Do you have a “single view of the customer”?

As Paul Greenberg says,

“If you Google ‘single view of the customer’ there are between 32,000 and 107,000 references to that exact phrase on any given day and with any given algorithm.”

Paul wrote that in 2009. When I performed a Google search it returned 488,000 references to “single view of the customer”. There are a lot of people who are interested in having that single view of their customer.

This idea is something we’ve discussed in CRM circles for a long time. It’s a fancy way of saying that we want to know everything we can about our customers. Gathering this data from customer purchases, meetings, phone calls, e-mails, tweets, Facebook posts, industry community sites and other inputs gives you some great information. You store it in your CRM system and viola! You have a single view of your customer. Right?

You do have some very meaningful data. You have a customer’s transaction history across your enterprise (again this is good). But what used to be the finish line is now the starting point. What customers expect (demand) now is for you to use that data to develop meaningful insights into their business.

I remember a time when customers were nervous about the amount of information their vendors and partners were collecting on their relationship. That thinking is very 20th century. Your customers now expect you to know as much (or more) about their needs than they do and to provide insight on how they can change.

So how do you develop that insight? The concept is as simple as it’s always been but the methods have changed.

Gather as much information as you can about your customers from as many sources as possible. (Watch for a later blog post on ways to listen effectively using technology to ease the gathering process)

Analyze the data that you have gathered. Look at all of it from the customer’s viewpoint. Each post, e-mail and note taken means something (it should). What is the key? Groip those together to look for common threads.

Identify the new or changed identity of your customer. The insights you’re gaining from the analysis you performed has changed your perception (or it should) of who your customer is now and how you can help them.

Next Steps is the reminder for you to turn your insights into actions. Share these insights with your customer. Share your customer record with your customer (it’s their’s right?). Together chart a course of action.

Turning your data into insights isn’t easy. You can’t automate that process. It’s the hard work, but it’s priceless and shows your customer that you truly are interested in their business.

Don’t pat yourself on the back for having a lot of data about your customers. Save that pat for the decisions you and your customer can make together based on the insights you share. Talk about value add.

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