Customer data management—Best practice and CDP
Customer data management is customer service you can't see with results you really can measure. CDPs deliver exceptional customer data management solutions.
In a world where marketing buzzwords quickly turn cold, “customer centricity” has gone from hot to hotter.
First coined in the 1960s, the concept is now viewed as critical for post-pandemic business success. In fact, a survey conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of KPMG found that 72% of the respondents said customer centricity had become a higher priority since COVID-19.
What’s driving this trend? It turns out the digital economy, which grew fast during the pandemic, added a new twist to an old adage. Yes, customers are always right… and now they’re in complete control of their relationships with brands. This twist adds significant complexity for businesses looking to differentiate based on the experiences they offer.Let’s look at the challenges surrounding customer centricity, how enterprises tried to achieve it in the past, and why technology like new customer data platforms (CDPs) are ideally suited to help accelerate this shift.
Customer data management is customer service you can't see with results you really can measure. CDPs deliver exceptional customer data management solutions.
It’s easy to say an organization should make customers their north star. Yet the reality is many are still product and service-focused.
An enterprise has a lot to consider if it wants to achieve this. There’s an explosion of data and touchpoints to manage. The consumer privacy landscape grows tougher by the day. And companies need a solution for surfacing accurate and trusted data in real time so they can move at the speed of their customers.
Dan Tranter, VP of North American sales for SAP Customer Data Solutions, summed up the challenge by asking: “As a business owner or executive, how can you understand what the customer is doing at any given point? And how can you understand what the next best action would be to drive a better relationship?”
To tackle the challenge, an enterprise needs to execute a strategy that addresses both its culture and technological approach.
In terms of technology, a foundation based on data-driven insights are necessary to deliver market-differentiating experiences across customer touch points. This foundation can’t be limited to serving one line of business; instead, it should make rich context readily available for any engagement. This includes in-store, e-commerce, sales, and service interactions.
From a culture perspective, enterprise leaders need to think holistically.To be truly customer centric, a business should factor customer data into its supply chain, inventory, and product development decisions. Instead of separating the front-office from the back-office, there’s opportunity to view the whole picture and set the path for success.
A CDP is key to executing this strategy effectively.
Brands need to adopt these 7 key principles around customer data management to help define their overall data strategy and goals.
Customer data challenges have existed for decades, and enterprises have used many solutions to try and address them.
CRM solutions were never designed to be the source of truth that ingests multiple data sources in real time, and then pushes that data out to engagement systems.
Data management platforms specifically address ad-tech use cases. Data warehouses and data lakes store massive amounts of customer data, but retrieving it and making it actionable can take a long time and require help from the IT department.
A CDP is a prebuilt software system that resolves and centralizes customer data to build comprehensive profiles. These profiles enable an organization to uncover deep insights into audiences, segments, and intentions.
A CPD also enables real-time data activation to engagement systems across the enterprise. Following are four ways CDPs can help you fuel the hyper-personalized experiences that are the signature of customer centricity:
Types of customer data serve distinct purposes. Identity data, descriptive data, attitudinal data, behavioral data defined, with examples.
At a time of rising customer acquisition costs, enterprises are looking to strengthen retention and loyalty.
According to Sergey Krayniy, head of product for SAP Customer Data Solutions, this situation highlights the need for a customer-centric business model.
“Retention has different CX metrics than acquisition. Every interaction from pre-sale to post-sale becomes equally important. Real-time decision-making becomes crucial, as does the ability to prevent service escalations,” he said.Today’s CDPs should meet this challenge, Krayniy said. They create the basis for consistently personalized experiences throughout the customer relationship.
“The CDP offers an executive summary of your entire relationship with a customer based on context. It lets you make a timely decision – a contextual decision – and deliver personalization not just in one funnel but at any engagement,” he said.
With this technological advantage, an enterprise can win against agile digital disruptors, grow revenue, and take a giant step toward earning a reputation as a customer-centric organization.