The customer 360 imperative: Transforming data into a competitive advantage
In today’s fast-moving, digital world, customer expectations for seamless, personalized experiences are higher than ever. As Venki Subramanian, SVP of Product at Reltio, and Tim Hayden, CEO of Brain+Trust, discussed in a recent DataDriven podcast, companies are still grappling with the daunting challenges of achieving an accurate 360-degree view of their customers, a task that has been on the agenda for decades.
A few key trends are making customer data management more complex but also more critical:
- The proliferation of channels and touchpoints (web, mobile, in-store, etc.) means customer data is spread across hundreds of siloed systems. Unifying that data to get a single view of each customer is challenging.
- Customers expect companies to know them and provide consistent, contextual experiences across every interaction. This requires connecting data on who they are, what they’ve done, and anticipating their needs.
- Shifting to subscription/recurring revenue business models means the entire customer lifecycle and journey matters, not just the initial sale. Companies need a fuller picture of the customer across sales, service, and fulfillment, among other areas.
- Privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA raise the stakes on customer data quality and governance. Poor data practices lead to bad customer experience CX, compliance risk, and potential fines.
Another critical factor is the rise of microcasting. Microcasting refers to the fragmentation of the media landscape and the ability to narrowly target specific audiences across a wide range of niche channels, especially digital ones. Hayden explained that the advent of social media, mobile apps, and digital media has led to a microcasting explosion over the past 15 years. Companies seeking to target niche audiences need trusted, unified customer data more than ever. Pulling that data together into a unified customer 360 view is essential to understanding the full context of a customer’s journey and engaging them with the right content in the right channel at the right time.
Check out the full episode:
Solving for 360 customer data for across the enterprise
Many companies have turned to customer data platforms (CDPs) and data unification solutions such as data products to solve for 360 customer data. CDPs are designed to ingest, clean, and unify customer data from multiple sources to create persistent customer profiles. In the data unification and management space, data products take CDPs to the next level by bringing together information from across domains to create a single source of truth while also delivering a complete view of the behavioral data, interactions, derived insights, and segments needed to enhance the customer experience and power business outcomes. Some companies may use one or the other depending on their needs, but the goal is to achieve a more complete, accurate view of the customer. Data products provide core CDP capabilities like a consolidated customer profile, real-time updates, data security/governance, and intelligent assistants.
For decades, marketing departments have been the primary buyers of CDPs. However, the users of CDPs are evolving to include IT and other business functions that desire a centralized customer data platform across the enterprise.
Customer data now belongs to the entire enterprise, not just one part of the business. CDP’s origins were in marketing, but there has been a tug-of-war with other business functions.
Taking an outside-in view of customer 360
To meet these challenges, leading companies are taking a more holistic, outside-in view of customer 360 that focuses on:
- Connecting data across the full context of customers, extending beyond simple identifier information to what they do (transactions/behaviors), when, where, how, and why behind the who
- Resolving identities, deduplicating records, and ensuring data quality as a foundation
- Enriching profiles progressively over time with zero and first-party data
- Making insights actionable in real-time to drive the next best actions and experiences
- Underpinning it all with strong privacy and consent management
Customer 360 isn’t a one-time project but an ongoing program and capability. With the right approach, architecture, and technology, Customer 360 is achievable and delivers immense business value in revenue growth, efficiency, and loyalty. The companies that get it right will have a significant competitive advantage in the years ahead.
