Today’s organizations constantly generate vast volumes of data while transacting with customers daily. This data could be related to purchases, preferences, or even be born within the organizations through day-to-day operations. With customer experience becoming a differentiator for businesses while they compete, it becomes necessary to take a data-driven approach as that will lead to personalized customer experience. The buck starts with organizing and integrating the data across various functions. That will lead to a single pane of glass on the customer leading to exceptional CX and even customers believe it improves how they perceive a brand
“66% of consumers say they will share personal data about themselves if they think it will elevate their customer experience” – Redpoint and Harris
Any CX program can be successful if it is independent of technology and considers where the data resides and how it will be utilized in customer service interaction. Now, any Customer Experience (CX) initiative relies massively upon data from internal & external systems and therefore data integration must be set up the right way without any hiccups. Data integration allows businesses to unify their customer data from multiple sources and applications and create a unified view of who their customers are and what they need. This integrated view helps companies to understand customer behavior, preferences and interactions to create a better customer experience.
For example: If you decide to go to a movie theater near you and book a movie ticket by Fandango multiple steps are involved as part of that customer journey experience and the organizations can integrate data such as the nearest theatre, traffic on the route or locate your car parking can massively improve customer experience.
Why Cloud Data Integration
Data integration also allows businesses to track customer information in real-time, enabling them to react quickly to customer behavior and preferences changes. This helps companies to ensure they always provide the best customer experience possible. Data integration is also needed to have your business processes work smoothly together to serve a specific customer outcome.
In the example below, your CRM and Accounting systems have to work in sync to process a customer order and in turn the invoice should reflect in the payments. If it does not reflect on your accounting systems and the customer service rep reaches out to the customer to notify them about the payment, it could lead to a bad experience.
What happens to CX without Data Integration
Businesses need data integration to have a significant impact on their customer experience. With data integration, companies can create a unified view of their customers and experiences. Businesses cannot track customer behavior and preferences in real-time, resulting in a lack of responsiveness to customer needs.
Some challenges that typically pop up during Data integration are:
– Data is “To each his own” for every team
Simple data such as location might be stored very differently across various teams i.e, Location could be stored very differently across customer databases. So, if a Global gifting company is running birthday-specific promotions, they need to know how the location data was stored in the first place as needed to deliver the gifts to the right locations.
– Duplicate Data across various business applications
Life Insurance companies might reach out to customers for an upsell who already have purchased a specific policy type. Somehow, the data misguides a seller or service rep who might frustrate the customer.
– Missing data that might be a starting point to improve customer retention
Customer usage data should be included, such as the previous issues they faced and if these insights are not available for their next purchase, can lead to customer churn.
– No Access to data and strenuous process to retrieve this data
With data availability, businesses can integrate customer data with other systems, such as their CRM, cloud-based services, contacts, and intelligence. Companies cannot create a unified view of the customer experience across all channels, resulting in a lack of consistency in the customer experience.
Use cases of CX with Data Integration
Data integration can have a significant impact on customer experience. Here are some examples of how data integration can improve customer experience:
Personalized Experiences: Data integration allows businesses to create a unified view of their customers and experiences. This will enable companies to understand customer behavior, preferences and interactions to create personalized experiences for each customer.
Real-Time Insights: Data integration enables businesses to track customer information in real time and react quickly to changes in customer behavior and preferences. This helps companies to ensure they always provide the best customer experience possible.
Automated Processes: Data integration helps businesses automate their customer-facing processes and operations. This helps reduce the time and effort it takes to manage customer interactions and relationships. Companies can focus on providing an exceptional customer experience by automating customer-facing processes.
Conclusion
Data integration is revolutionizing the customer experience industry, allowing businesses to capitalize on the insights from customer data collected across their various platforms. By leveraging these insights, companies can create a unified customer experience, regardless of touchpoint or interaction. This unification is invaluable, allowing companies to quickly identify their customers’ needs and preferences and better serve them. As more businesses embrace the power of data integration, the customer experience will continue to improve, leading to an overall enhanced customer lifetime value.
