Things haven’t changed as much as you’d think. Some 14 years ago, as a young whippersnapper in customer analytics PR, my interviews often centered on tearing down silos and building a 360-degree customer view. Still do. But while we mulled over the mechanics of understanding the customer through analytics, we didn’t talk much about the customer’s viewpoint.

At the most recent SAS Global Forum conference, it was all about customer experience. No matter the industry, or whether the topic was digital marketing, data visualization or price optimization, presenters were all looking to analytics to elevate the customer experience.

Let me give a couple for instances:

Chico’s FAS uses analytics to think like the customer.
In fact, the company’s new CMO consolidated its entire marketing department into one unified group. By eliminating silos (yes, that’s still important), they’re focusing the lens on the customer, regardless of channel. New segmentation models use data from every channel. The result: consistent messaging across all touch points. At every point in the customer journey, Chico’s uses analytics to examine how its campaigns affect customers and manage the level of contact by looking at customer engagement across all channels.

The Orlando Magic is set on personalizing fan experience while respecting their privacy. At first, the deluge of fan data seemed like a windfall – or maybe too much of a good thing. The analytics team zeroed in on data that specifically helps deliver a great fan experience. Now, they only ask for customer information when they absolutely need it. Anthony Perez, VP of business strategy, said he's always thinking about applying analytics to better engage fans and build stronger bonds and fan loyalty. One thing they don't want, he says, to be is greedy with data grabs.

Applying analytics to room assignments to keep the guest experience “magical”.
With thousands of hotel rooms to assign and thousands more potential variables, the king of customer experience uses analytics to automate the assignment process. The aim: maximize bookings while accommodating guest requests. Want a block of rooms for you and 25 cousins, with different check-out times and special requests? No problem. The automated booking system pinpoints the best rooms for you while also optimizing its inventory availability.

What happens in Vegas comes down to analytics, too.
In the highly competitive Vegas casino industry, lofty guest expectations mean that the personal touch can be the difference between retaining and losing valuable patrons. Real–time marketing, says. Natalie Osborn, senior industry consultant in the travel and hospitality practice at SAS, is the key. Osborn described three kinds of real-time marketing that apply: data-based, behavior-based and analytics-infused offers.

• Data-based offers employ business rules to generate an action.
  On the casino floor, this could be gifting a patron $25 when his loyalty card reveals he’s celebrating his birthday, or sending a host over to greet a triple-level platinum card holder.
• Behavior-based offers examine a patron’s behavior and customize a response.
  This could mean delivering specific content and offers to a potential guest searching the casino’s website for a spa package.
• Analytics-infused, real-time marketing bases recommendations on analysis of historical data and the real-time data feed.
  Real-time data tells you what the patron is doing now. You can time offers to when patrons are most likely to respond positively.

Let’s play that out a bit. Say a highly valuable patron is losing badly at roulette. There’s a risk he’ll peg your tables as unlucky and cross the street to a competitor. The casino triggers a host to personally offer him a steak dinner in his favorite on-premise restaurant (the casino knows that from the data, too). He accepts, and forgets ideas of leaving. On his way back to the casino floor, he spots a billboard for a show and buys tickets. When he tweets that he loves the show, the casino catches his comment and invites him to an exclusive after-party with the cast. A week later, the casino offers him a week-long stay. Crisis averted and the patron’s loyalty remains intact.

These innovative brands, and others, will continue to apply analytics to enhance their customers’ experience. With mobile becoming ever more ubiquitous as a channel of engagement I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet. Do you?