Pillar 2

Analyze: Gaining a 360-degree view of the customer

Pillar 2 - Analyze

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty believes that only 20 percent of the world’s data is currently usable for businesses. The other 80 percent, the “dark data” of the world, is collected but never analyzed or structured, representing a huge missed opportunity for companies. One of the reasons for this is the fragmentation of data systems that occurs at almost every business.

Businesses collect and store a lot of customer data during normal operations, but it’s stored across multiple teams, systems, and servers. For example, the development team is storing user logs that show errors, time spent in the app, and a vast amount of other useful information. Customer support has years of customer conversations stored in their help desk app. Marketing collects NPS survey results in a CRM app. Each department only has eyes on a tiny slice of the total data that’s being collected.

The problem with all of this data being segregated is that businesses can’t access it for use in their CEM programs. Remember, successful CEM programs require breaking down silos for a complete view of the customer journey.

Move beyond surveys to contextual conversations

When attempting to piece together what customers feel, each department is left to its own devices. What often happens is that, instead of using the data the business already has collected in another capacity, independent teams go out and survey customers. And while surveys can be effective tools for a closed-loop feedback process, they have several flaws.

First, while you still need the data from customers, they aren’t as happy to answer the questions anymore. In a recent study of 1000 consumers, Customer Thermometer found that 70 percent of people have abandoned a survey before completing it, and 45 percent of customers tend to ignore requests for feedback. In fact, only nine percent of customers answer thoughtfully.

When independent teams are left to collect their own data, they likely ask questions the wider business already has answers to. Customers know that they’ve already provided this information and become frustrated. Alternatively, multiple departments might not coordinate surveys between them, bombarding customers with surveys at the same time.

Together, these two issues lead to survey fatigue, making it more difficult to get a meaningful number of responses back to the questions organizations really do need to be asking.

70% of people have abandoned a survey before completing it;
45% of customers tend to ignore requests for feedback. In fact,
only 9% of customers answer thoughtfully.

Second, customer surveys only measure feelings and intent. They don’t track customer action. Even if a customer says they are satisfied after a customer support interaction, they still might not repurchase, or they might use your product a little less. Surveys alone can’t capture the reason why.

Open APIs allow for full organization integration

At Cisco, we want to eliminate all barriers for companies integrating all of the data sources they operate with today. That means every team can pull in the necessary data they need to meet their CEM goals, regardless of whether it’s stored in a CRM, advertising platform, or server log. Liberating customer data from the silos it currently resides in allows every employee to make better decisions on behalf of the customer.

In order to deliver a personalized experience, businesses need to pull together all of this data into one place. Let’s look at two use cases for unified customer experience data: proactive customer support and marketing automation.

Proactive customer support

Customers don’t want to contact support. It’s usually time-consuming and frustrating. And, studies show the more effort customers need to put into resolving issues, the less likely they are to be repeat customers. In fact, many customers won’t even contact support when they encounter a problem. They jump right to leaving a negative review online, without even giving your team a chance to resolve the issue.

This is why many companies strive to be proactive. Proactive support is about identifying and resolving customer issues before they become problems.

However, most proactive support today isn’t really proactive. Self-service content and closing a feedback loop are often incorrectly categorized as proactive support because they address a customer’s question without them directly asking a support agent in the call center. Until recently, that’s the furthest ahead of a customer complaint that companies could get. That’s because it can be difficult to read customers' minds to anticipate their next question.

But when you start integrating data from the customer journey into a customer support strategy, it’s possible to predict when a customer will run into their next problem. And smart companies can get ahead of the issue before it becomes a problem (and avoid the resulting negative review).

Shipping is a key stage in any ecommerce customer journey. It’s also one of the most likely sources of frustration. But by integrating order details, the fulfilment platform and delivery details into the customer journey map, customer support can trigger interactions with customers before they even notice an issue. Notifying a customer that their order is delayed by a day (and attaching a 20 percent off coupon for their next order) delivers a much better experience to customers.

Proactive support can also help uncover hidden detractors by triggering brand interactions at just the right time. For example, a drop in mobile app usage might trigger an NPS survey to be sent. Providing opportunities for positive interactions in the customer journey will help to improve the overall customer experience.

Being truly proactive and predictive, requires an open ecosystem of APIs. With data siloed across an organization, it’s impossible to see the big picture. Companies need to be able to access valuable information in the same place to execute a proactive strategy.

Marketing automation

Sixty-two percent of marketers believe they need more sophisticated segmentation strategies. We believe segmentation needs to start with the integration of customer data from across the business.

Most marketing cohorts today are defined by demographics. For example, businesses group together all upper-class males, aged 65 and over into the same marketing cohort. But that’s not always the most accurate representation. Consider Ozzy Osbourne and Prince Charles. Alike in every demographic you could think of—but would you market to them the same way? Absolutely not.

Delivering the best customer experience means businesses need to be interacting with customers based on their behavior—not just their persona. Developing these intelligent cohorts means integrating survey data, user activity, and brand interactions, along with demographic data in order to truly understand the customer you’re talking to.

Most marketing practitioners agree that in order to get the most value from their data-driven marketing efforts, technology integration needs to improve. From the same Data & Marketing Associated study mentioned earlier in this document, "Foremost among these [concerns], and for the second consecutive year, panelists said that better integration of their advertising and marketing technologies would be most helpful in advancing their ability to derive value from DDMA [data driven marketing and advertising] efforts."

The good news is that marketing teams already have most of the data they need to develop effective marketing automation strategies. The issue is unlocking this data to make it work for them.

Summary of
Pillar 2 - Analyze

Companies’ data is fragmented across functional teams
and their software, leading to incomplete pictures of the customer journey.

For successful CEM, companies will want to integrate the
data they already have into one platform so that it’s actionable.

Democratizing data empowers every business function and
employee to make data-driven decisions, based on real customer information.

Integrated data provides opportunities for proactive
support and advanced marketing automation.