Connections’18: A shift to data-fuelled interactions

I’ve recently come back from Chicago, where I spent three days immersed in all things service, marketing and knowing our customers at Connections’18. My big takeaway from the event was about data, specifically, the approaches to and use of data.

Businesses need to catch up so that data can play a vital role in triggering and shaping interactions that meet customer demands, especially as the data and technology enables the complete transformation of Customer Experience (CX).

And the importance of meeting these demands is backed up by our recent research for the State of the Connected Customer report.

That research found that globally, 80% of customers place CX on the same rung as a company’s products and services and 67% recognise that their standard for good experiences is higher than ever.

More than half say that most companies fall short of their CX expectations, while a majority say those expectations are already impacted by technology. The greatest impact on CX comes from the IoT (60%), followed by voice-activated personal assistants (59%) and AI (51%) rounding out the top three.

57% of Singaporean customers and 53% of those in Hong Kong say AI is transforming their expectations of companies.

In our region, the sentiment varies only slightly – 57% of Singaporean customers and 53% of those in Hong Kong say AI is transforming their expectations of companies, while 84% of customers in Singapore and 73% in Hong Kong say it’s very important for companies to treat them as a person, not a number, to win their business.

It’s clear that businesses need to alter the way they work, connect, manage and forge relationships with customers. There is a need to create personalised experiences at every touchpoint and deliver service that exceeds customer expectations to drive growth.

The role of data

Key to every part of this is the analysis and use of data insights in real-time. At Connections, we heard from Adidas about how data has played a role in its transformation from a bricks and mortar company to one that now adopts online as well.

It’s a really powerful story; it cuts across just sending marketing messages for the sake of selling. We also need to serve the consumer, to create a relationship with the consumer.

Consumers in today’s world are demanding instant gratification, and online enables it. Keeping this in mind, Adidas switched its primary interface from TV to digital media to put information at the fingertips of consumers, reach them in ways they want to be reached and offer personalisation.    

With touch points across direct and indirect channels, such as its web storefront, Adidas stores and wholesale partners, imagine all of the different types of data points that it’s collecting.

Adidas can analyse this data, whether it be unknown or known customer data, gain actionable insights, and target the customer with the right message – personalised, relevant and at the right time.

Data has played a role in its transformation from a bricks and mortar company to one that now adopts online as well.

The biggest challenge for a lot of businesses collecting data, whether or not it’s on that scale, is that the data is everywhere. There's no one source and no one repository. So even with all this data, it’s impossible to know who the customer is or how to message them. So businesses need to take three actions to truly take advantage of the capabilities of data to build strong customer relationships on a bedrock of excellent CX:

• Bring data into one spot
• Understand who and where the customer is
• Trigger the right interaction at the right time

Interaction, not content

I think it's important to focus on interactions, because often as marketers we get so obsessed with a message – whats the perfect piece content that we push to a customer.

Interactions though, put the customer and their needs front and centre. Sometimes that might mean the complete opposite of a marketer’s usual practice – that you don't message them at a certain time, or you block an advertisement from them at a certain time because they're not happy with the brand.

And herein lies the key shift, moving away from marketers having to be purely focused on pushing perfect content to customers and prospects, rather towards a real time two-way street of interactions that could have a plethora of objectives, not just a marketing message; a customer message.

We need to move our mindset from ‘what's the next email that we have to send?’ or ‘what's the next campaign we can send?’ to ‘what is the real time requirement of my customer?’, ‘what is the interaction that they require?’ And the only way that we can do that is with the richness of data and triggering actions according to what the data is telling us.

Ultimately, this shift comes down to collecting, understanding and then pushing data in better ways. This is at the core of the key announcements from Connections – our partnership with Google, the launch of Interaction Studio and the integrations with our DMP products – they’re all about creating experiences that transcend the formal marketing channels and focus on the exact need of the customer, whether that’s a sales need, a service need, or a relationship need.

Local perspective: More data, legacy systems

In Asia, we have a larger population of customers, and more customers and prospects means more data. We also have a challenge of legacy systems within some of the bigger, older, family-run companies, which are struggling to keep up with the challenges of knowing where their customer data is and using it. And they’re increasingly acquiring customers, so that data load is becoming bigger.

We need to move our mindset from ‘what's the next campaign we can send?’ to ‘what is the real time requirement of my customer?’, ‘what is the interaction that they require?’

On the flip side, we've got all these amazing emerging businesses in Asia that are doing fantastic things because they're not held back by the historic ways of doing business. They’re incredibly nimble and they're using data to enhance their business, but to also create co-ops or consortiums that leverage data to better differentiate the masses. They’re not restricting their thinking to just first-party data, but exploring the benefits of unique second party data.

For example, Grab is moving into ewallet now, not just transport and food delivery services. It is able to partner with payment facilities, use location-based data and, through a move into finance, provide a richer experience for the customer.

So, I encourage you to consider the gold mine that you’re sitting on today – your data and the data within your networks or partnerships. It’s there, waiting for you to take the step and experiment with it, brainstorm with data owners in your business, and gain insights to build a more meaningful interaction with your customers and prospects.