Customer interactions today span multiple channels, making it a daunting challenge for support leaders to extract meaningful insights from the vast amounts of data generated. This lack of actionable insights directly contributes to issues like high churn and low satisfaction scores. Customer analytics tools offer a solution. 

According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2023, around 67% of support leaders reported being frustrated by the haphazard collection and use of customer data.

Customer analytics tools offer invaluable insights into what your customers truly want. They can guide you in making smarter decisions about communication, product development, and personalized experiences, potentially transforming your business. 

In an online survey conducted by Gartner, over 80% of customer service and service support leaders described customer analytics as “very or extremely important” for achieving their organizational goals in the future. 

A study carried out by McKinsey revealed that companies that leverage customer analytics have a higher probability of achieving above-average revenue growth. The study also suggests that companies using extensive customer analytics are twice as likely to make profits and achieve success in their marketing efforts compared to those that don't.

Therefore, it's no surprise that many businesses are turning to customer analytics to drive growth. After all, understanding your customers is key to unlocking new opportunities and maximizing profits. So, if you're looking for a way to stay ahead of the competition, customer analytics could be just the ticket!

In this blog post, we’ll explore the five best customer analytics tools for improving ROI.

What Are Customer Analytics Tools?

Customer analytics tools are advanced software solutions that collect, analyze, and interpret customer data from various touchpoints, such as voice, live chat, email, SMS, and social media. 

They give customer service operations managers an end-to-end view of the customer journey, enabling them to identify trends, measure performance, and optimize their omnichannel strategies accordingly. 

To make accurate predictions about customer behavior,  customer support data teams need to have a deep understanding of their customers' buying habits and lifestyle preferences. This understanding helps optimize the customer journey. 

However, these insights may not be helpful or accurate without large amounts of precise data. Data analytics managers and teams have to overcome common challenges such as data silos that lead to incomplete or inconsistent data sets, unstructured data, untraceable data errors, never-ending maintenance of data pipelines, etc., and at the same time, ensure data security and privacy. 

Customer analytics tools employ metrics such as Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Effort Score (CES), Customer Health Score (CHC), resolution rate, retention rate, churn rate, and more. However, relying solely on surface-level metrics to gauge customer satisfaction might not be enough. 

It's time to go deeper! By conducting a thorough analysis of your customer data using top-notch analytics tools, you can uncover hidden trends and opportunities that can lead to significant improvements in your customer service.

Let's dive in and discover the top five customer analytics tools to take your business to the next level!

Comparing the Top Customer Analytics Tools: At a Glance 

When evaluating customer analytics tools, consider factors such as features, pricing, innovation, support, and industry fit. Here’s a comparison of the top solutions:

Top Customer Data Analytics Tools 

1. Plivo CX 

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Plivo CX is a customer analytics and cloud-based omnichannel contact center solution that empowers small and medium businesses to deliver exceptional customer service across various channels. It unifies AI-powered live chat, voice, SMS, email, and WhatsApp to offer a seamless experience for both customers and agents. 

Plivo CX’s unified agent desktop enables agents to view all client interactions through voice, live chat, email, and SMS in a single tab.

Plivo’s advanced features, including customer segmentation, targeting, metrics, and reporting, allow companies to provide support based on their preferred approach and behavior. 

This data equips the customer service teams to proactively identify customer sentiment trends, predict customer needs, and solve problems. 

Plivo CX features

• Build custom user journeys across any channel the business interacts with the customer with an intuitive drag-and-drop workflow builder
• Connect with a wide range of CRM, ERP, and helpdesk systems, both homegrown and popular, thanks to the versatile out-of-the-box integrations
• Create customizable dashboards and reports for easy data visualization
• Boost agent performance and productivity with coaching tools that offer real-time monitoring to increase customer satisfaction
• View contact center metrics and KPIs, listen to recorded conversations, or join an ongoing discussion. Gather relevant data and give targeted feedback to agents, resulting in increased CSAT scores

Plivo CX limitations

• Lacks features for quality assurance and workforce management
• Does not support a mobile version for on-the-go access for agents

Plivo CX pricing

• Chat-only: Starts at $228/year
• Growth: $348/user/year with 2000 monthly agent minutes, 100 bot sessions per agent, and 2000 chat sessions per agent
• Business: $828/user/year with 3000 monthly agent minutes, 500 bot sessions per agent, and 3000 chat sessions per agent

Plivo CX ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.5/5 (700+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.3/5 (80+ reviews) 

2. Twilio Segment

Twilio Segment is a customer data platform suitable for businesses with complex data ecosystems. That’s why marketing, product managers, and data engineers prefer it. 

Twilio Segment integrates with existing marketing and customer support solutions, allowing businesses to learn about the customer journey and analyze customer data from multiple touchpoints and sources. 

Twilio Segment features

• Utilize simple text prompts to create targeted audiences and customize customer journeys
• Optimize marketing campaigns to lower costs, increase conversions, and optimize ROAS by predicting customer behavior
• Discover upsell and cross-sell opportunities by creating ML models by accessing all of Segment’s real-time profile data in your warehouse

Twilio Segment limitations

• Segment requires technical expertise for advanced implementations (Capterra)
• It has a steep learning curve for first-time users (Capterra)

Twilio Segment pricing

• Free
• Team: Starts at $1,400/year 
• Business: Custom pricing

Twilio Segment ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.5/5 (540+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (70+ reviews) 

3. Kissmetrics 

Kissmetrics is a customer analytics tool that helps SaaS businesses calculate customer lifetime value, track churn rates, and analyze feature usage to optimize power users, acquisition sources, and top customers. 

Kissmetrics features

• Track and analyze customer interactions across web and mobile devices 
• Uncover insights within specific customer segments with tailored support strategies built with cohort analysis 
• Explore raw data with SQL queries, analyze the DAU (daily active users) to MAU (monthly active users) ratio, and examine user behavior 

Kissmetrics limitations

• Configuration and customization are complex processes and require extensive time and effort (G2)
• Limited integration with third-party tools makes omnichannel data collection a hassle (G2)

Kissmetrics pricing 

• Silver: $2388/year 
• Gold: $5988/year 
• Platinum: Custom pricing
• Build Your Plan: Starts at $231.99/year
• Pay As You Go: $0.0025/event
• MTU (Monthly Tracked Users) Based Pricing: Custom pricing

Kissmetrics ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.1/5 (160+ reviews)
• Capterra: Not enough reviews 

4. Mixpanel 

Mixpanel is a customer analytics solution that delivers on-demand services for startups and SaaS companies. It offers retention reports to understand customer loyalty and reasons for customer churn. 

Mixpanel features

• Identify areas of friction and optimize user experience by analyzing user engagement and behavior within web and mobile apps 
• Optimize conversion rates with targeted interventions at drop-off points, highlighted within Mixpanel’s funnel analysis
• Test feature variations to gauge user response and implement the preferred version or modify based on user feedback

Mixpanel limitations

• There are occasional glitches in compatibility with third-party tools, requiring workarounds for uninterrupted workflows (G2)
• Mixpanel focuses on in-app interactions, lacking broader omnichannel insights without integrations (G2)

Mixpanel pricing

• Starter: Free plan
• Growth: Starts at $336/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Mixpanel ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.6/5 (1000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (130+ reviews) 

5. Qualtrics

Customer support teams use Qualtrics for advanced experience analytics and AI models for every customer. Equipped with these insights, send automated actions to the right team within the systems you already use—to deliver personalized support. 

Qualtrics features

• Map and optimize the customer journey by integrating behavioral cues and experience data
• Uncover customer sentiment and themes from open-ended survey responses, social media comments, and other unstructured data sources by leveraging AI-powered text analytics 
• Identify which levers to pull that will keep your customers happy and employees engaged with the help of CrossXM, which brings together data from both employee and customer experience

Qualtrics limitations

• Errors occur when users try to download dashboard data manually (Capterra)

Qualtrics pricing 

• Custom pricing 

Qualtrics ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.4/5 (530+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (240+ reviews) 

Benefits of Customer Analytics Platforms

Investing in a customer analytics platform offers the following benefits for support teams:

• Uncover customer behavior trends and identifying improvement opportunities
• Identify pain points and proactively addressing customer issues
• Improve customer satisfaction by delivering personalized experiences
• Measure support team performance and optimizing agent workflows
• Boost the overall effectiveness of omnichannel support strategies

Optimize Your Customer Analytics With Plivo CX 

Are you staying on top of your customer’s evolving needs and expectations? If not, start by using customer analytics to understand their habits and preferences. Considering raw data, on its own, is insufficient, you need customer analytics tools to measure the effectiveness of your customer service. 

Plivo CX is a customer analytics tool designed for brands looking to provide proactive customer service. 

The key features of Plivo CX for your customer service and support teams are as follows:

• AI-powered self-service chatbots 
• Unified conversations via WhatsApp, live chat, SMS, voice, and WhatsApp 
• Live dashboards and historical reports for agent coaching 

To know more about how to use Plivo CX for customer analytics, book your demo.