How to Build a Customer Profile — Free Checklist

Customer service is centered around human connection, and customer profiles are what set agents up for success when communicating with shoppers. These profiles offer real-time information for better understanding your customers’ wants, needs, and pain points. This is especially valuable considering 66% of consumers prefer brands that know them and can provide recommendations.

By centralizing customer information into one complete, accessible point of information, you will increase your customer service quality, customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty. Customer profiles make it possible for any agent to understand customers on an individual level, offering a personalized experience every time they reach out for help.

Follow along as we cover the basics of customer profiles, how to build a customer profile, and the benefits of doing so.

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What Is a Customer Profile?

A customer profile is a collection of data about a specific customer that gives insight into their possible future buying decisions, product preferences, and potential upsell or cross-sell opportunities. But customer profiles also offer a glimpse into who your customers are as individuals, allowing your team to make personalized recommendations and recognize common pain points.

Collecting information about buying habits and preferences ensures your agents start every interaction off on the right foot. Customer profiles allow your team to skip the introductions and get right to the issue, all while adding the personal touch that levels up your brand’s reputation.

How Do You Build a Customer Profile?

Learning how to build a customer profile begins with asking purposeful questions around a shopper’s personal tastes, demographic information, and buying experiences. In addition, brands need to ensure they’re being transparent when collecting first-party data to gather these details.

Trust is key when it comes to building customer profiles. Your customers are entrusting you with their personal information, so be sure to use it ethically and correctly. By properly compiling and organizing this data, your team has access to a single source of knowledge with all the information they need. Setting clear goals for every interaction before compiling data will help to direct your team and ensure data is being used and collected with a purpose.

What Questions Should You Ask to Build a Customer Profile?

A customer profile comes from the data you collect, so it’s crucial to gather the correct information. By asking the right questions, you will build a valuable resource to help your agents quickly identify customer needs and preferences before every interaction.

Here are some questions brands can use as they start building customer profiles:

• How may we contact you in the future?
• Is there a best name, email, or mailing address to use?
• What types of products or services do you typically look for?
• Do you use our products for any specific hobbies or activities?
• What do you look for in a shopping experience?
• What do you dread about shopping?
• Are you interested in similar products to the one you’ve already purchased?
• Or are you looking for something new?
• Have you purchased from us in the past? If so, what?

Use the customer profile checklist below to identify the precise information you need from customers and the tools that will help you collect and use that data.

Finding the Right Solutions to Build a Customer Profile

Using a comprehensive customer profile system is a game-changer for your business. Having a constantly updated single source of information provides you with the latest information from your customers.

Gladly is constantly updating and pulling customer information from every interaction. Rather than using tickets, we consolidate customer data into one conversation. This includes IVR interactions, self-service, chat, and voice calls with an agent. By collecting these valuable customer profile details, Gladly offers your team the most comprehensive view possible of every customer across every interaction.

Understanding Your Customer Increases Loyalty and Satisfaction

When your brand uses customer profiles, your customers feel seen and a sense of loyalty. Understanding your customers can also help you identify pain points and opportunities to evolve and increase revenue for your company.

Companies like Chubbies use customer profiles to identify common pain points, which inform their future product development and help them create ad campaigns that resonate with their community. By using Gladly to build customer profiles, Chubbies expanded their communication into SMS channels, which now make up around ⅓ of their contact volume and counting.

Creating customer profiles is not only made possible with Gladly, but it’s much easier. We help you build comprehensive profiles that make your customers feel seen and make your support team’s lives simpler. Contact us to learn how to build a customer profile using Gladly and get the most out of every interaction.