Deliver Better Customer Experience by Using Customer Data Management

These days every business organization focuses on improving their customers’ experience, and, for this, technology plays a vital role. Technology helps in delivering products and services to achieve that. From the business point of view, the year 2020 experienced many limitations in resources and workloads because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The one thing that has increased the most is the reliability of the technology. Smart Technology or SmartTech has changed business and ensured greater customer satisfaction and market acquisition, improving customer retention rates. The power of the internet has become a common phenomenon that has seen a sharp increase in recent years.

Technology has improved business and introduced new CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems for business. The predominance of internet and web platforms has increased the use of customer data. The data must be appropriately filtered to be used for analysis and make a decision driven approach for the organizations. Data analysis tools and professionals can utilize the customers’ data and use them for business strategies and increased performance. IBM has introduced AI to efficiently manage the employee workforce and make customer experiences more human through adaptive and intelligent customer services.

The covid-19 pandemic has increased a considerable amount of data due to the prolific increase of online platforms and smart handheld devices. Open Vault reported a rise in data consumption at around 402 GB in the first quarter of 2020, a 47% increase compared to last year. Now the problem lies with the business organizations to handle this massive increase of data. Here comes the role of Customer Data Management, and the Customer Data Management Platforms come into play.

What is CDM?

Customer Data Management or CDM is collecting, managing, and analyzing data throughout the customer’s journey. With this Smart Technology help, businesses can create better communication strategies to enhance consumer experience and achieve business success. The data is pivotal, and accuracy is essential for proper analysis of the market and customer demands. IBM reports that 83% of organizations suffer from data inaccuracy, which costs millions per business year. Using CDM, proper data analysis can be performed, which will help filter quality data and gain higher profits. Infosys has introduced cloud-based systems in their Customer Relationship Management that have significantly minimized the cost. The process does not require any licensing, and the infrastructural cost gets eliminated, which makes it an ideal choice for any business organization.

Selecting the right type of data

To avoid data discrepancy, it is necessary to have a clear concept of the types of data and their impact on customer experiences. The different categories of data are as follows:

• Identity- This type of data is used for uniquely identifying the customers. This data is collected from the subscription pages or bank account details and sign-up forms that store consumers’ personal information.
• Quantitative Data – It is based on the interaction between customers and brands. It is obtained by transaction history, website cookies, and social media activities.
• Descriptive Data- Descriptive Data is collected through online surveys, questionnaires, and interviews conducted by the organizations. They give accurate information relating to the decline or improvement of the customer life cycle span.
• Qualitative Data- It involves predicting customers’ choices and information collected from social media channels, feedback, or personal newsletters.

Importance of Customer Data Management Platforms

Customer Data Management Platforms are used to analyze the market conditions based on consumer requirements, and it has evolved over the years. So, the Importance of CDP in the growth of the business can never be ignored. Business organizations are data-driven, where decision-making strategies are based on data related to consumer behaviors and demands. For coping up with changing times and handling consumer data, proper CDM strategies need to be incorporated.

Components of Customer Data Management

The different components associated with CDM are as follows:

• Data Collection and integration

It is observed that 60% of data remain unused by the analytics. It is necessary to identify the correct data that needs to be uploaded in the CDM system for building a proper framework. After the data reaches the central system, the three steps that need to be executed are Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL). Extraction means selecting the right data, transforming the data in the correct format, and finally loading data into the CDM systems. After this phase, the data becomes organized and collected in a single place.

• Data Management

In this step, the data points are used properly to organize and segment customer data related to customer profiles. A 360-degree profile is created in this pattern. CDPs are software systems used to aggregate customer information using several touchpoints connected to external software systems and marketing activities. CDPs are used to capture customer data in real-time and utilize them for integration business strategies to enhance customer satisfaction. The first, second, and third-party platforms are used for collecting data and building customer profiles. The information is collected from websites, feedback, forms, social media pages, and e-commerce activities. Data Software Platforms operate for managing the collected data about consumers. Third-party agencies anonymously gather the data through website cookies, IP addresses, and identifiers.

Adobe emerged as the leading DMP platform in 2016 and 2018 as they bridged the gap between DMP and CDP.

• It has enhanced customer involvement to no small extent. The customers are supporting these policies as an increased amount of security, privacy, and accuracy are achieved. Customer relationship management refers to maintain a proper relationship with customers that ensures better service delivery and enhanced experience associated with a specific brand. CDP and CRM are similar to each other, but the difference is consumer data access. CRM comes into play when a consumer is associated with the brand directly, and the organization can start storing the related information of consumers. CRM software is in great demand as companies focus on a data-driven approach to ensure improved consumer relationships. In the CRM world, Salesforce is the new IBM of 2020. CRM helps to ensure customer loyalty, close more deals, keep more customers, and grow your business. Salesforce customers report 37% more sales revenue, 45% higher customer satisfaction, and 43% better marketing Return on Investment. Effective customer data management system of a company can be built with influential CDP and CRM. Hence, the CRM of a company certainly gets improved with advanced Customer Data Management by implementing advanced technologies like cloud systems and others, which deliberately helps the organization analyze customer data and approach them in a better way. Data Analysis.

In this phase, the collected information is analyzed for identifying the patterns related to consumer data, whether it is Quantitative Data or Descriptive Data or else. It is the most vital phase where decision-making strategies are implemented to improve consumer satisfaction.

• Data Activation

The data-driven systems are used in this phase, where the marketing technologies are implemented in real-time business organizations. The products’ campaign starts, and the organization must integrate data while tackling the performance and analytics systems.

Conclusion:

The effect of technology has changed businesses, and customer demands have subsequently increased due to access to digital platforms. For improving the performance of business organizations and accelerate customer retention, it is necessary to collect data related to consumer interaction with the particular brand. A distinct idea about consumer behaviors can be gathered by analyzing the customer history of searching data items on websites and social media platforms. The Customer Data Management platforms provide information that helps diagnose and make ineffective business strategy building. The use of Smart Technology and CDM software is mainly dependent on proper extraction and evaluation of data. With the increased use of personal information, data protection and security will become a significant concern. The future will become challenging with improved data. The accuracy level must be maintained to get correct market conditions and provide better services to the consumers.