Have you seen The Customer Experience Factbook?

In this 180+ page report, you'll find all the information and support you need to build a profitable, effective CX Improvement Program that spans every part of your business. You'll be able to implement and manage meaningful and profitable change, and grow your bottom line despite a slowing economy.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)

Marketers suffer from wasted customer data

The dialogue between brand and customer must involve relevant and timely communications and offers. This level of relationship demands more than just a broad understanding of a company's marketplace.

With the internet changing the manner in which consumers interact with brands and the physical high street giving way to virtual showrooms, it has become increasingly important for companies to demonstrate a deep understanding of individual customers' preferences in terms of channel, products, services and timings.

Companies need to tap into the huge array of data resources they have at their disposal and find a way to use this information to further their relationship with their customers. Information gleaned from transactions, loyalty schemes, deliveries, service calls, enquiries, web forms, newsletter registrations, promotional competition entries and traceable online activity provides rich detail on most customers that can be used to gain insight into the behaviour of these consumers and better tailor the messages and promotions sent to each.

Unfortunately, for many businesses, the evidence is that too few actually pull together and utilise the customer data that they have to hand - a phenomenon we have dubbed 'data wastage'. Research commissioned by Transactis in 2010 revealed that nearly two-thirds of UK consumers said companies communicating with them are wasting resources on marketing pitches for products they would never buy. The result of this poorly targeted messaging is to alienate customers and cost firms future business. In fact, research by Transactis revealed that if customers are continually sent irrelevant offers and communications by a company they have entrusted their personal details to, the vast majority will cease accepting communications and will likely take their business elsewhere.

Specifically, the research shows that a resounding 81% of respondents would seriously question the competence of an organisation who asks for their personal details when they have already been provided, with an alarming 88% of respondents indicating they would stop providing any further details if a company fails to reflect any sort of previous knowledge of them. And 86% say they are 'very likely' to withdraw permission for a firm to contact them again if they keep receiving irrelevant messages. Most alarmingly for marketers, however, is the 79% of consumers surveyed who declare they are 'very likely' to shift their business to a competitor if a firm they have dealt with and entrusted with personal information keeps sending them irrelevant offers and communications.

Clearly then, data wastage leads not just to squandered marketing opportunities but also it can have a significant impact on business costs, driving customers away and wasting the effort and money previously spent on building positive customer relationships. Furthermore, the cost of acquiring new customers to replace those who have defected could be significant. Thus, the use of all available data to maintain customer loyalty and develop consumer relationships becomes very much a key to maintaining a healthy bottom line - especially in the current difficult business climate, when every penny counts.

Furthermore, data wastage can damage reputation. A consumer who questions a brand's competence and their own loyalty to that brand is highly likely to voice their concerns amongst their immediate social circle - and, possibly, even influence those they've never met via social media networks too.

Reassuringly, however, steps can be taken to avert data wastage and its consequences. The real problem for many firms is that while they have a wealth of customer data being collected throughout their organisation, it is being captured on different databases by various divisions, departments and offices that are not connected. Organisations therefore need to address this issue by developing the infrastructure to pool information in a centralised database, creating a Single Customer View (SCV), which pulls together all the data held on each customer and makes its available to any business unit that needs it.

The SCV database then provides a platform for a 360-degree view of each customer, encompassing purchasing history, predilections, previous behaviour and communication channel preferences. This enables effective analysis and insight, providing the basis for profiling, modelling, segmenting and enhancing data in order to better target and tailor communications. This unified approach ensures firms send the right messages and offers at appropriate times to the most suitable consumers, improving not only efforts to strengthen customer loyalty but also campaigns aimed at upselling and cross-selling. Data from the SCV can also be used to inform product development, customer service, and new business activity - helping firms develop profiles of its best and most loyal customers so it can then identify and target lookalikes.

In conclusion, data wastage can be avoided by ensuring all information held by an enterprise is brought together in an SCV database which can then be utilised across the entire business to inform all activities. As a result, contradictory, inconsistent, and repetitive customer communications are avoided while capabilities in other areas critical to business success are improved.

Have you seen The Customer Experience Factbook?

In this 180+ page report, you'll find all the information and support you need to build a profitable, effective CX Improvement Program that spans every part of your business.

You'll be able to implement and manage meaningful and profitable change, and grow your bottom line despite a slowing economy. Grab this goldmine of easily adaptable and up-to-date strategies, walk-throughs, trends, technologies, research, suppliers and partners, plus all the supporting arguments you need to build a solid CX strategy.

While most marketers could list maybe a dozen key points for improving their brand's Customer Experience (CX), the researchers and writers at The Marketing Factbook have identified FORTY main 'CX Keys' which will help you drive your customers to new levels of delight, loyalty, advocacy and profitability.

The areas in which customers have direct contact with your organization are perhaps the most obvious places in which CX improvements can be made, and this report addresses all 24 of these 'Direct CX Keys', applicable to offline and online businesses alike.

At the same time there are many other areas that indirectly affect CX (such as the supply chain, policies and processes) in which every business can make simple but far-reaching improvements. This report guides you through the problems and solutions for all 16 of these 'Indirect CX Keys', many of which are often forgotten or under-played even in the best CX strategies.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)