One of the most important steps in collecting customer data is identifying the data you want to collect in the first place. Every business is different, so you want to identify the data points most relevant to your business and your sales goals.
Customer data can come in the form of four different types:
When trying to understand your customer base, collecting demographic data is crucial. Demographic data refers to personal information gathered from customers, clients, and leads.
This information includes data like:
Name
Address
Gender
Age
Income
Occupation
Other contact information
Occupational demographic data about a client or customer can also include information regarding a client’s business, including industry, company, and market size. Especially for business-to-business (B2B) companies, occupational demographic data is invaluable.
Like personal information, it gives businesses a better understanding of the people they’re trying to reach.
Demographic data such as the information above helps businesses better understand their audience, allowing for a more detailed and robust marketing strategy that better appeals to audiences. This data also helps businesses develop their products and services to sufficiently meet customers’ needs.
Purchase and buying behavior
Another key data point to collect is information related to customers’ purchase and buying behaviors. In other words, it’s data about how and when customers purchase from your company.
Customer purchase and buying behavior data includes information like:
Recent purchases
Purchase history
Trends in purchase behavior
Customer loyalty program data (if available)
Collecting and understanding this behavioral information helps you to identify customer shopping preferences and use that information to develop more effective marketing campaigns. Better yet, you can develop and offer more products or services that appeal to your audience.
Communication preferences
Another helpful customer data point to collect is anything related to communication preferences or contact information. Whether via email, phone call, SMS, carrier pigeon, or owl (hey, you never know), you always want to know the types of communication your customers are willing to receive from your business.
Knowing the best way to reach out to your customers (and how they want to be reached) is essential to building a positive relationship with your customers. By consistently contacting customers through communication channels they expect you to reach out through, you’re showing them that you’re listening to their needs and wants.
Not to mention, your communication efforts will be for nothing if you reach out to customers through channels they don’t even check. Not everyone uses their email consistently or pays attention to promotional texts. Collecting data related to communication preferences ensures you’re reaching your customers in the best way possible.
Get started with Nutshell SMS
Want to start leveraging text messaging in your sales strategy? Head to your SMS page in Nutshell to register!
Similar to purchasing data, behavioral information related to how customers interact with different digital channels is a great way to understand your customers’ online behavior and how they interact with your brand.
Customer engagement data points to collect include:
Social media interactions like follows, likes, reshares/reposts, comments, and post interactions
Website interactions like page views, click-through rate (CTR), bounce rate, and visit duration
Interactions with paid advertising campaigns
You can collect this information through tools such as Google Analytics. Nutshell can also automatically pull in data about the channels your leads come from through our lead attribution features.
Understanding how and where customers and leads interact with your brand allows you to improve your marketing campaigns by tailoring them to the channels that are visited most by your target audience.
Additionally, knowing the sources your customers utilize will allow you to better collect feedback from customers that you can utilize for future customer service interactions.
Why collect customer data?
We’ve touched on it a bit already, but let’s dive deeper into the benefits of identifying and collecting customer data.
Key takeaway
Collecting customer data allows B2B sales and marketing teams to understand their audience better, personalize interactions, and optimize strategies for improved engagement and conversion. This data helps in identifying key prospects, tailoring sales approaches, and creating more effective marketing campaigns.
Stronger marketing strategies
Collecting key customer data points helps you to develop an effective marketing strategy that targets your customers and appeals to them in a way that encourages them to act.
With customer data on hand, you can create well-informed marketing campaigns that can bring your business better results, including better engagement rates, increased web traffic, and improved return on investment (ROI)!
Improved customer service
With a better understanding of your customer base, you can provide quality customer service to your clients every time. Whether it’s in-person or via digital interactions, you can use your customer data to better serve customers by communicating through their preferred channels or personalizing their experience with your brand.
Better product and service development
Customer data allows you to be proactive with your customer service too. With the knowledge of what your customers like and dislike, you can develop new products or services that appeal to your customer base’s interests. This way, you can bring in and retain even more customers.
Frequently asked questions
1. How often should I update the customer data in my CRM?
Update contact information in real-time during interactions, review active accounts monthly, and conduct deep database cleanses quarterly. Set a “last review date” field to track data freshness. We recommend updating records every six months minimum to maintain accuracy and prevent wasted outreach.
2. What’s the minimum amount of customer data needed to get started with a CRM?
Start with the essentials: name, email, phone number, and company name (for B2B). Add lead source and deal stage to track your pipeline. You can always collect more data later—focus on quality over quantity. Clean, basic data beats incomplete, overwhelming records every time.
3. How can I collect customer data without seeming invasive or creepy?
Be transparent about why you need each piece of information and how it benefits customers. Use progressive profiling to gather data gradually, not all at once. Offer value in exchange (like exclusive content or personalized recommendations) and always include clear opt-in choices. Respect builds trust.
4. Should B2B companies prioritize different data points than B2C companies?
Yes. B2B teams should focus on company-level data, job titles, decision-maker hierarchies, deal stages, and contract values. B2C companies prioritize individual preferences, purchase history, behavioral patterns, and transaction frequency. B2B is about nurturing long-term relationships; B2C is about fast, personalized transactions.
5. What’s the difference between demographic data and descriptive data in a CRM?
Demographic data includes factual identifiers like name, age, location, income, and company size. Descriptive data adds context about lifestyle, interests, job title, education level, and preferences. Think of it this way: demographics tell you who someone is; descriptive data tells you what they care about.
Zero in on customer data points to collect with the help of Nutshell
Nutshell’s all-in-one CRM is the perfect solution for customer data collection. Our intuitive CRM makes data collection easy with customer profiles for easy access to the data you need, lead attribution tools that automatically gather customer insights, reporting features for easy data analysis, and more.
Plus, with Nutshell SMS, you can easily engage with leads and customers to gather data in real time.
Learn more about how Nutshell can help you collect customer data by trying our CRM out for yourself today. Start a free trial today and attend a live demo to see what all the hype is about.
