Creating a 360-Degree View of Your Customer
Why a unified customer profile matters and how to create one for your users
Introduction
Understanding your customers holistically is more critical than ever to drive business results, especially if AI is going to be asked to do a lot of this work in tandem with humans. A 360-degree view of the customer encompasses all interactions and touchpoints, providing deep insights that drive personalized experiences and business growth.
Importance of a Comprehensive Customer View
A comprehensive customer view is essential for several reasons:
Personalization: Tailored experiences based on individual preferences and behaviors increase engagement and satisfaction.
Predictive Insights: Analyzing past interactions helps predict future behavior, enabling proactive support and targeted marketing.
Breaking Silos: Shared customer data fosters collaboration between marketing, sales, and support teams, ensuring cohesive strategies and responses.
Customer Journey Enablement: Enablement across the entire customer jouney from acquisition, conversion, installation, activation, engagement, retention and reviving cancelers.
Tools and Technologies
Several tools and technologies facilitate the creation of a 360-degree customer view:
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems: CRMs like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 centralize customer data and interactions .
Data Analytics Platforms: Tools like Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics provide insights into customer behavior across digital channels .
Customer Data Platforms (CDPs): CDPs aggregate data from various sources, creating a unified customer profile that can be used for personalized marketing and support .
Real-World Examples
Adobe's Experience Cloud uses AI and machine learning to analyze customer data, providing insights that enable personalized experiences. Adobe also uses Microsoft Dynamics 365, which combines CRM and ERP capabilities to offer a unified view of customer interactions, helping businesses build stronger relationships and drive growth .
My team is influencing platform teams to add social and support interaction data into Dynamics so that we can build a unified view of the customer for 1 on 1 chat, phone and social support use cases.
Building a Customer Data Platform (CDP) efficiently requires a strategic approach. Here are the key steps to expedite the process:
1. Define Objectives and Use Cases
Identify Business Goals: Determine what you want to achieve with the CDP (e.g., personalized marketing, customer segmentation, improved customer service).
Use Case Prioritization: Focus on high-impact use cases that can deliver quick wins and demonstrate value.
2. Choose the Right CDP Vendor
Evaluate Vendors: Assess CDP vendors based on your specific needs, such as data integration capabilities, scalability, ease of use, and support.
Pre-built Integrations: Opt for a CDP with pre-built integrations for your existing tech stack to reduce implementation time.
3. Data Integration and Ingestion
Data Sources: Identify all relevant data sources (CRM, marketing platforms, sales systems, etc.) and ensure they are ready for integration.
Data Mapping: Create a data schema that maps how data from different sources will be unified.
ETL Processes: Use Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) processes to clean and standardize data before ingestion.
4. Data Unification and Identity Resolution
Identity Resolution: Implement algorithms to unify customer data from various sources, resolving duplicates and creating a single customer view.
Data Matching: Use deterministic and probabilistic matching techniques to link customer records accurately.
5. Data Activation and Usage
Segmentation: Create customer segments based on unified data for targeted marketing and personalized experiences.
Integration with Tools: Ensure the CDP integrates seamlessly with your marketing, sales, and customer service tools for activation.
6. Governance and Compliance
Data Governance: Establish data governance policies to ensure data quality and security.
Compliance: Ensure the CDP complies with relevant data privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA).
7. Monitoring and Optimization
Performance Monitoring: Set up dashboards to monitor the performance and usage of the CDP.
Continuous Improvement: Regularly review and refine data processes, identity resolution methods, and use cases.
Tools and Technologies to Speed Up the Process:
Pre-built CDP Solutions: Consider using pre-built CDP solutions like Segment, Treasure Data, or Tealium, which offer robust integration capabilities.
Cloud Infrastructure: Leverage cloud services (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) for scalable and flexible data storage and processing.
Automation Tools: Use automation tools for ETL processes, data cleaning, and integration tasks to reduce manual effort.
Example Timeline
Week 1-2: Define objectives, select a vendor, and identify data sources.
Week 3-4: Set up infrastructure, configure integrations, and begin data ingestion.
Week 5-6: Implement identity resolution, create initial customer segments, and set up governance policies.
Week 7-8: Activate data, integrate with marketing/sales tools, and start using the CDP for targeted campaigns.
By following these steps, you can build a CDP quickly and efficiently, ensuring it delivers value to your organization promptly.
Resources
Here is a short course on how to do this using MS Dynamics: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/modules/unified-customer-profile/
https://www.salesforce.com/blog/unified-customer-profile/