Customer data activation strategy: Why you need one, ASAP
What is a customer data activation strategy and why do you need one? Brand success hinges on how well you handle customer data.
Customer expectations have long since surpassed the ability of individuals to manage details and anniversaries without help. Brands today rely on their ability to build lasting customer relationships more than ever before. But unlike product or price, relationships are interactive, responsive, and dynamic. To build valuable, long-term customer relationships, you need to unlock real-time customer insights.
Beyond that, you need to build the knowledge and act upon it in ways that are ethical, productive, and relevant to the customer in real time.
For years, it was enough to create a quality product or rely on low prices to drive business. But now, a competitive and saturated market means that customers can always find another high-quality product or lower price. It’s not enough to differentiate, especially if you’re looking for long-term, sustainable growth.
And for that, you need to deliver consistent customer experiences that forge real relationships. And just like interpersonal relationships, one-sided doesn’t cut it.
Your customers want to know that you’re listening as much as you’re talking. That means responding to their feedback, pain points, and preferences – as soon as, and wherever, they share them.
A customer data strategy based on activating real-time customer insights is key.
When you can surface and react to your customers in real time, your engagement with them becomes much more human. Most human communication is non-verbal.
We adjust our messaging and behavior based on things like tone and body language. Real-time customer insights let brands gauge customer sentiment and adjust accordingly, even when the exchange is online.
Get real: better CX through real-time customer insights
Real-time customer insights have a real-world impact on customer experience. With brands everywhere competing for increasingly short attention spans (and wallet share), the faster you can deliver value to your customers, the more likely you are to stand out.
Capture more accurate customer pain points, sentiments, and priorities in the moment.
When trying to qualitative (or attitudinal) data, time is of the essence. The more distance a customer has from a particular experience, the less likely they are to recall it accurately. Even when it comes to things like how they felt, or what triggered big emotions. (Any true-crime fan can tell you that eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as we used to think.)
So, we find ways to collect customer input in the moment. (Remember the sudden emergence of “How was your experience?” kiosks in airports? The ones where you’re asked to hit a smiley face or frowny face?) By capturing sentiment data in the moment, you’re more likely to get reliable insights you can trust when making business decisions.
Interpret and activate real-time customer insights for faster time-to-value
Of course, capturing data in real-time is only part of the challenge. The real trick is turning that data into actionable insights (and, of course, acting on them). That’s when the relationship goes from one-sided to interactive. But customer preferences and sentiment can change at the drop of a hat. To make the most of your valuable data, you need to be able act in real-time, too.
That’s where complexity has been a huge barrier for companies. Customer data is collected in different forms from different departments, and stored in different stacks and systems for different purposes.
Companies today use an average of 11 systems to collect and store customer data.
Collecting and interpreting it is impossible without automation, and AI or machine learning. Doing it in real-time may seem like a pipe dream.
Of course, that’s exactly why customer data platforms have taken the business world by storm. Their automation capabilities when it comes to collecting customer data from various stacks and then transforming it to create rich customer profiles promise to be game-changing. But equally as impressive is their ability to use AI and machine learning to sift through all that data and surface patterns and trends you can use to inform how you engage with your customers – from marketing to commerce, sales and service.
They are designed to do all this dynamically, in real time. That means unlocking real-time customer insights that evolve as customer preferences and sentiments change.
Make an impact with personalization
Real-time engagement is only really impactful when it’s personalized. Otherwise, it’s just generic automation. Again, you need to show that you’re listening.
For example, a gym may send an automatic alerts to members letting them know their membership is about to expire, and the price is set to increase. It’s automatic and relevant to the timing of their billing cycle, and is a perfectly fine auto-email. If the member hasn’t really been using their membership to its fullest extent, maybe a price hike will cause them to cancel.
But what if the gym took their usage into account (e.g., how many classes they attend each month, what time of day they tend to work out, etc.)? They could tailor the email to highlight classes at those times, or provided membership alternatives like class-packs. They may prevent losing a customer.
The key is combining your historical context and real-time customer insights, and using it to craft real-time, personalized engagements.
Breaking 360: It’s time to move beyond the 360-degree view of the customer
For decades, brands have chased the goal of creating a 360-degree view of the customer. It hasn't worked out so well, and now there’s a better, faster, more agile way to gain customer insight and improve CX.
Unlock real-time customer insights with a CDP
Brands that want to stand out need to focus on building valuable, dynamic customer relationships. If you’re struggling to tap into the insights that will take your relationships to the next level, you may want to consider investing in a customer data platform.
Types of CDP: Which customer data platform is right for you?
It's predicted that 70% of CDP vendors will be acquired by larger CDP vendors over the next few years. That means it's time for you to understand the types of CDP, and which is best for your business - because your business needs a CDP to survive in the future.
By creating contextual customer profiles that pull from multiple data sources and update dynamically, CDPs help deliver a more natural, human customer relationship that drives loyalty. They unlock real-time insights and engagements that make your customers feel seen and heard.
Focus on your company’s use cases. Where are you engaging with your customers, and what would an ideal interaction look like? Then use that to drive your strategy. At every stage, keep the customers’ interests at heart.
