THE STRANGE JOURNEY OF THE 360 DEGREE VIEW OF THE CUSTOMER

THE STRANGE JOURNEY OF THE 360 DEGREE VIEW OF THE CUSTOMER

By W H Inmon

The idea of being able to look at a 360 degree of the customer has always been a good idea. People recognize that understanding your customer puts your corporation in a proactive position. And once your corporation is in a proactive position, you are in a position to control the marketplace. Other competitors dance to your tune when you are proactive. And there is great competitive advantage in being able to lead a marketplace.

The first phase of attempting to be able to have a 360 degree view of your customer – phase I – was looking at sales. You can infer a lot from the sales patterns of your customer. But looking at sales has some fundamental flaws. The major flaw is that when you look at sales you are looking into the mind of the customer AFTER they have made up their mind to make or not make a purchase. And to be effective you need to peer into the mind of your customer BEFORE the purchase decision is made. It simply is ineffective to understand your customer after the sale decision is made.

In truth looking at sales is not a true 360 degree of the customer at all.

So the first attempt in looking at the voice of your customer was a flawed path to follow.

Then came the ability to read and interpret text. With this capability came sentiment analysis. In sentiment analysis, the thoughts of the customer are captured in emails, on the Internet, in surveys, in social media and elsewhere. The thoughts of the customer are captured BEFORE the decision process for purchasing occurs. This is the optimal time to understand what your customer is thinking. This is phase II of the 360 degree understanding of the customer. Knowing what the customer is thinking is really valuable.

But there is still a problem. In order to know what to do about sentiment you have to know why sentiment is the way that it is. So phase III of the 360 view of the customer includes the context of what the sentiment is.

The three phases of the 360 degree of the customer are shown as –

An example of the difference between phase II and phase III – the “what” is being said versus the “why” it is being said – looks like –

Suppose you have a restaurant. Suppose your customers are complaining about a dish – your noodles. The sentiment is that people are upset with your noodles. You know what people are complaining about. That is the “what” of what is going through people’s heads and that is important information.

But why are people complaining about noodles? As a manager you also need to know why people are complaining. Are the noodles too salty? Too hot? Too cold? Too sweet? Why are people complaining about noodles? You need to know the why of the sentiment in order to be able to correct the problem.

It turns out that people are complaining about the noodles because the portion size is too small. It doesn’t do you any good to go into the restaurant and adjust the salt or the sugar of the recipe. If you are going to correct the problem you have to adjust the portion size.

So, in order to make the proper management decision, you have to know both the what and the why. Now you are in the mind of the customer before the buy decision is made.

So, in order to have an accurate vision of the 360 degree of the customer you need to know –

   Sales history

  What has been said

  Why things have been said

With those three components in place, it is truly possible to understand the 360 degree view of the customer. But unless all three are in place you are just spinning your wheels when it comes time for understanding your customer.

Bill Inmon lives in Denver with his wife and his Scottie dog Jeb. Jeb gets two walks a day in the summertime. Of course, when the pavement is too hot, the walks have to be in the early morning and in the late evening. Jeb looks for his girlfriend – Penelope – a llasa apso - whenever he goes on a walk. Jeb gets excited when he sees Penelope.