4 Principles to Know Your Customers Better

January 16 is Know Your Customers Day — and we’re not talking about KYC regulations here. Most leaders would say that they make an effort to know their customers, but it can be challenging. And, this lighthearted holiday is a reminder that the juice is worth the squeeze when it comes to understanding and connecting with your customers.

Across multiple roles in product and customer experience (CX), one thing that has remained constant has been my devotion to understanding our customers and advocating for them. Cultivating deeper customer relationships has enabled us to build better products and design better experiences, all in service of empowering financial strength and driving value for our customers. 

The same leadership principles apply whether you’re operating B2B or serving millions of consumers. The context changes — but the discipline doesn’t. MX found that 67% of consumers expect their financial provider to know them. They want you to know them so that you’re able to streamline and personalize their experience to deliver more value and better outcomes with less effort required of them. And if you can nail that, you’ve got a customer for life. 

Forrester research consistently shows that customer-obsessed companies achieve 41% faster revenue growth compared to peers — reinforcing that knowing your customer isn’t just good CX, it’s good business. It takes intention and effort to set aside the assumption that you already know your customers, and do the work to build a deeper understanding that can lead to better experiences and outcomes for everyone.

Here are my guiding principles for knowing your customers:

Feedback Is a Gift

You’ve heard it said a thousand times — feedback is a gift. Feedback can answer all of your biggest questions about how effectively you’re meeting customer needs. But, you have to ask for it at the right time and in the right way. Customers are very willing to share their feedback, especially when it is clear how their input can improve their experience.

The caveat is that you have to close the loop. Feedback that goes unacknowledged or doesn’t result in action can tank sentiment fast. Forrester has found that customers expect their input to meaningfully shape their experience — and disengage when it doesn’t. Willingness to provide feedback increases when customers believe it will lead to real improvement. Treat feedback as a gift, and be the kind of recipient who takes the time to write a thank you note. 

Financial institutions have the same opportunity for feedback. By giving your customers opportunities to tell you what they think — within your mobile app, on your website, through your support channels — you have the chance to capture meaningful insights that can help you elevate the customer experience. 

Every Customer Is a Real Person

Instead of overgeneralizing clients into personas, we should recognize them as the individuals that make up the organization. By having real conversations with customers and going deep into goals and aspirations, you can get to know the people you serve and get strategic about how to help them succeed. And in turn, you can build the necessary partnership to help the customer succeed as an organization. 

There is one person in particular that comes to mind for me when I think of this — a digital banking leader — who bet on MX in our early days and persuaded the bank to integrate our connectivity, data, and financial wellness solutions into their online banking experience. The initiative was massively successful, achieving high adoption and positive sentiment, and contributing to excellent improvements in digital engagement overall. 

This friend got a couple of promotions because of his impact. And, I was initially disappointed when he moved to a new financial institution — until he persuaded that new bank to partner with MX as well. We’d helped him make a name for himself, and he has repaid us with continued partnership throughout his career. 

Financial institutions can achieve similar advocacy with their consumers, but they need to move towards delivering true personalization by creating a segment of one approach. That can truly deliver a unique, tailored experience for each individual that meets them where they are on their financial journey. There is so much more to getting to know your customer than demographics. There’s a whole person on the other end of the experience. If you can help them achieve their financial goals, they’ll stick with you and invite others to join the ride. 

Use Data to Take Action

That kind of personalization at scale isn’t possible without data. At MX, consumer and market research play a central role in how we shape our product and business strategy. Through ongoing consumer studies and testing, we look beyond surface-level behavior to understand how people experience their financial lives. Discovering where confusion shows up, what builds confidence, and what actually helps consumers take action. And, then we build the data models and experiences that facilitate meaningful insight and change. 

Every connected account, transaction, and click tells a story of who your customers are — and what they need next. Financial institutions should use this data to understand their customers and build strategic plans that promote financial wellness, while developing products and experiences that facilitate seamless steps towards their goals.

Validate Everything 

Data without human context isn’t enough. At MX, we actively engage with our Client Advisory Board as partners in developing our product strategy and validating our roadmap. We use these forums to pressure-test ideas, explore tradeoffs, and confirm that our priorities align with what financial institutions need to succeed in a rapidly changing environment. We enter these conversations with research and data, and are prepared to quickly pivot when new information disproves our assumptions. We refer to this as objectivity in discourse — one of our core values at MX. 

Financial institutions can apply this same approach with their own customers. Consumer panels, usability testing, and focus groups provide an opportunity to validate assumptions early, learn quickly, and design experiences that resonate before scaling them broadly. Quantitative data explains what happened, but qualitative engagement is what explains why. Without that context, teams risk investing in the wrong solutions. You don’t get that kind of context and insight from a survey.

By first focusing on understanding the real needs of the people you serve, you have a shot at helping them succeed at something that really matters. And if you can do that, you build advocates who’ll be with you for life. 

In 2026, consumers will demand data-driven personalization. That’s exactly what we dig into in our 2026 Predictions webinar.