Many terms in the lexicon of marketing and business are ambiguous at best, misleading at worst. Both old terms like 'proposition' and new ones like 'big data' seem to bring more smoke than light. But the lack of clarity that has troubled me most in corporate life is the many meanings of 'customer insight' .
I have come across companies that mean data analytics , those that mean consumer research , some which still mean deeply held beliefs by the marketing leader and only a few which mean something more complete.
From my experience, genuinely producing customer insights does require the outputs of data experts , statistical analysts, experienced researchers and commercially minded database marketing analysts , but it is more than that. Akin to Aristotle's "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" , I see real customer insights as being developed based on a convergence of the above evidence.
It's always difficult to come to a precise definition which is not too verbose, but a working version for me at the moment is as follows...
Customer Insights is:
“A non-obvious understanding about your customers, which if acted upon, has the potential to change their behaviour for mutual benefit."
Four aspects of that definition that are worth highlighting:
Do you agree with that definition?