Research reveals that 32% of consumers are ready to walk away from a brand they love if they have only one bad experience. It shows that businesses must constantly monitor and analyze the quality of their products to make sure they match dynamic customer needs and preferences.

This is where product intelligence comes in. It can transform your product development practices, helping you to create great product experiences.

In this article, we explain how to use product intelligence and what types of data you should collect and analyze to develop excellent products that can engage, retain and delight customers.

What is product intelligence?

Product intelligence is the process of using data and advanced analytics to gain insights into a product's performance, usage and customer interactions. It entails collecting and analyzing data from various sources, such as user behavior, product usage, market trends and more, to make informed decisions and improvements regarding a product's design, development, marketing and overall strategy.

Why invest in product intelligence?

The top benefits of product intelligence include:

• Improved customer experience: Great customer experience is what makes customers spend 16% more on products and services. When you identify flaws in the user experience, you know how to improve your product according to the customer's needs, leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, critical components of customer success.
• Competitive advantage and innovation: Staying informed about market trends, competitor strategies and emerging technologies through product intelligence allows businesses to gain a competitive edge. It helps identify opportunities for product differentiation and innovation.
• Adaptability: In rapidly changing markets, product intelligence helps businesses stay adaptable and responsive to evolving customer needs and market dynamics.
• Resource allocation: Product intelligence helps allocate resources more efficiently by focusing on initiatives that have the most significant impact on the product and business success.

Product intelligence: What data should you collect & how?

Product intelligence focuses on understanding customer behavior and usage of a product. Here are five types of data to help you grasp how customers interact with your product: 

Customer feedback

Collecting customer feedback is a crucial component of product intelligence. It helps companies understand how customers perceive their products, identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions. Here's how to collect customer feedback effectively:

• Customer surveys: They provide a structured format to gather customer insights. You can ask specific questions about the aspects of your product or service. Send survey invitations via email, display them on pop-up notifications, your company’s social media profiles or in-app messages.
• Focus groups: Focus groups allow you to watch customers' body language and can provide in-depth, nuanced insights. When you conduct a focus group, encourage open, honest and detailed responses from participants. Make sure that everyone has a chance to speak and manage time to cover all planned topics. 
• Email and SMS: Direct messages in the form of email or SMS are very useful in the process of gathering customer feedback. You can use them at different customer journey touchpoints to collect insights and find causes of particular customer behavior. An example is a message asking about reasons for canceling a subscription.
• Social media: Social media is an environment where customers feel at ease, so they are also ready to express freely their opinions and concerns about a brand's products or services. Thus, you should observe social media comments and ratings to see what people say about your company and discover how to improve your products. 
• Third-party websites: Review sites like Product Hunt, G2 or Capterra are also a great source of information on what customers say about your product. They provide indirect customer feedback that can help you discover what they like or dislike, identify patterns, and find areas for improvement.
• Live chat data: Best practices for collecting customer feedback include reviewing data from live chat tools. They can be a reliable source of information on challenges users encounter while interacting with your product since 41% of customers prefer using live chat over other support channels. You can discover that they have difficulties with logging in or encounter navigation issues.

Analyzing customer feedback from scattered sources can be overwhelming and time-consuming, but great user feedback tools can help you with that. One is Zeda.io, a customer feedback platform that collects feedback from multiple sources, such as Zendesk, Slack or Intercom.

Zeda.io provides a centralized dashboard where you can see all the feedback at a glance. It resembles a flexible inbox where you can take action immediately. For example, you can move bug reports or feature requests to your backlog or link them to specific features.

It also works as a product discovery tool, helping you with product ideation based on customer feedback and AI-powered analytics.

User behavior analytics

User Behavior Analytics (UBA) plays a crucial role in product intelligence by providing insights into how users interact with a product or service. It involves collecting, analyzing and interpreting data related to user actions, behavior and patterns. Here's how UBA contributes to product intelligence:

• Feature adoption: User behavior data can help you identify which features of your product customers use the most and which ones they ignore. This information can guide decisions about which features to prioritize, improve, promote or even remove.
• User engagement: By tracking user behavior, you can measure user engagement and understand how often and for how long users interact with your product. It can help you assess the effectiveness of your product in retaining users.
• Conversion funnel analysis: You can analyze user behavior at different stages of the conversion funnel. It can help you identify bottlenecks and drop-off points. This, in turn, can guide efforts to optimize the user journey and increase conversion rates.
• User segmentation: UBA can segment users based on their behavior. It allows you to tailor your product or marketing strategies to different user groups, addressing their specific needs and preferences.
• Product usability: UBA can reveal issues with the usability of your product. By analyzing how customers use the product and identifying where they struggle or get stuck, you can make changes to improve the user experience.

Zeda.io, one of the best customer data platforms, provides advanced product analytics tools to help you develop outstanding solutions your customers will love. It implements advanced AI-powered data analysis and comprehensive insights, like your product's revenue impact.

The platform helps you identify customer preferences, consequently identifying new growth opportunities. It also connects similar information and groups data, automatically generating tags.

Moreover, Zeda.io integrates with other product analytics tools, such as Mixpanel and Amplitude, to provide even more accurate and complete data.

Sales data

Collecting sales data is essential for product intelligence because it provides insights into your product performance in the market and how customers respond to your offerings. Here are steps to effectively collect sales data for product intelligence:

• Sales records: Start by maintaining accurate and detailed sales records, including information such as the date of sale, the product sold, the quantity, the price, the customer's data and the sales channel (e.g., online, in-store, distributor).
• Point of sale (POS) systems: If you have physical retail locations, implement POS systems that capture real-time sales data. These systems can also integrate with inventory management systems and provide data on which products are selling well.
• E-commerce platforms: If you sell products online, e-commerce platforms often have built-in analytics and reporting tools. You can access sales and customer behavior data and even set up sales funnels to understand the customer journey.
• Customer relationship management (CRM) software: Incorporate CRM software to collect data on customer interactions and transactions. This can help you understand customer behavior and identify sales trends.
• Sales analytics tools: Use sales analytics tools to track product key performance indicators (KPIs) such as revenue, profit margins, average order value and sales growth over time. You can employ tools like Tableau, Power BI or custom dashboards to visualize and analyze the data.

Operational data

Collecting and analyzing data used in the day-to-day operations of an organization provides insights into the performance of the company's products. It helps understand how well a product functions, how customers use it and how processes run. Here are the types of operational data that are valuable for product intelligence:

• Customer support data: Data from customer support interactions, such as helpdesk tickets, chat logs and emails, can reveal common customer issues, feedback and pain points related to your product. Analyzing it can help improve customer satisfaction and product quality.
• Inventory data: Tracking inventory levels, including stock counts, reorder points and lead times, is crucial for ensuring products are in stock and readily available. 
• Production and manufacturing data: For businesses involved in product manufacturing, data on production processes, manufacturing times, quality control and defect rates can provide insights into the efficiency and quality of production.
• Quality control data: Track data on quality control checks, defects, returns and product recalls. This data is essential for maintaining product quality and safety.

Competitor data

By analyzing data related to your competitors, you can gain insights that inform your product development, marketing strategies and overall business decision-making.

To collect and use competitor data for product intelligence, start by identifying your main competitors in the market. Look at both direct competitors – those offering similar products or services, and indirect ones – those targeting the same customer needs but with different solutions.

Analyze the features and specifications of your competitor's products. Compare them with your own to identify gaps or areas where your product can excel.

Research your competitor's market share and sales performance. It can help you understand how well they're doing in the market and where you stand in comparison.

Conclusion

Product intelligence can show you the best path to improve your product, creating an excellent user experience. This process of continuous product discovery is a valuable source of information on how to stay ahead of your competition.

The best way to collect product intelligence data is by using advanced software to help you analyze the insights and make data-driven decisions on improving your products.

Zeda.io is perfect for that. It collects product feedback from different sources, helps you define goals and creates detailed roadmaps to achieve them. Paired with an advanced product analytics tool, the platform has everything you need to create a great product intelligence process and identify opportunities for innovation. 

Sign up for a 15-day trial of premium features to see how Zeda.io can transform your product development.