The abundance of data available to companies today presents incredible opportunities to personalize their experiences and serve customers like never before. Today’s customer experience teams have the power to know so much more about customers, their preferences, and their history than ever.
But with technology advancements, privacy challenges, and cookie changes, it’s also never been harder to be in marketing and advertising than it is today, according to Bill Bruno, CEO of customer data company Celebrus. Although the world of data is constantly changing, Bruno says the one constant of creating a compliant first-party data set so customers can opt in or opt out sets a strong foundation for future-proofing a changing data strategy.
Bruno says that regardless of industry, most companies face four common data challenges:
- Bad data. When companies have bad data, they often spend more time trying to clean it than they do using it. Errors can occur when there are gaps in the code or data, leading to data that can’t be trusted.
- Digital identity. Customers’ digital cookies are being blocked, which means companies often don’t know who their customers are. Even if a consumer is anonymous, it helps the brand to see if they’ve interacted with them before and what they did.
- Connectivity. Many companies struggle to bring digital data where needed because they need data in different formats or systems to be useful instead of having one connected system.
- Compliance and privacy challenges. Brands don’t have much time to intervene or guide customers, and they need to use real-time data legally. Finding a trusted solution that protects customers’ data and is compliant but still gets business results can be challenging.
Bruno says one of the biggest solutions to these data gaps is for companies to be bold and question if their existing data solution is the right fit. Too often, companies settle for a data solution based on the limits of their current technology. Instead of considering if they can do it better another way, they stick with the status quo, which may be outdated or insufficient for their needs.
Also crucial to setting a clear data strategy is overcoming the siloed mentality. Bruno believes data should be considered from an enterprise perspective with a joint effort across the organization to unite clean data. A great customer experience starts with rallying departments around common goals and shared data. When marketing, sales, and customer service all collect and use their own data, it creates a poor experience for customers and internal confusion. Removing silos with a unified data system streamlines internal processes and can help companies overcome their data struggles while also delivering a top-tier customer experience.
Data plays a crucial role in delivering amazing customer experiences. Overcoming data challenges requires a focus on staying up to date with data changes but can result in clean, usable data to connect with customers.
This episode is sponsored by Celebrus.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist and the bestselling author of The Customer of the Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.