Why is a connected customer experience important?

A great customer experience is one of the most powerful marketing tools a business can have, and if that goes, quite often, so does your customer.

According to a MuleSoft webinar, 80% of customers will leave a company if they have a bad experience. So the onus really is on the provider to transform a customer experience and create positivity – understanding not only what they want but who they are, when they want it, and how they interact.

It can be difficult for customers to keep track of all the different data points and applications involved in each transaction. Having too many touchpoints can create a lot of frustration.

It is critical to have access to data – particularly customer data — to stand apart from the competition. This is where customer master data management (CMDM) comes into play.

Challenges of building a connected customer experience  

As already mentioned, disconnected data sets are one of the biggest challenges when creating the building block for a smooth and connected customer experience. So what other challenges and barriers come into this when looking at customer data?

The 360-degree view of customers – It promises to deliver and give marketers that picture-perfect profile of their customers. However, with GDPR coming into force in 2018 and implementation costs rising, things became much more complicated. It is believed that only 10% of surveyed organisations have managed to achieve this. A report from Gartner concluded that “By 2026, 80% of organizations pursuing a ‘360-degree view of the customer will abandon these efforts because they flout data privacy regulations, rely on obsolete data collection methods, and erode customer trust.”

The absence of high-quality, dependable data – From missing data to duplicate data, it’s one of the biggest barriers. Unstructured data means a business will not be able to create a solid customer data management system and subsequent workflows.

High costs – The rising costs of system maintenance and IT support for an on- premise solutions are squeezing company budgets, with little room to invest in innovations that will elevate the business in the future.

Lack of data governance skills – The absence of a rigid data management system twinned with the lack of data governance skills in-house makes it almost impossible to get a real understanding of the customer.

How can customer master data management help? 

Eliminates silos of data – Collecting data from multiple disparate data sources, such as cloud applications or local data sets. Bluechip can collect data from various business applications, such as CRM and accounting systems.

Creates a single version of the truth – A solid master data management means the data and the customer 360 profile, a business with the real insight and intelligence of the customer to execute the next action.

Cut through different definitions and different systems  – For example, the term “usage” could have a different meaning hence a different value in a marketing system vs an accounting system. A customer master data management system helps establish common definitions of data, so that all data views are accurate and consistent.

Make trusted data available for decision-makers – This data can be presented to decision-makers in a format that allows them to make business decisions quickly, such as introducing new products or creating personalised marketing promotions, identifying up-sell or cross-sell opportunities, or bottlenecks in growth. This information can then be used to improve customer experiences further. 

Creates a balance between data analytics and privacy and data protection –

Monetising the data assets to your business advantage is important to deliver exceptional customer experiences and stay ahead of the competition. However, evolving regulations around data and privacy can restrict how you use the data. With a customer master data management, a business can define its rules of how they can use the customer data and ensure its governed, as well as remaining compliant with any data regulations such as GDPR.  

Increases business agility –  A good system will continuously clean, dedupe, and merge rogue data with AI-fuelled tools, giving you the power to verify and improve your data in real time.