Whether you call it the “single view”, the “golden record” or the “canonical source of truth”, the idea that you can deliver a better experience to your customers if you have a better holistic sense of who they are, how they’re engaging right now and what they’ve done in the past is passed debate. No one can seriously contest it. The level of effort required, how to get there, and so on are the subject of ongoing and robust discussion. That’s appropriate.
Not only is there no “one way”, there are many, many reputable companies that have claimed to deliver on this promise for years, only to have that promise exposed as flimsy or at the very least “not entirely true” upon more careful inspection at ordinary scale.
Rather than rehashing the customer benefit to the single view from an experience perspective, I’d like to look internally, rather than externally.
What kinds of benefits can you expect as an enterprise executive?
More Time
Whether it’s FTE heads dedicated to each of your customer silos or slivers of time apportioned to each, you’ll pick up capacity through streamlining what’s now a highly manual process of resolving inevitable data conflicts. Time is the one commodity no company can afford to be frivolous with. Time multiple people across multiple teams used to spend reconciling conflicting profile data can now be repurposed for greater impact.
Actionable Data
Data is knowledge. Knowledge is power. And power means money and security. Holding data tight, consciously or unconsciously, creates friction points within companies and departments around access. If everyone is singing from the same hymnal, versions of the truth and “ongoing sagas” are greatly diminished. Rather than fighting to get the data and cleanse it, impassioned conversations can more productively focus on what to do about that data.
More Targeted Offers, More Insights
As you spread different offers, messages and rewards across more channels, you’ll start to realize the full breadth of your offering. Different segments of people will come to you at different times for different reasons. You’ll be able to quantify that and eventually influence it through various forms of multivariate testing. Blasting the same offer to your entire audience gives you precious little insight you can work with.
Less Churn, More Sales
One unintended consequence to many old-school redemption models is that once people qualify, they often churn immediately after redemption. You buy four, get the fifth free, and then go elsewhere to repeat the process. “Mission” accomplished. Or you fly the requisite qualifying segments, earn your free flight, and then realize your past patronage has been wiped clean as well as your point balance. You’ve gone from First Class to a middle seat as if you’ve done something wrong by redeeming. The best programs delve out the kinds of motivational engagement that makes customers come more and spend more, not cash in and go away. That’s Sales Prevention, not Sales Enablement. Big difference.
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