Top 7 Customer Insight Tools and Software For Market Research

In this digital age, businesses have too much customer data at their disposal. They can use those data to better understand the target audience and improve product and service delivery. However, there are marketers who struggle to identify their audience as they don’t use the customer data available around. This results in poor choices and assumptions on the front of marketing, sales, and support. 

So, what should your business do to benefit from the vast trail of customer data across the web, social sites, and search engines? 

Well, the right approach is to use one of the popular customer insight tools and gain a deeper understanding of the customer’s needs and behaviors. These tools are very effective when it comes to analyzing customer data and extracting valuable insights that can drive marketing strategies, product development, and customer service tasks. 

In this blog, we will discuss customer insight tools in detail, learn about the popular ones and understand how each of them could add value to your business. 

But first, let’s get started with understanding what customer insight tools are… 

What are Customer Insight Tools?

Customer insight tools are software applications or platforms that businesses can use for gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data about their customers. These tools or platforms are very effective in gaining a complete understanding of customer needs and behavior, therefore helping make informed decisions and improve overall customer experiences. 

By using a customer insight tool, a company can generate actionable insights by leveraging various data sources such as customer engagement, interactions, transactions, and social media activities. These tools are very valuable for offering personalized experiences, enhancing customer satisfaction, and driving business growth.

How Does a Customer Insight Tool Work? 

Customer insight tools are the best way to gain actionable insights and serve customers better. From data collection to analysis and interpretation, these tools enable various tasks that a business can do and leverage customer data fully. After all, 66% of customers expect brands to understand their needs. 

Here are some of the ways a customer insight tool works – 

1 – Data collection and integration – These tools can help businesses collect data from various sources such as CRM systems, websites, social media channels, surveys, and feedback channels. In addition, your business can integrate these tools with different data systems to centralize and organize customer data for further analysis.

2 – Customer segmentation – These tools are very helpful for segmenting the audience based on demographics, interests, motivations, purchase history, behavior, and other parameters. This segmentation can be used to know different customer groups and serve them accordingly.     

3 – Data analytics and visualization – Your business can use tools for consumer insights tools to benefit from data analytics and visualization capabilities and extract insights from the data. The data can be presented in a clear format such as charts, graphs, and dashboards, allowing for the identification of patterns and trends in customer behavior.   

4 – Customer journey mapping – A customer insight tool can help in mapping the customer journey where a business can visualize and analyze different touchpoints and interactions between a business and the customer. This is how customer pain points are known and customer experience is optimized. 

5 – Predictive analytics – These tools can employ predictive analytics to forecast customer behavior. Based on predicted customer responses, they can also predict many things such as churn, and also recommend personalized offers.

6 – Sentiment analysis – Your company can use these tools to determine customer sentiment towards your product, service, or brand. These tools’ sentiment analysis capabilities are very helpful for analyzing customer feedback and reviews across channels and identifying areas for improvement.

7 – Reporting and insights – These tools can analyze data on an analyzer scale and generate reports and actionable insights. Using these reports and insights, your business can get a complete view of customer performance metrics and drive customer-centric strategies.  

Why are Customer Insight Tools Important? 

Customer insight tools are vital to the growth of your business as they provide a deep understanding of customer behavior. Their use enables personalization and data-driven decision-making. After all, 6 out of ten consumers report that they will become loyal to a brand with a personalized purchasing experience. 

The use of a customer insight tool can help businesses in many different ways, including – 

• These tools are ideal for understanding customer needs, preferences, and behavior. 
• Your business can employ a customer insight tool and analyze customer data from various sources such as websites, apps, social channels, etc. 
• Valuable insights can be gained from different customer interactions across channels when these tools are used. 
• A business that uses a customer insight tool is better able to meet customer expectations by tailoring its strategies, products, and services. 
• Customer data can be leveraged and that can help segment the audience and deliver targeted messages, personalized offers, and customized recommendations. 
• The personalization these tools enable can help boost customer satisfaction, foster loyalty, and increase the chances of repeat business.
• Your business can make informed decisions regarding marketing, pricing, and product development when it has data-driven insights.  
• Identifying customer pain points and needs can help your business provide efficient support, resulting in improved customer satisfaction and loyalty. 
• You can effectively identify emerging trends and market gaps when you have tons of customer data, allowing opportunities for innovation and a competitive edge in the market.   

7 Popular Customer Insight Tools For Market Research on Your Customers

Customer insight tools are now a key necessity for businesses to know their audience inside out and serve them better. There are quite a few tools and software that can be used for market research on customers.

Here are the top tools for getting customer insights – 

1. Google Analytics 

Google Analytics is a powerful and feature-rich tool for getting a complete understanding of the way your customers engage with your business. Using this tool, you can employ customer-centric measures across your sites and apps and know what’s working for your business. Its advanced reporting and analysis will let you know how people engage with your business and the role different channels play in engagement. 

You can get predictive insights from your data by leveraging Google’s machine-learning capabilities. This kind of information will help understand which users are likely to churn or stick. Google Analytics can work with other partner products and solutions such as you can connect it with Google Ads, Google Cloud, Google Search Console, and Search Ads 360  to improve marketing ROI.

Key Features  

• An easy-to-use interface and shareable reports make it simple to collaborate with the team and analyze data quickly.  
• It will automatically detect and fetch actionable insights from data to understand new trends and important changes. 
• Real-time reporting will let you monitor activity on your site or app as and when it happens.  
• Benefit front the “Acquisition Reports” and find out how users reach your site or app through different paid and organic sources.  
• You can also see a session-based view of traffic and engagement on your site or app. 

2. Hotjar 

Hotjar is a powerful and user-friendly tool for user behavior analysis and website optimization. It helps website owners collect valuable insights about visitors’ behavior and preferences using a range of features such as surveys, session recordings, and feedback polls. It stands out due to its ease of use and user-friendly interface. 

More so, Hotjar is a product experience (PX) insights platform for getting a deep understanding of how users experience your digital products or website. Using this feature-rich tool, you will get access to qualitative and quantitative data and know the ‘why’ behind the user behavior. 

With Hotjar, a business can track user interactions with products or sites and ask them about customer experiences. More so, the tool provides a high-level view of user metrics and quickly spot any issue.  

Key Features 

• You can collect user feedback with Feedback widgets and customer experience Surveys.  
• Dynamic heatmaps and click tracking will allow you to visualize the way users interact with your website.  
• Customizable on-site surveys and feedback polls will help collect user feedback. 
• You can track and analyze user journeys from start to exit by using the conversion funnel analysis feature.  

3. Salesforce CRM

Salesforce CRM is a cloud-based platform that helps businesses manage and organize their customer data, customer interactions, and sales processes. The tool is popular for its user-friendly interface and robust features. Using this tool, your business can boost customer relationships by managing customer data and sales processes.  

This software is very effective in managing customer and prospect relationships with data. It enables storing, tracking, and analyzing customer information in one central location so that you can get a complete picture of customers. In addition, customer information can be shared and analyzed by teams in real time. More so, it unites your sales, marketing, and IT teams and ensures that one integrated platform powers your entire suite of apps.   

Key Features  

• It provides a centralized database that different teams within the organization can access.  
• Its sales pipeline management tools enable businesses in tracking sales, leads, and opportunities through various stages of the sales process.  
• Sales teams can use features such as lead generation, lead scoring, and lead assignment to engage with customers effectively.  
• Robust analytics and reporting capabilities help in gaining insights into sales performance.   
• It can be integrated with various third-party apps and tools to help extend the functionality of the CRM. 

4. Mixpanel 

Mixpanel is an effective customer insight tool for understanding user behavior, measuring product engagement, and optimizing customer experiences. It specializes in analytics and event tracking for web and mobile apps. Businesses can use this tool for tracking, analyzing, and optimizing user behavior. Its range of features enables businesses to gain insights into their customers’ actions and make data-driven decisions.  

Key Features 

• A flexible event-tracking system helps businesses understand the way users engage with their products.  
• It allows user segmentation based on parameters such as demographics, behaviors, or actions.  
• Funnels in Mixpanel are helpful for optimizing conversion rates and improving user retention by visualizing and analyzing user journeys from one to another event.  
• The A/B testing capabilities enable experimentation with different variations of products or marketing campaigns. 
• Real-time data tracking and analytics can help monitor user behavior as it happens.   

5. Qualtrics 

Qualtrics is a widely used customer insight tool for collecting and analyzing customer data and feedback. It comes with a range of features and capabilities for understanding customer behavior, sentiments, and preferences. It lets businesses get actionable insights and make data-driven decisions. By using Qualtrics’ features and capabilities, your business can improve its products and services, and also enhance overall customer experience. 

Key Features 

• It provides a powerful survey platform for creating and distributing online surveys to collect customer feedback.  
• Businesses can use this tool for managing the entire customer experience lifecycle, and also identify touchpoints and measure satisfaction.  
•  It allows monitoring and analysis of customer conversations and sentiments on social media channels.  
• The tool comes with advanced text and sentiment analysis features where it uses NLP algorithms for analyzing unstructured data.   
• Its robust reporting and visualization capabilities are very effective in converting customer data into actionable insights.  
• Integrations with different systems and tools such as data analytics tools and CRM platforms are helpful for connecting data from different sources. 

6. Medallia 

Medallia is a comprehensive customer insight tool for capturing, analyzing, and acting upon customer data and feedback. Using this tool, a business can understand customer sentiments, identify trends, and drive improvements across touchpoints. Its features help businesses gain insights into customer preferences and boost customer satisfaction. The tool has great value when it comes to leveraging customer data for driving improvements in products, services, and overall customer experience.  

Key Features 

• A business can collect customer feedback through multiple channels such as social media and surveys. 
• Flexible survey design options and customizable feedback forms are available.   
• Its advanced sentiment analysis capabilities use NLP algorithms so that businesses can understand the sentiments and emotions in customer feedback. 
• You can extract insights from unstructured feedback data due to its powerful text analytics features.  
• It helps in mapping and visualizing the customer journey across touchpoints and interactions.  

• Real-time dashboards, reports, and alerts help businesses stay informed about key performance indicators such as response rates and satisfaction scores.  
• It can get integrated with CRM platforms and contact center software so that a business can combine customer feedback data with other data for a complete view of the customer. 

7. Tableau 

Tableau is a great tool when it comes to analyzing and presenting customer data in an interactive manner. As a powerful data visualization and customer insight tool, it helps businesses derive insights from customer data and have a deeper understanding and actionable insights. More so, its features enable in uncovering of trends and patterns in customer behavior.  

Key Features 

• It can help transform raw customer data into compelling visualizations. 
• A variety of graphs, charts, and dashboards are available for exploring and understanding customer data easily.  
• The interactive dashboards can consolidate customer data from different sources into a centralized view.  
• Real-time integration and visualization are supported which helps in monitoring and analyzing data as and when it’s generated.  
• You can integrate it with CRM systems, cloud platforms, and databases to get a robust analysis and correlation between different data points.
• Advanced analytics and calculations help in doing an in-depth analysis of customer data and getting patterns and identifying predictive insights. 

Engage Your Customers Better and Gain Insights with REVE Chat Tools 

Customer insights are essential for understanding the needs and preferences of your customers and serving them efficiently at every stage of their journey with your brand. The better customer insights your business has, the more empowered it can feel in terms of meeting and exceeding customer needs. 

With REVE Chat, your business can find a variety of engagement tools that will help across marketing, support, and sales. These tools can prove value in terms of engaging customers better and enhancing their experiences with your brand. 

Our AI-powered chatbot can be used to automate various tasks and enhance the value of support for customers. The bot not only boosts engagement but also brings key customer data out of the engagement. 

Similarly, we have video chat and co-browsing software that are helpful for visual engagement. Plus, our live chat software can be paired with the chatbot to provide hybrid support. Using a live chat in combination with a chatbot can ensure tons of key customer data. 

Final Thoughts 

Customer insights are essential for understanding the needs and behavior of your customers and ensuring amazing experiences for them through their journey with your brand.  

With REVE Chat, you can not only engage your customer better but can also get useful analytics out of the engagement. You can sign up here and check how our tools can help you get deep customer insights in an easy way.