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 democratization stands poised to level the playing field and unlock new capabilities for teams through simplification.
People used to talk about keeping up with the Jones, and now it’s keeping up with the algorithms, analytics, user preferences, consent laws, and, shall we go on?
The data tools, strategies, and ways of life that were popular only a year ago are often entirely different in 12 months time. For businesses, this means constant iteration on processes and evaluating tech stacks.
What is data democratization?
Data democratization is the business-wide implementation of a data tool –– typically a customer data platform (CDP) –– that all teams can learn to use for their purposes, helping them gather insights and make effective decisions for their role in near real-time.
Here’s how it helps:
- Speed—Less waiting and less directing means quicker, more relevant insights
- Access—When everyone can plan for data, they can also build on it
- Purpose—Departments and individuals use data in different ways; democratized data allows for autonomy and efficiency
- Competitiveness—Businesses that can react quickly, understand their customer’s needs in real-time, and jump on up-and-coming trends faster than their competitor will win
Data democratization allows all teams within an organization to have a central source of data truth. From there, they can build reports, strategies, and plans based on company-wide trusted data and measure the results.
Data democratization is the secret weapon for embracing the future of work
Speed in business is no longer a nice-to-have. Instead, it’s a requirement across all business organizations.
Yet, speed can’t mean a reduction in quality decision-making. Instead, organizations need to test the waters of a new channel, trend, tool, or strategy, before investing heavily.But, even then, that data can be manipulated, misinterpreted, or perhaps worse, misplaced entirely –– creating unreliable feedback loops that slow the business down, stopping them in their tracks in their attempt to be innovative.
This highlights the deep need for simplified, secure access to data across an organization.
Benefits of data democratization: Better prioritization, employee retention
The benefits to data democratization are huge: freeing up your data team’s time, helping your marketing team move faster, allowing your customer service team to prioritize requests better, and so much more.
The common constraint across all organizations is time. Strong project management is essential to help teams understand priorities.
Quick gut check:
- How confident do you feel in the decision-making process behind those priorities?
- Is your team using data to understand customer requests, complaints, and desires?
- Can you effectively forecast the ROI of the program?
- Will marketing get the priority or the tech team?
- What about customer service or your sales folks?
- Whose needs are most important – and are you allowing the loudest voice in the room to decide?
Data democratization immediately stops poor priority planning processes, giving all teams the same data to work off of and make their pitches.
From there, executive teams can understand the necessary waterfall implementation of asks to help the business get to the next level.
Not only does this help to improve the outcome of prioritization, but it also helps with employee retention. When data is democratized across a team, and all employees have a fair shot at making their case, it allows teams to feel heard, understand where their project falls in relation to others, and why.
Access to measurable, iterative business improvements
As humans, we undervalue iterative improvements and growth. They say this is why understanding acting upon global climate change is such a challenge for us. We aren’t great at connecting small, ongoing changes to far larger outcomes just outside that near-future window.
Data democratization can solve this for your organization. By making the data widely accessible to all, you can perform historical analysis to see how small, ongoing improvements completely changed the company for the better.
Then, you can forecast similar improvements, tie them back to projects and prioritize.
In other words, data democratization with a CDP helps business leaders connect the dots to better understand iterative improvements. As a result, you’ll be able to focus more on what matters and less on trying to figure out how to go viral.
Improved team autonomy, and prep for the future of work
The future of work is here, and thanks to the pandemic, remote work is the new normal. And there are a lot more workplace changes taking shape. Some organizations are testing out four-day work weeks, or hybrid environments, or flexible workforces using talent platforms like TopTal, MarketerHire, Paro , and more.
Is your business ready to embrace these changes? It should be. The best talent in the world wants more work flexibility, and your company’s ability to offer that flexibility can make or break the future of your business.
Implementing a data democratization strategy
The last decade has many business leaders on edge when it comes to data democratization. After all, big data promised to shake up industries and how they worked. It didn’t. The looming privacy-first web, which is predicted to eliminate some of the data (and all of the third-party data) businesses have come to rely on, is another stressor.
Data is tricky and finicky. Is it even possible for a company to make dreams of data democratization come true? You bet it is.
- Decide to change how you store, interpret, and grant access to data
- Prioritize the idea that data value deepens the more teams use it
- Commit to an ongoing relationship between data, goals, customers, and your workforce
Customer data platforms are built for facilitating the effective (and ethical) use of data. They allow marketing teams, customer service teams, sales teams, UX and tech teams, and data teams to all work out of the same solution, where a central hub and repository serving as a central source of data truth.
Improving customer experience through customer data—CDP for CX
Improving CX through customer data makes intuitive sense, but having a tool and using it effectively are two very different things. CDPs are the data remedy we need.
CDP establishes that the data they are using is approved –– both by company leaders and customers. CDPs only collect first and second-party data in adherence to required customer data privacy policies in your customer’s country of residence, and in adherence with your own company’s terms & services.
Gather round the data and celebrate
It’s safe. It’s secure. It’s easy to use for all teams. And it’s the technology powering the future of business. Now is the time to democratize your data, train your team, and prepare for the next decade of business growth.
