Companies invest billions of dollars in data and analytics to learn what their consumers want and expect in the customer experience (CX). Despite having access to these resources, most companies still don’t understand their customers as well as they think they do.

A recent survey of 201 executives by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services (HBR-AS) found that 72% say they “understand what it feels like to be one of our customers.” However, only 35% of consumers surveyed agree that companies understand them well.

In this webinar, Alex Clemente shares results from this survey about how empathy can enhance the customer experience.

He then leads a discussion on best practices of market research and areas where businesses can better understand what customers want. With Janelle Estes, Chief Insights Officer at UserTesting, Clemente shares perspectives on HBR-AS’s survey results and discusses:

• Why many businesses and consumers are unsatisfied with the current CX
• Benefits and pitfalls of using internet data as a tool in market research 
• How to get better feedback from customers, and how best to observe consumer behavior
• The importance of adding a human element to the customer experience

Getting more of the organization involved with the CX strategy and its execution is only part of closing the gap in understanding and increasing empathy with consumers. The other part is how companies approach the task. Collecting and analyzing large amounts of digital data about customers may be popular, but it may not be the most effective way to empathize with consumers if companies aren’t making more personalized efforts to understand customers.