An exceptional customer experience (CX) starts with hyper-personalization. Customers want brands to know them and understand their needs. They expect tailored communications, special offers and seamless experiences from your brand. A customer data platform (CDP) unifies customer profiles and powers personalization. Here are eight benefits of implementing a CDP.
A customer data platform:
1. Centralizes your data and customer profiles
One of a CDP’s top benefits is that you get all your customer data in one place. The CDP collects, stores and integrates customer data from multiple sources—including customer relationship management (CRM) software, contact center systems, billing records, browsing history and electronic medical records—and consolidates it to create a unified profile for every customer.
2. Reduces data silos
Sales and marketing, billing and customer service departments track and store customer data using different systems. This creates data silos that prevent information from being effectively shared across your organization. A CDP reduces silos by making customer information accessible across departments.
The unified data platform helps you make better decisions, coordinate communications and provide support quickly.
3. Improves personalization
A McKinsey study found that 71% of customers expect personalized interactions and 76% feel frustrated if a company doesn’t deliver a tailored experience. Personalization is no longer merely nice to have—it’s a necessity. In fact, in a survey of 484 global CX leaders, 46% of respondents said customers expect more personalization.
The real-time customer data profile provides information about customer behavior, preferences and needs— essential for personalizing communications and experiences. The data profile allows you to recommend relevant products and offers based on customer preferences and usage history. For example, you could recommend an upgraded wireless data plan to a customer who often exceeds their current data limit.
4. Enhances data privacy compliance
Your customers provide their personal data to enable a tailored, seamless digital experience—and they expect your business to protect that information. One significant CDP benefit is that the platform helps keep your customers’ data secure and your company compliant with regulations.
5. Increases revenue
Data empowers you to make thoughtful decisions. Combining the power of a CDP and customer journey management (CJM) software helps you create individualized experiences, increase engagement and boost brand loyalty.
Enhanced communication translates to higher conversion rates and increased revenue. McKinsey found that personalization marketing boosts revenue by between 5% and 15%, reduces the cost of acquisition by as much as 50% and increases marketing return on investment by between 10% and 30%.
6. Enables an omnichannel customer experience
Customers value streamlined operations and consistent communications across departments. According to the previously mentioned survey of 484 global CX leaders, more than half (57%) said that customers expect departments to be seamlessly integrated for quick resolution and support.
By centralizing customer data and creating a unified customer profile, a CDP allows you to deliver consistent messages across channels—including email, text and contact centers—and departments. Omnichannel experiences make your customers feel valued and appreciated, leading to customer loyalty, retention and brand advocacy.
7. Boosts operational efficiency
A CDP benefits your business through automation. You can streamline mundane tasks, enabling you to focus on critical aspects of your business operations and save time and money. For example, save contact center agent and customer time by ensuring a customer call is immediately routed to the correct department.
When data is collected on one platform, your operation can avoid content gaps and redundancies. The CDP offers the most up-to-date insights on the experiences your customers want.
8. Provides a better customer experience
Customers expect your business to understand and anticipate their needs. With CJM support, a CDP enables you to create memorable, engaging and relevant experiences and interactions. The improved CX builds loyalty, which increases retention and expands customer lifetime value.
Why You Need a CDP With CJM
The benefits of data platforms are evident. You need marketing technology (MarTech) that manages your customer data, but it takes more than that to craft an outstanding customer experience. Data alone isn’t sufficient to improve CX.
You need a solution that makes customer data actionable. A CJM system determines how to use customer data to deliver relevant, timely touchpoints. For example, when the journey management system detects a customer’s bill due date is approaching, it sends a message via the customer’s preferred channel—text, email, call, etc.—nudging the person to make a payment before the account is overdue.
Combining a CDP with CJM enables exceptional:
- Activation. On its own, a CDP can’t communicate messages in real time based on customer intent. The delay in sending messages can mean missed opportunities. If you wait three days to notify someone their credit card may have had fraudulent activity, it is too late. By then, a customer’s account may have already been compromised, and the customer may distrust your brand. A CDP with CJM enables you to send tailored messages when they will have the most impact—right away.
- Personalization. A CDP allows you to customize messaging through elements like name and demographics. A CJM provides context on customer behavior and intent to individualize messaging and offers, enhancing customer experience further. For example, a CJM system may send an email comparing flooring options to someone who recently purchased paint—an action that indicates home renovations or a similar project.
Journey-centric decisioning. Starting with the customer data profile, a CJM provides intelligent, journey-centric decisioning, sending the proper communications to customers on multiple journeys. For example, the system won’t send a message offering a line of home equity while someone is going through a collection journey on their mortgage loan.
Partner With a Proven Customer Engagement Leader
CSG’s CX solutions include a CDP and intelligent decisioning to apply customer data to improve CX. As a purpose-driven software-as-a-service (SaaS) company with a proven track record, we have what it takes to improve your customer experience creation. We provide:
- Experience and expertise. CSG has 40-plus years of experience delivering technologies to industry-leading organizations worldwide. We proudly serve thousands of companies, helping them do exceptional things for their customers.
- Award-winning technology. We hold numerous awards and titles. CSG was named a Leader in the Spark Matrix™: Customer Data Platform (CDP), 2022. The recognition was for our CDP’s comprehensive data collection, ingestion, profile unification and segmentation capabilities.
Accelerated growth. Our team is driven by a strong sense of purpose. We are committed to helping you see astonishing growth and enabling you to provide first-rate experiences across the customer life cycle.
Tackle Your Customer Experience Challenges With CSG Xponent
CSG Xponent delivers unforgettable experiences through customers’ preferred channels.
Xponent includes a customer data platform, journey analytics and journey orchestration. The system analyzes customer behavior, predicts their needs and intent, then guides them to the next best action to meet those needs.
Take your CX to the next level
CSG Xponent readily integrates with existing customer engagement systems, enhancing functionality and providing real-time responses. Speak to an expert today to start making the most of the benefits of customer data platforms.
