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.
Many companies aspire to be customer centric: Start with the customer, but how? What sounds easy in the first second can be difficult in the second.
We need to understand the customer, which requires data. A data driven customer experience puts the customer first, delivering exactly what they need at the right time.
Let’s look more closely at the concepts fueling this trend.
From B2C and B2B to B2E: Data driven customer experience
Check out this short, thought-provoking video interview with Simon Sinek, “Businesses DO NOT Exist to Make Money.” I like his perspective. What is our purpose as a company? Is it to make money or to build great products and services to enhance someone?
Money is a key element for a company to operate, but shouldn’t be the purpose. So, the purpose is the starting point that guides us in the right direction to think as the customer and work backwards.
If we are in B2C, then we think about the consumer. If we are in B2B, we serve the customer of our customer, which means we are talking about B2B2C. At the end of the day, every one of us is a consumer. I focus on B2E (business 2 everyone).
The mechanisms behind B2B and B2C customer experience are very similar. It’s all about trust and the right relationship as well as delivering value. Do we really deliver the right value at the right time?
Let’s step back and look at some of the most valuable companies in the world: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft. What makes them that big? Facebook provides the clearest answer with its access to user and the understanding about users. So it’s about data.
Delivering the right value at the right moment of time is the key element of a great customer experience. But if you operate on a one-to-many basis instead of a 1:1 base, fail to listen to your customers, and don’t leverage the right data, your CX will be ineffective.
The data deluge
Companies have a huge amount of data, which is fantastic. Each system communicates with the other while data is duplicated and many APIs are at work. This is technically difficult, error-prone with expensive.
Front-end systems are getting bigger and bigger and artificial intelligence is coming into play more and more. Growth is happening quickly. This makes us walk – in some cases – very fast, maybe too fast.
Let’s assume you’re in the media industry. Maybe TV, print or radio… you have different channels to reach your audience. In media, content is king, but is the user still willing to pay for it? If we deliver value for them, they’re more apt to share their data. This data enables us to build up entire new business models.
Here’s another example to consider: Most of us receive a lot of newsletters that we never read. However, if we know one newsletter always provides high value, we read each one that comes to our inbox.
Customer data management strategy: 7 keys to growth, CX, loyalty
Brands need to adopt these 7 key principles around customer data management to help define their overall data strategy and goals.
Data-driven CX: Going beyond NPS
When it comes to measuring CX, we all know Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Customer Effort Score (CES). These tools question a user about their experience, which helps us understand our progress. But they help us first, and – only maybe – the customer second.
It’s more helpful to listen cross-channel, cross-device and in real- or near-time to customers. We need to combine all data in one place instead of syncing them between many systems. With central data storage, we have a base that enables us to truly understand the customer and where they are in the buying journey.
In the past, understanding a customer meant knowing someone was interested in a washing machine because they once clicked on one on a website. That really tells us very little. Is the customer interested because their washing machine is very old? Or is their machine broken or not big enough?
Each of these scenarios requires that a brand present relevant, timely content for effective customer engagement.If can understand which phase a customer is in — interest/need/pain — we can take appropriate action. We can calculate their next step(s), probability to buy, whether that’s a premium washing machine or booking an expensive travel to Africa within the next two months.
This understanding enables us to only reach out to a customer if we have something that delivers value. It also helps us develop the right content, products, and services to deliver more value. To gain this kind of understanding, many organizations are leveraging a customer data platform (CDP).
At the end of the day, providing relevant, engaging customer experiences drives the kind of customer trust and loyalty that grows business.
