Why Data and Customer Experience Should Go Hand In Hand For CMOs

Posted: 11 Oct 2016 07:59 AM PDT

Let's dispense with the amenities and jump right in. For nearly three in 10 enterprises, data-driven CX is already delivering a significant shift in elevating customer experiences.

That stat comes courtesy of Data Elevates the Customer Experience: New Ways of Discovering and Applying Customer Insights, a report released by Forbes Insights earlier this year covering the findings of a survey of over 350 global senior executives across a range of industries and functions.

And that number of 3 in 10 will be growing significantly over the next two years:

Captain Obvious, White Courtesy Phone

The reasons why we're seeing such growth in the importance of data and analytics when it comes to customer experience should be, yes... obvious.

Today’s customers have high expectations for a consistent, meaningful, personalized experience. And yes this goes for both B2C and B2B customers.
Truly knowing your customers - their preferences, buying patterns, purchase history, key demographics, etc. - is at the core of providing a meaningful customer experience.
Every single day there are 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created. To break it down to put this into human terms - because who even knows what a quintillion is, every minute of every day there are
- 2 million Google search queries
- Over 700,000 Facebook logins
- 150 emails sent
- Over half a million photos shared via Snapchat
- And yes, a whole lot more

So on one hand you have the customer who, at this point, knows you know a lot about them and such expects and quite frankly demands a personalized customer experience.

On the other hand you have all that data - the part where the customer knows you know a lot about them - out there that you need to use to its maximum advantage and oh yeah, do so across multiple channels.

See why I paged Captain Obvious?

Data Driven CX Also Benefits You

The above use of the word "you" is a euphemism of sorts as it's meant to imply a data driven CX benefits the entire organization and not just the CMO. As the Forbes paper states "Data-driven customer experience delivers just as much of a positive experience to organizations as it does to customers."

In fact take a look at the #1 benefit named when it comes to the use of data analytics in the context of CX.

That's right, executives surveyed said their decision-making is benefitting from a data-driven CX.

The problem or challenge lies in the fact that in most companies, the technologies, data systems, and people who are responsible for delivering that experience are not integrated, resulting in a disjointed, lackluster customer experience.

Moreover, marketers struggle with data silos within their own organization as they try to integrate customer data across multiple systems - email, web, commerce, service, loyalty, social, etc. Even if they are able to successfully unite data across these systems, once customer start to move across devices and channels, most marketing systems lose track of who’s who.

Wrapping It Up

As customer expectations continue to rise, businesses need to appoint a senior executive like the Chief Marketing Officer to deliver exceptional, end-to-end customer experiences. It’s a tall order, but if done right, enhanced customer experiences translate into loyalty, repeat business, and revenue.

Download Should the Chief Marketing Officer Oversee the Whole Customer Experience? to learn how businesses can set CMOs up for success.