Who owns the customer?

In the unfortunately persistent tussle between marketing & IT, it often comes down to this: who owns the customer? That's the subject of ADMA's Brave Marketing Podcast episode 2.

Technology departments sometimes claim ownership of the customer, because they "own" the technology that brands use to connect with the customer. Marketing claims ownership of the customer, because they're the ones who create the messaging to talk to the customer. Sales, service, the executive, everybody wants ownership of the customer. So who owns the hapless customer, who really just wants a good experience without Conway's Law getting in the way?

In my experience, the best customer experience comes from brands who share the ownership of the customer. Where the various stakeholders of the company are battling to own the touchpoints with the customer - whether overtly or as an undercurrent in the board - is where the experience of the customer seems to slip between the cracks. But brings those teams together to collaborate and then you can get some real magic happening.

This aligns with one of the key recommendations from the recent Gartner report Predicts 2020: Marketers, They're Just Not That Into You:

Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align enterprise wide personalization efforts, optimize budget and resource allocation, and increase momentum. Ceding some control can lead to shared insight and expand collective impact and ROI.

Citation: (Gartner, Predicts 2020: Marketers, They're Not Just That Into You; Benjamin Bloom, Jennifer Polk, Charles Golvin; 11 November 2019)

When the SBOS team run workshops to create an optimization roadmap, we always recommend a broad team of personnel are included, including marketing, IT, sales, service, business development. I've had call centre staff, shopfront staff and once a truck driver in there (and they made amazing contributions). Over and over again, we find that this gives us the best outcome both in terms of ownership of the customer experience project, and in the results for the optimization tactics.

In summary, I'd say this: Don't make the mistake of assuming that because you own the technology, or the messaging, or some part of the customer experience, that you "own" the customer. The whole business does - and in fact should - own the customer. Because at the end of the day, the customer owns the whole company. If your departments are connected in building customer experience, your customer's experience will be connected.

Listen to the ADMA Brave Marketing Podcast here: https://www.adma.com.au/podcasts/brave-marketing-podcast-series