FEATURE


a long time. An idea of its increase in popularity and usage can be seen from a quick Google search on the term, which shows a four-fold increase in the last ten years. But just because SCV is widely used does not mean that it is widely practised – or practised effectively. Reports show that 40% of businesses still store over 80% of their customers’ data spread across different systems in their organisations2


highlighting that poor data


quality, siloed systems and difficulties integrating technology are a significant hinderance3


. With a fragmented understanding


of the customer, any attempt to achieve personalisation can only be deeply flawed. Econsultancy reports that only a fifth of marketers have developed an SCV that is actionable4


and holds


accountable a lack of digital maturity in handling data from online sources and integrating it with offline. The marketer’s challenge today is to avoid getting swamped


by all this data and turn it into actionable intelligence that helps grow revenues, margin and loyalty. Tools and techniques are now available to identify apparently different entities online which are – in fact – different activities by the same person. Some of these are technical; others are the fruit of experience... know what questions to ask the customer as they go through their purchases (without annoying them!). Such intelligent techniques allow us to see where, for instance, a single customer has browsed the website as a result of direct mail, started to purchase but then abandoned their web basket, then made their purchase on a smartphone later in the evening. Even more important, this understanding of the customer allows a company to interject communications at various points in the ‘purchase journey’ –


1 Radicati, Email Statistics Report, 2017-2021 2 Bizcommunity, Chasing the dream of the single view of the customer, 14th June 2018 3 Experian, 2015 Digital Marketing Survey 4 Econsultancy, 20% of marketers have created an actionable ‘single customer view’, April 12th 2016


perhaps soon after the basket appears to have been abandoned, offering a small discount if the purchase is completed within the hour or perhaps even offering an incentive to visit the store as anecdotal evidence suggests many customer journeys that originate online terminate in store. Getting to this point is now the goal of every truly ambitious marketer. By understanding the customer across channels, and by combining and rationalising that view to arrive at a ‘net’ behaviour picture – a real 3-dimensional, or 720o view is the result. By integrating all this data in a single repository and analysing the end-to-end customer journey on an ongoing basis means it is finally possible to clearly see which combinations in the marketing mix are generating real value and increasing sales, and which are simply a waste of time, or are failing to recognise different manifestations of the customer (such as family, phantom or duplicate emails). With data showing that around 269 billion emails were sent in 2017 to 2.6 billion email users, evenly split between business and consumer users. This vast amount of communication boils down to around 100 emails a day per person, yet their impact on loyalty, even when opened is still largely unmeasured. This level of granularity not only enables the business to


become more relevant in the way they approach the customer but by enabling them to market more efficiently to customers, but helps marketers increase buy-in from their colleagues in Finance, who are finally provided with a clear map of the way different channels interact and therefore able to help improve and if necessary increase investment where it is needed.


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