< Back

How to collect customer data?

March 2, 2023

The first question you need to ask yourself is: why collect customer data? Collecting customer data will allow you to improve your customer knowledge and then offer personalized experiences. It is also an essential pillar to have direct feedback on your products, to improve them accordingly and thus boost your sales and your turnover.

But collecting customer data is not as easy as you might think, especially in a context of mistrust towards the use of personal data. The best way to convince your customers to leave you their data is to do it in their interest.

The most important thing when collecting customer data is to ask for the right data at the right time. It is pointless to ask a customer for all the information at once and at the time of the first purchase, it will only have the unwanted effect of discouraging your customer. On the contrary, it is wiser to collect data little by little, by engaging your consumers at key moments of the customer journey. Of course, this implies mastering your customer's omnichannel journey.

The Pimster team shows you how to harvest customer data. 👉

1. Before you buy

Free downloadable content with high value

When your prospects are just discovering your brand and products, it's important to establish a trusting relationship. This includes sharing your expertise and convincing them of your added value. In return, it's an effective way to collect an email address, a number, a name, and an incentive to download.

You can therefore propose a white paper on your expertise subject, or a list of tips on a subject that could interest your potential customers, accessible on your website or blog, after registering some information like an email address. For example, the brand Seb has an entire page dedicated to cooking recipes, which gives credibility to the brand, while allowing it to fill its database. Then, the company can send marketing content to registered prospects via newsletters or SMS marketing campaigns.

Contests

Contests are an excellent way to attract new buyers and gather their data. Here too, you can collect telephone number, e-mail address, name, address, and age (minimum legal age required to participate).

2. During the purchase

Creating a loyalty card

At the time of purchase, it's common to create a customer loyalty card, as it often offers direct rewards that invite and highly engage as many customers as possible. This is one of the best levers for collecting customer data for your brand. Indeed, in addition to recording the customer's name and email address, the card will track and record all purchases made by the customer. This allows you to draw a picture of the customer and to capture his preferences.

It's a tool that is all the more effective because it's a give-and-take: the customer scans his loyalty card in his interest and to accumulate loyalty points, and your brand is also a winner. The loyalty card is therefore the ideal tool to follow your customers in their shopping journey, and to be able to offer them the best customer experience or promotions and suggestions according to their habits.

The best example in this field is Sephora, which has generalized the use of the loyalty card for in-store and online purchases, with the objective of perfectly targeting its customers. Sephora has succeeded in converting its customers to the loyalty card by offering benefits such as discounts, immediate gifts when the card is created, or purchase suggestions following previous purchases…

Promotion for online purchase after creating a customer account

We've all read the banner: “€10 free on the first order for any creation of a customer account”, when shopping online. This is also an effective method to attract your customers and convince them to leave you their details.

For online orders, the customer account works like a loyalty card: it allows you to follow your customers' purchases, but also their preferences with the most viewed products.

3. After the purchase

Satisfaction questionnaires

There are two types of questionnaires.

On the one hand, there are general questionnaires to be filled out on the website about your brand, and containing general appreciation questions about your online or customer services. A good example of this type of questionnaire are the “what do you think of this application?” pop-ups that appear regularly when you use a new application.

On the other hand, there are specific questionnaires following the purchase of a product of your brand. The most clever way to do this is to ask your customers what they thought of their purchase experience by sending an email (this of course assumes that you have been able to collect the email address beforehand). You can then ask your customers for their precise opinions on their experience, but also on their product preferences, their consumption habits, their usage intention… and more.

Product registration at the time of onboarding

Another effective way to collect data on your customers is to offer product registration on your branded application or webapp. When you offer product registration, you can also accompany the registration with a form with specific questions about your customers' usage.

To encourage your customers to register their product, and thus track their usage, you can offer them an extended warranty in exchange. The company Focal has mastered this lever perfectly and uses it to track the usage of its products, and thus discover the most popular features, the most recurrent breakdowns and their reasons, and much more. In exchange for the product registration, Focal offers a one-year warranty extension on the product. This allows the company to have detailed information about its products and to improve them accordingly, but it also allows customers to have a simplified support with the after-sales service, in case of revision or repair.

Consumable subscription

In the post-purchase phase, an effective way to stay in touch with your customers and continue to collect data about them and their consumption habits is the consumable subscription.

Obviously, this scheme only applies to brands that offer a model that depends on regular product purchases, such as laundry detergent or printer ink cartridges.

The brand Nespresso has thus set up a subscription service for coffee capsules, which allows it to follow its customers' preferences, while keeping a privileged contact and valuable customer data.

Certification and authentication

Recently, there has been a real demand from customers for certification of their product, via a digital product passport (DPP), for example. This allows you to associate each of your customers, in addition to their personal data, with the product they own. You can therefore track your customer and his product, but also the information about your product and its new customer, if it is resold to another individual or professional.

We have written an article on the digital passport, feel free to check it out if you are interested in the subject.

Finally, you can collect customer data at all stages of the marketing funnel. It's up to you to choose the most appropriate moments to collect the right data, and use it to build a great customer experience.

If you want to further explore the topic of data with us, request a demo.

RGPD disclaimer:

The collection of customer data is governed by the European regulation RGPD, which requires the greatest transparency in the use and processing of personal data. The storage of personal data is regulated and limited in time. Moreover, this data collection cannot be done without the users' consent, and you must always ask for your customers' consent before sending them emails or SMS. Finally, the RGPD concerns your brand, but also all data subcontractors: make sure that your subcontractor commits to respect the regulation.