Though most retail industry executives recognize the importance of focusing their digital transformation efforts on improving customer experience, they struggle to align their data management strategy with this ultimate goal.
In the related blog post “Pivoting to a Consumer-Focused Strategy” we shared our product-centric vision on data management strategy, but attention to the customer data is as equal, if not more important. That is where we see the major gaps for many clients. At the same time, a competitive advantage can be gained by investing wisely in the adoption of customer master data management best practices.
1. The Best Experience is a Unified Experience
Retailers today are typically diversified businesses, growing by acquisitions. A customer may not even know that they purchase event tickets, book trips, and receive car repair services from the same group of companies that own the nearest grocery store (from where he may order home delivery now). Managing multiple accounts is painful for a client. The need to maintain contact information, shipping and billing addresses, consents, and preferences in multiple places only leads to frustration, operation errors, and an increase in the decision-making time for the purchase. This results in customers walking away from a purchase. Inability to consolidate accounts across multiple online and offline channels makes reporting and machine learning prediction models less reliable and insightful, limiting the ability of personalized upsell and cross-sell. It is also hard to underestimate the importance of a single unified customer experience for the development of attractive bonus programs and strengthening a connection to the brand.
That is where sophisticated data mastering will help enable the process of account data consolidation and unification of experience. This process requires the right tools, as well as strong governance and coordination mechanisms between IT and business.
2. The Best Experience is a Faultless Experience
The quality of the data can cause issues with operations and analytics. Poor data quality is damaging not only back-office operations and the consistency of analytical reports but also the customer experience. Such things as delays in delivery, incorrect content of invoices, and failed marketing communications not only deeply frustrate customers but also cause payment delays.
3. The Best Experience Involves Respect
An organization cannot benefit from establishing customer data quality and data consolidation processes if the fundamental privacy rules may be violated. This is not easy to fix without putting pedantic consent management in place and integrating it tightly with customer data management workflows. That is why a master data management solution will need flexibility from a data model, security, and workflow configuration perspective.
Our Solution
The benefits of the master data management solution implementation go beyond improving customer experience. By implementing MDM, organizations are reducing operational costs and enabling analytics. The best results will be achieved by sticking to a proven approach, and we recommend following the Infoverity FlexiFrame® strategy and implementation framework for master data management. FlexiFrame® helps to choose the right strategy, identify benefits, and get the most out of MDM solutions for retail and e-commerce organizations.
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