Big data has become kind of the trending “thing” lately, and it’s easy to see why. With big data, you are getting specific information on your customer’s buying habits, whether it’s social media data, mobile usage data or specific data about customer wants and needs, you are building a profile of what your ideal consumer would look like. And once you have that information, you can target your marketing to consumer group in a much more specific and effective way. But more importantly, big data gives you a real sense of what your customers want and don’t want, and how you can optimize your business practices to respond to their needs. Big data really comes down to customer expectations and how well companies are meeting or not meeting those expectations. Once marketers have the data, they can adjust their products, services and customer service to satisfy consumer wants and needs. And happy customers become customers who provide referrals, write great reviews and come back over and over to do business with companies that value what they find to be important.