What is customer intent?

What is customer intent? And Why is it important to understand customer intent?

Customer Intent refers to identifying and understanding a customer’s motivation or thoughts before a customer decides to purchase a product or service. This process might seem complex to analyze customer intent, but it will lead to the company’s success if the company can do accurate tracking and convert as long-term customers.

There are many advantages to a proper and effective customer intent analysis that would support you in understanding the importance of customer analysis.

Importance of understanding customer intent

Usually, SaaS clients would like to go through SaaS products as per their requirements before they decide to make a purchase plan. 

That means you need to study the potentiality of getting your customer’s required product and track each of the customer or visitor’s product awareness stages. That’s where the customer’s intent comes into force.

By identifying highly intent customers, you can accurately identify their stage and effectively guide them into your sales funnel.

Here you can understand your SaaS prospect position whether your customers are more focused on transactions or research that can help you tailor your strategies to meet their needs and move them closer to making their decisions.

Personalized Product Deliverables

After detecting the customer’s intent you can prepare to provide personalized product deliverables to your customers. The process of personalization comes when a customer asks for extra requirements of a product than the original needs. Sometimes, companies prepare customization packages based on their customer’s needs.

When you promise to provide a customized product, the customers will be inclined to buy your product more than they would look after other brands. This will accelerate your brand credibility and earn more brand loyalty.

Designed Superior Marketing Strategies

Customer intent in marketing strategies plays a crucial role in meeting customer desires or requirements. Customers are more to the ads that incline to the unique selling point for what they are searching for. Hence, You can produce marketing strategies based on intent-based needs. 

Marketing elements like landing pages, promotional offers, etc. can be tailored more personalized and emphasize value propositions based on the majority of customers’ common intent after you get to know their pain and needs through conversation or surveys. When those marketing elements appear in front of them, you already know what would make them click. That’s how you can triumph over customer intent. It will lead to at least an 80-90% increment in the conversion rate.

Enhancement of Product Recommendation

Check the customer’s actions like revisiting the same product or putting some queries in your website’s survey. You will have some ideas about their intent regarding your product which gives you a high chance to recommend their desired product. Net Promoter Score(NPS) also helps to leverage product recommendation that influences customers to purchase a product/service. 

One of the customer intent examples is when a customer asks you for a cheaper product but it should contain all the features then you might direct that customer to some sales discount offers or weekly/monthly promotions.

Another example is if a customer forgets to sign up for his subscription plan then you can tailor your message accordingly based on the date of free access to the SaaS product, free date expiry, and subscription plans. You can remind the customer via email, sms, or direct phone calls.

Strategic Decisions Making

The company's strategic decisions are affected by customer intent analysis. This is because reports of customer intent are analyzed thoroughly by the company. Companies need to navigate their next moves based on a new direction. 

A lot of decisions are confined to marketing, finance, sales, or product-based and need to be reconsidered after analysis is done on the customer intent reports. In this way, these strategic decisions can lead to providing better services that fit customer needs.

How to Captivate Customer Intent? Strategies to be Implemented to Understand Customer Intent.

Now, you might think about how to capture customer intent, right? Always remember the right strategies can bring your expected results. Understanding customer intent might seem a complex process if accurate tools are not deployed. Below, we can utilize those media for better customer intent.

Utilize Customer Intent Analysis Software

Customer Intent Analysis software can be employed to get an effective result. By identifying high-potential customers through online behavior analysis, these solutions help you target outreach efforts and increase sales effectiveness.

To grow accounts, give priority to hot leads, tailor outreach campaigns, and prevent churn, use customer intent tools. You need to communicate the appropriate message to the appropriate leads at the ideal time. There is leading customer intent software like Bombora, ZoomInfo, Storylane, etc. can benefit a business for proper analysis.

Live Chat and AI ChatBot

Live Chat and AI ChatBot are the tools to understand customers' intent, sentiments, or needs for a product/service. Live Agents can guide the customers to the exact product worth the price or free subscription plans or even purchase plans after free subscriptions expire. 

Thus, lead conversion is faster through these tools. AI support to generate reports automatically and company reach the high leads at the right time.

Customer Engagement through Feedback/Quizzes

Activating feedback forms or Net Promoter Score (NPS) forms to new or existing customers can affect customer intent to purchase new products. Quizzes are also considered as another form of engagement that is utilized to understand customers’ real pain and comprehend the alternative product could be aligned as per customer demands. 

AI Knowledgebase add-ons to websites and apps

AI knowledgebase works as an internal search engine for your customers to understand more in-depth for their research. That’s the tool that will tell you what is the thing your customers are looking for. Creating content that matches customer intent can answer the queries of the customers.

Certain calls to action can be optimized for them through knowledgebases such as free demos, product tours,s or free subscriptions. 

FAQs

1. Why is understanding customer intent important for a SaaS company?

Understanding customer intent is vital because it allows SaaS companies to tailor their marketing, sales, and product strategies better to meet the needs and expectations of their customers. It helps personalize the user experience, improve product development, enhance customer support, and reduce churn.

2. How can I identify customer intent?

Customer intent can be identified through various methods, including:

Surveys and Feedback Forms: Directly asking customers about their goals and challenges.

Analytics and Behavioral Data: Analyzing how users interact with your product or website.

Customer Interviews and Focus Groups: Conducting in-depth discussions with users.

Sales and Support Interactions: Gathering insights from conversations with customers.

3. What role does customer intent play in product development?

Customer intent helps prioritize features and improvements based on what users truly need. By understanding the problems and goals of your customers, you can focus your development efforts on solutions that will deliver the most value and enhance user satisfaction.

4. What are the best practices for leveraging customer intent data?

Best practices include:

• Segmenting Customers: Group customers based on their intent to tailor strategies more effectively.
• Integrating Data: Use customer intent data across different departments to ensure a consistent and personalized experience.
• Regularly Updating Insights: Continuously gather and analyze intent data to keep up with evolving customer needs.
• Aligning Goals: Ensure that all aspects of your business, from marketing to product development, are aligned with the insights gained from customer intent.

Wrapping Up

In conclusion, turning leads into loyal customers involves understanding what motivates them and using the right strategies to meet their needs. Companies can build stronger connections and revamp their chances of converting leads into long-term customers by reckoning what customers demand and offering products or services that match those needs. Doing this effectively helps businesses succeed and keeps customers happy.