How better customer insight drives good experiences

It seems fairly straightforward: if you know who your customer is and what they want, you can deliver on their expectations. And so, as retailers we identify our persona’s, map out their journeys, build the experiences and then repeatedly look at the same generic business KPIs for the next few years trying to inch them upwards (sales, AOV, CLV etc.).

Most brands only go looking for more insight on the customer experience when those KPIs aren’t moving in the right direction – and then panic when it becomes obvious the data being collected can’t give answers. To prevent this reactive stalemate, we always recommend a two stage process to collect and liberate customer data so that it can help improve decision making, give early warnings for when experiences aren’t meeting customer expectations and enable teams to use data to accurately deliver content, products and promotions to customers.

The first step to driving good experiences is to create a value framework: a set of measurements that will put into focus the delivery of the customer experience and provide early warnings as to when it is falling short. This usually involves combining data points from all touchpoints into dashboards that can answer the ‘why’ questions we all have when the topline metrics are off. A value framework looks to measure interactions at known pain-points and moments of truth to monitor successful outcomes as well as frustration signals.

Baking a value framework into your data strategy means that:

• Data being collected is relevant for the experience you want to deliver, keeping storage to a minimum and privacy at a maximum.
• Everyone is focused on the customer rather than just the numbers, ensuring the customer is kept top of mind.
• Early warning signs of frustration and poor experiences are available from the get-go, enabling teams to react in good time.
• Teams are not having to spend time aggregating data from multiple sources and can focus on implementing solutions, not just identifying them.
• Assumptions about why customer behaviour is not as expected are kept to a minimum, improving next-step decision making abilities.
• A consolidated source of all key customer data makes it easy to understand what is being collected and how, improving transparency, security and reliability.

Once a value framework is in place, the right data is being collected and teams are empowered to focus on action – the next step is to liberate your data. Many brands have their data locked down in tools that only allow interrogation of the data rather than active use. Being able to share data across platforms means that:

• The understanding of the customer is the same across all platforms, which is key for seamless personalisation and a rich multi-channel experience.
• Marketing efforts get better returns as customers are delivered relevant, right time communications. No more abandoned basket emails or retargeting insta ads being delivered after the sale is completed.
• New channels and tools can be calibrated to engage with or find your customers quicker as there is a rich set of insight to start from.
• Teams can accelerate their activities by not having to manually move data from place to place.

Tools such as a Customer Data Platform (CDP) can be used to intentionally collect, store and disseminate information across platforms to achieve these benefits. Supporting the implementation of such a platform with a value framework to help decide the type of data to collect and the reports needed to help relevant teams learn from this data is the best way to ensure this is done properly.

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