How retailers can deliver superior CX with unified data view and platform

Retail is unequivocally a service industry today. Even if you are a product-driven company, how you approach, engage and render a service – the customer experience (CX) you stand for – will ultimately determine your success. In recent years, heightened consumer awareness, evolved expectations and rapid digitalisation have reshaped the contours of CX. Customer experience is no longer an unquantifiable holy grail that you chase after. It now accompanies robust KPIs and data-driven strategies. How are forward-thinking retailers assimilating into this reality?

If customer-centricity is the determinant of retail success, then understanding the customers takes precedence. That is where data comes in. Thanks to high internet penetration in the Middle East, there is a deluge of data at your disposal. So, the question is, how do you harness the full potential of data? If you are operating with siloed legacy systems, under-equipped to integrate, cleanse and label data, you need to start from scratch.

So, from the get-go, you need a comprehensive strategy and pertinent technologies to maximise the potential of data. The first order of business is creating a cloud-enabled data lake by consolidating information from across channels, devices and departments. In a recent survey, siloed data was found to be the primary roadblock to good CX. Around 57% of respondents said their customer data is not unified in a single customer view (SCV).

Single customer view: Making sense of data

By definition, SCV – also called unified customer view – is an integrated and holistic representation of customer data possessed by an organisation. It enables decision-makers to view the customer data in one place, get a comprehensive understanding of purchase behaviours and leverage it to personalise messaging and engagement.

As opposed to a system where the data on a customer’s previous brand interactions lie in isolation across departments, SCV characterises unification across all channels and devices. Following data integration, brands have the opportunity to cleanse it and segment it for future use. For example, if a customer started the journey from Instagram, they can be categorised under a segment intended for future campaigns on the said social media platform. So, SCV essentially boils down to creating a single repository of customer data and making sense of it through cleansing, labelling and annotations.

In principle, SCV is a rudimentary form of customer data platform (CDP), where data unification is one among the many other possibilities. In a way, the difference between both is scale. CDP enables retailers, especially the marketing teams, to segment the database into several ways for hyper-personalisation campaigns. In an industry such as retail, where personalisation is complex due to various channels and a multitude of distinctive preferences and purchase behaviours, CDP has been a revelation, to say the least.

CDP: Putting data to good use

Say you’re trying to profile customers engaging with your brand on Instagram – your CDP can be commissioned to collect data specific to interactions with your posts. CDP, by virtue of its analytics, syndication, synchronisation and real-time segmentation capabilities, will provide you with actionable insights that can help in the fine-tuning and course-corrections of your future campaigns on Instagram. The hyper-segmentation capability of CDP is such that you can segregate first-time visitors to your social handle from repeat ones and engage them with distinct, personalised messaging and offers. The segmentation is achievable as per location preferences and across channels and social platforms.

In addition, CDP enables the deployment of marketing automation, allowing timely, meaningful engagement with customers. Real-time capabilities are consequential in retail, where bounce rates can, at times, go as high as 50%. Working in tandem with AI/ML software and CRM, CDP can unlock a pipeline of opportunities, which can be summarised as follows.

Effective data management and cloud security: The core objective behind the implementation of both SCV and CDP is to manage and secure data effectively. Cloud hosting puts data at risk of cyberattacks. But a centralised platform facilitates easy deployment of cloud security and helps comply with data regulations such as the Saudi Arabia Personal Data Protection Law.

Insight-led operations: Ideal use of CDP translates to insight-led retail operations that characterise higher efficiencies, employee productivity and savings. You are privy to nuanced information such as the “best customers” to engage with, future fashion trends and “high-value” shoppers.

Steep learning curve: With SCV and CDP, it is an ever-steep learning curve. At a time when customer behaviour is at its dynamic best, these solutions allow brands to keep pace through constant re-learning chances. Retailers can leverage the derived insights to drive innovative campaigns and attain a competitive edge.

AI/ML and marketing automation deployment: CDP can be the bedrock for the implementation of AI/ML and automation tools, which can deliver value by streamlining workflows, mechanising marketing practices, optimizing store layouts, forecasting demand and planning assortment, among other processes that traditionally required manual intervention. These deployments lead to better response times, which, in turn, translates to customer satisfaction.

Rationalising the ROI: While there is plenty of room for creative thinking and campaigns in the industry, retailers have had a hard time reconciling the budget with the ROI. This was predominantly due to a lack of data-driven forecasting. CDP can help rationalise the investment by providing nuanced insights such as the ROI per customer.

In the Middle East, progressive brands are launching ambitious campaigns and making strategic investments by leveraging SCV, CDP, and the like. That is not to say retailers must hastily adopt such solutions. One can start by performing a retail audit, which could unearth areas ripe for optimisation, followed by a feasibility check on whether or not a CDP is compatible with existing point-of-sale, marketing automation, CRM, and warehouse systems. Methodically, after all the deliberations, a CDP can be incorporated. Some of the leading brands known for their superior CX swear by the utility of these solutions. And it is easy to see why.

Written by Shehbaz Shaikh, Chief Retail Officer, REDTAG