Are your customer experience (CX) and data strategy working in harmony or in silos? For some brands, there’s a disconnect between the two. Often data collection is piecemeal and fragmented on the CX side. There can be a gap in knowledge between what is available on the data front and what information is possible to leverage. This misalignment impacts the ability to accelerate efforts and drive positive CX outcomes.

This article will explore insights from the second webinar, Powering CX with a more intentional data strategy in our three-part series with Arktic Fox, Mastering CX: Balancing strategy, data and tech to gain the competitive edge.

The importance of a unifiable, actionable data set

 

Intentional data collection is about working with customers in the moment to increase engagement and collect first-party data. Customers are prompted to opt-in for alerts and updates or provide certain data at the most relevant moment in the customer journey as opposed to trying to collect it all upfront.

There are four key ingredients to deliver a robust and intentional data strategy to support CX delivery.

 

1. Intentional data collection has to align with CX goals. Intentional data collection requires marketers to step outside of silos and think about the end-to-end experience for the customer along with the data that underpins it. In other words, there can be no capturing data sporadically for one channel here and another channel there as and when needs arise. It requires a creative approach to collect data, particularly because every brand today is prioritising first-party data capture and collection. So, customers need to see what they stand to gain for providing their data.
2. Technology can help build an actionable, unified dataset. In Australia, many brands are attempting to unify data sets, but how they’re doing it differs from one brand to another. Customer data platforms (CDPs) are being adopted mostly by enterprise-size businesses, mid-size brands are adopting CDPs in far fewer numbers, and others are relying on CRMs to aggregate and unify data. Unfortunately, aggregating and unifying through CRMs or even more traditional data warehouses won’t provide the high levels of accessibility needed to activate data, nor do these platforms have the ability to effectively manage identity resolution and enable agility. Without a unified dataset that is actionable and creates and enables agility, the evolution of customer experience is slow and painful. Whether you choose a top-down or bottom-up approach to building an actionable data set depends on the data maturity and readiness of your organisation. For example, a bottom-up approach might be the only way to prove value quickly and enable a company to start to evolve CX delivery in a timely manner. On the contrary, a top-down approach will be much slower as you have to work harder to gain buy-in from across the organisation for such a large investment.
3. Privacy has to be front and center in the data strategy. Privacy matters to customers. Brands haven’t made it easy for customers to manage privacy, and they want change. This is why the Australian government is overhauling the Privacy Act. Countless research studies at a global and local level reinforce that customers want more control over how their data is used, more transparency over how it is collected and activated, and they want to be compensated. Privacy breaches undermine and undo any goodwill you’ve built with customers. You can deliver the best of the best experiences, but if you’re not managing data responsibly or thinking about privacy when executing your CX, then you'll be increasingly out of step with what matters most to your customers. Privacy has to be considered when thinking about data and CX. Giving customers more control and flexibility over their data and what is being utilised in order to deliver experiences will help you build and maintain trust with your customers.
4. Data literacy skills are necessary. Data and analytics are by far the biggest skill gap within teams. Two thirds of teams have not built strong data literacy within their departments limiting their ability to effectively activate and leverage the data for CX delivery. Brands need to invest appropriately within their teams to power CX and personalisation.  

NOVA Entertainment: Making data actionable to enhance CX

 

NOVA Entertainment is working to activate data in unique and useful ways to improve their customer experience. They focus on first-party data collection across their platforms, including radio stations, podcasts, and live-streaming stations. They know they’ll never have first-party data on all their audiences so they’re more strategic about the data they collect with a focus on how to utilise it. By focusing on the quality and application of first-party data, rather than quantity, they can continue to deliver valuable experiences to audiences and maintain a competitive edge in the evolving audio market. They use MarTech as a way to support and enhance their CX strategy keeping their customer data centralised, which gives them a more complete view of what data they have and how they can activate it for CX delivery to enhance their audience experiences across the audio landscape.  

For more insights about how the right data strategy can power CX is shaping the Australian market, explore the other sessions in our Mastering CX webinar series or watch the full instant replay of session two, Powering CX with a more intentional data strategy. Also, be sure to check out our book, Charting a new course in CX delivery.