Understanding how customers use and feel about the products they buy can ultimately allow companies to make more informed decisions about specific products – whether that’s improving existing products or introducing new ones. But uncovering this customer data and intelligence is hard. Technologies like artificial intelligence and conversation intelligence, can help uncover insights related to how users experience your products, in turning helping to improve the customer experience (CX).

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In this guide, we’ll provide an overview of product intelligence, including how it works, why it’s important, and what to look for in platforms that can help drive increased product performance, including:

• What is product intelligence?
• Product intelligence vs. business intelligence vs. product analytics
• How product intelligence works
• Common product intelligence challenges
• Essential features to look for in product intelligence platforms
• Frequently asked questions

What is product intelligence?

How your customers experience your product can be a key driver of customer loyalty and customer satisfaction.

Head over to our blog for insights into #productexperience strategies and best practices, including continuous innovation, a seamless customer journey, and more:

— CallMiner, Inc. (@CallMiner) July 31, 2023

Businesses design products around customer needs and wants. Product intelligence helps identify those needs and wants. It also provides actionable insight into how people use the products they buy and how they feel about those products. Product intelligence data comes from customer feedback, like customer reviews, surveys, or interviews.

The customer data product intelligence provides can be used enterprise-wide to improve customer lifetime value. For example, marketers use it to extend the reach of a product to its ideal audience, while product designers and engineers use it to improve products or design something new. Product managers also require collection of product intelligence data to guide product improvement.

Product intelligence vs. business intelligence vs. product analytics

Product analytics is the driving force behind product intelligence. Tools like customer surveys (satisfaction assessments) and data reporting systems become part of product analytics. The insights from product analytics then drive product intelligence, which is the process of improving products for the future.

Both of these processes are intertwined in business intelligence, which incorporates several data points about a company’s entire operations, including marketing, accounting, and product management.

How product intelligence works

Product intelligence focuses on both customer-provided feedback and behavioral data to provide insight into how customers use and enjoy a company’s products. Therefore, a comprehensive product intelligence process measures customer pain points, customer happiness or dissatisfaction, and customer engagement using data from multiple sources, including:

• Product analytics tools that track customer behavior
• Customer reviews
• Customer surveys or interviews
• Quick in-app feedback tools
• Conversation analytics

Common product intelligence challenges

For product intelligence to truly do its job, businesses must invest in the necessary tools to gather ample information for informed decisions.

For example, sending an email survey to your subscribers might gather helpful information, but most subscribers will likely never respond, causing you to miss out on the majority of customer experiences. Instead, businesses should have multiple channels to gather customer feedback, including social media, live chats, customer interviews or focus groups, in-app surveys, and more.

Another common challenge businesses face is not having a strong enough team to execute on product intelligence insights. If your analysis systems are sophisticated and thorough, but your product management or marketing team has knowledge gaps, the data probably won’t be used to its full potential.

Essential features to look for in product intelligence platforms

Like many modern processes, product intelligence relies on technology. A product intelligence platform works in the background to gather and analyze data, report findings, offer competitive insights, and more. Look for the following must-have features in a product intelligence platform:

• Omnichannel conversation intelligence: Conversation intelligence is a technology that analyzes customer speech and written text. Product intelligence platforms use this technology to gather data from customer conversations across multiple channels, including phone calls, live chats, email, surveys, social media, and more.
• Customer privacy protection: Sophisticated product intelligence platforms with conversation intelligence technology watch for sensitive information discussed during conversations to automatically redact that information from transcripts and reports, protecting customer privacy.
• Real-time guidance: Contact center agents can benefit from real-time guidance delivered via a product intelligence platform. Real-time guidance offers helpful information to agents during a customer conversation to gather more feedback, address customer concerns, and improve the outcome of the interaction.
• Functional data reporting: Product intelligence platforms synthesize the insights gathered from customer conversations into visual reports and intuitive data visualizations that companies can present to decision-makers.

CallMiner’s conversation intelligence platform delivers superior product intelligence, driving innovation and improvement by analyzing 100% of customer interactions and user behavior data. Companies leverage these insights to inform product decisions and deliver an exceptional product experience and ensure customer success.

CallMiner consistently taps into customer conversations via phone, social media, email, live chat, and other contact points to learn how customers really feel about a product. By gathering data from candid conversations, your company benefits from valuable unsolicited feedback that provides deep insights about product shortcomings to remedy or exceptional features to keep improving.

Request a demo to discover how CallMiner can help you optimize the product planning and entire development process and create a positive product journey.

Frequently asked questions

What is an example of product intelligence?

Major tech companies like Apple and Meta use product intelligence throughout their business intelligence models in their regular business operations. They track how customers use their products and services and gather feedback through in-app surveys to consistently learn what customers need and want.

Does product intelligence improve customer experience?

When used correctly and consistently, product intelligence can improve the product experience. Ultimately, it’s up to a business to use the data they gather from product intelligence properly to drive innovation and create products that customers want, consequently improving customer experience.

What is product data?

Product data is the information that product intelligence gathers, such as data about how a customer uses a product or what features customers use the most and the least. Data analysts transform product data into reports for decision-makers to use as they determine what’s next for a product.