Ah, remember the mad Mad days when marketing was, at least partially, about looking good with a brandy snifter in one hand and a storyboard in the other?
Today, it’s 100% about 360-degree insight—marketers need a comprehensive customer view to provide the kind of top-line, seamless, consistent, cross-channel customer experience (CX) that consumers not only expect, but demand.
“When I started out in marketing, it used to be really, really simple,” says Darrel Kammeyer, executive director of marketing solutions at Teradata. “Campaigns were usually directed at large groups of people; we didn’t really use segments or personalization, and broadcast was the primary vehicle.”
But consider this: Pre-omnichannel, roughly 80% of consumers made their purchase decisions in-store. Now, about 80% of shoppers know what’s on their shopping list before they even enter a store. The dilemma is how to make it onto that list.
And that’s why marketers need to optimize their CX programs—and embrace the dramatic changes in customer behavior—by strategically collecting customer data and combining it into an overall view of the customer. “This stuff isn’t brain surgery anymore; you can get real time data delivered to your iPhone or iPad or anywhere and act on it,” Kammeyer says. “But gluing those data points together and getting it all to your executives and your frontline staff—that’s the challenge.”
And it certainly is a challenge. Just take a look at this (Kammeyer says his customers jokingly refer to it as his “wheel of terror”):
“It’s supposed to look complicated because it is,” Kammeyer says. “There are so many fractured touchpoints—the question becomes, how do you get out there with a strategy to implement an effective customer experience?”
Considering the complexity involved, it’s no wonder that about 55% of companies have hardly started executing their strategic omnichannel programs. In a straw poll conducted as part of a recent Teradata-sponsored webcast, it was revealed that 25% of respondents don’t have any omnichannel strategy in place. Just 1% of the listeners surveyed currently have a fully functional omnichannel program.
These findings correspond to data from Teradata’s 2013 Data-Driven Marketing Survey, which found that nearly half of marketers feel that data is the most underutilized asset within their respective organizations. Eighteen percent of marketers said they feel pressure to become more data-driven.
Well, there’s no better time that the present, Kammeyer says.
“The biggest challenge is that a lot of companies are still so overwhelmed that they don’t know where to begin, so they don’t do anything—but not doing anything is the worst mistake you can make,” he says. “If you try things and execute them to the best of your ability, then at least you’re putting your toe in the water.”
Omnichannel is here to stay. Here are some actionable tips from Kammeyer to help you get started:
- Define and prioritize channels and customer focus to differentiate your brand
- Identify the type and quality of data required and acquisition process for successful customer analysis
- Leverage new and proven analytic methods to explore and understand customer behaviors
- Provide KPIs and reporting methods to monitor business results and initiatives
- Adapt processes and systems based on customer insights, while maintaining optimal business results
- Create a relevant dialog to influence customer behavior and loyalty
“We’ve crossed over from the world of what I would call campaign management to a world of customer interaction management,” Kammeyer says. “If you’re not democratizing your data and [bringing it] together, you’re missing a very important opportunity to connect with your customers.”
There’s a lot more to learn on the topic. Click here to view Teradata’s “Delivering a Best-in-Class Customer Experience” webcast on demand.
