The process of implementing an enterprise data management solution to support your business objectives can be challenging and even overwhelming at times. But with the right strategy in place, you’ll be able to gain some major benefits from this effort, including cost savings, streamlined access to data, and improvements in data quality. To learn more about these benefits and others like them, keep reading to find out more about implementing a Customer Data Platform (CDP).
Benefits of Implementing a CDP (Customer Data Platform)
1) Customers are more engaged
One of the top advantages of implementing a CDP is that customers are more engaged with your brand. When you provide better service, you receive better feedback, which results in happier customers who will share their experience and return to your company.
Having access to data from all of your customer touchpoints allows you to provide them with up-to-date information and address any concerns they may have before they become an issue.
2) Streamlined digital customer experience
A robust Customer Data Platform streamlines your digital customer experience by providing you with one central place to house all your company’s customer data, regardless of which platform(s) it lives on.
For example, if you have CRM data in Salesforce and Google Analytics data, both can be imported into your CDP. As customers interact with your business across different channels (web, mobile web, mobile apps), their interactions are automatically captured and updated in one place within your CDP.
3) Reduced friction in customer experience journey
One study from Zuberance revealed that customers have to fill out an average of 18 forms or jump through 17 pages to complete a purchase. Even worse, 44% of these customers abandoned their shopping cart and never returned.
By implementing a customer data platform, business owners can reduce friction in their customer experience journey by getting relevant information from consumers at just the right time.
4) Improved data quality and customer profiles
One big pain point when you’re looking to build customer profiles is that they can be very fragmented and patchy. This can lead to inaccurate customer profiles, which can in turn lead to poor data quality and sub-optimal marketing strategies.
However, investing in a Customer Data Platform enables you to centralize all your customer data into one place and use it for profiling purposes. This will deliver more accurate information about customers; leading to higher quality marketing campaigns.
5) Better customer experience, lower costs
The importance of data in digital marketing is impossible to ignore, but that doesn’t mean all businesses need their own technology stack. While investing in multiple point solutions may be easier than seeking out one solution, it can also cost you more and create silos that inhibit your ability to gain insights across your business.
A Customer Data Platform gives companies visibility into their entire customer base regardless of how they were acquired or what channel they were purchased through.
6) Increased cross-selling opportunities
When you know your customers better, you can create more personalized interactions that offer deeper value and expand into additional products and services.
When you’re able to send automated, personalized messages at just the right time, it has been shown to reduce customer churn by up to 50 percent. If a client is interested in upgrading their hardware but due to financial reasons are unable to do so at that particular time, offering them additional financing options could be an option for keeping them from canceling their contract.
7) Customer empowerment & retention
Challenges of Implementing a CDP
When you have an accurate and complete view of your customers, their behavior, and how they engage with your brand across multiple channels, you’re able to better cater to their needs.
Consequently, they feel valued and more engaged which often results in increased spending. The other benefit is that customers who feel engaged with your brand are likely to remain with you for longer, which means greater retention rates over time.
Challenge #1: Lack of Top-Down Support
Building, managing, and operating a customer data platform (CDP) is not easy. It’s a complex undertaking with many moving parts and considerable effort to extract value. If you don’t have strong leadership support, it will be hard to rally people around your initiative.
Challenge #2: Anonymized Data Is Insufficient for User Profiling and Segmentation
A customer data platform gives users access to tons of anonymized user data, but to do effective customer segmentation and user profiling, you’ll need personally identifiable information. This doesn’t mean your CDP can’t be used for product personalization; it just means that it won’t be as powerful as you might like.
Challenge #3: Integrating data into decision-making is not straightforward
Businesses want to be able to use customer data to make more informed decisions, but they aren’t always certain how to do so. After all, every industry is different, and gathering, integrating, and analyzing customer data can be difficult without expert support. It’s important for businesses to have access to best practices, quality technology, and industry expertise when adopting new technologies—especially for data integration.
Challenge #4: Building a Business Case for Change
Adopting any new technology has to be addressed from two angles: there’s no point in investing in software if your organization doesn’t already see value from adopting it. The same applies to CDPs, so what are they looking to get out of having one? According to Gartner, 44%
would like a better insight into their customer lifetime value (CLV), while 25% want greater access to customer data.
Challenge #5: Stealing Customers Away From Your Competitors
When you’re an industry player with entrenched customers, you can find yourself in a real pickle when it comes to adopting customer data platforms. Sure, they’re making your business more efficient and profitable. But your customer relationships are made up of years of trust and loyalty—which means adoption usually isn’t simple. How do you convince loyal customers to make such a drastic change?
Conclusion
A customer data platform or CDP, if it’s done right, can be hugely beneficial to an organization by providing greater insights about their customers and prospects.
However, there are many challenges to implementing one that companies need to be aware of and prepared to face. This article covers the five main challenges and how they can help you with your business. Besides you can even take the help of a CDP consultant like Muse Digital to have the strategic approach to implementation.