removed to ensure that businesses have quality customer data.

Customer information is stored on Big Data with unlimited capacity. So businesses do not need to worry that data will be lost or misplaced.

Collecting customer information becomes simpler when applying technology software. Besides optimizing time, cost, and human resources, the software also helps to keep customer information confidential.

Do you want to collect customer information quickly, conveniently, and save time? Let FieldCheck be with you. Contact us now for detailed information here.

Wrapping Up

That's all relevant information about customer data collection. In a nutshell, this action could help businesses have better understanding of customer personas to take proper actions later. That said, the conventional method in collecting data is showing its disadvantages of consuming much time and efforts to collect and process the data. It is suggested that businesses could introduce a software or an app to help them get the resources of customer data in a more effecient way.