We’ve heard a lot lately about digital transformation, the idea that businesses are evolving how they operate – moving from traditional channels towards all things digital through the use of mobile apps, in-store digital offers, and more digital communication in general. My own experience confirms this. I love mobile banking, I’ve been spotted “showrooming” at brick-and-mortar stores, and my apps manage everything from my remote control to my alarm system.
However, as we think about businesses of the future we must consider speed to decision. The faster a business reacts to a consumer, the more likely it will secure that consumer’s business.
But do you really need powerful data management and analytics to operate an efficient digital business? I say yes, in fact - that the better your data management and analytical processes, the better the results. So ask yourself this question: Does your organization have powerful enough analytics to fuel a digital business?
Let’s talk about the role analytics plays each step along the way.
- Finding the secrets the data hold. It’s no simple task. Just gathering the data from all parts of an organization is daunting; few firms have the infrastructure even for simple data sourcing. And then, once you’ve collected data across channels (web, email, call center, social) and departments (sales, service, support), you have to apply management and analytical techniques. Data management includes performing data quality, data integration, and data structuring exercises – an arduous but essential undertaking because in order to have good analytics, you need good data. But now comes analytics – the fun part – uncovering unexpected insights unique customer behaviors based on data. It's best to think of analytics in terms of four basic forms:
- Descriptive analytics answers the question of what happened in the past.
- Diagnostic analytics helps determine why something may have occurred.
- Predictive analytics delves into what might happen in the future.
- Prescriptive analytics – the realm of the most mature organizations – posits how to replicate an event to make it occur again.
A true digital business needs to have at least descriptive and diagnostics analytics covered. And you must articulate a vision for performing predictive and prescriptive analytics if not already employing them.
- Understanding the customer decision journey. Can your organization identify customers across channels, devices, and distinct points in time? Do you know how and when I move from one device or channel to another on my way to doing business with you? Do all departments in your organization have access to this “path to purchase?” It’s hard to serve your customers effectively if you don’t understand how they’re make buying decisions. To fuel the digital business of the future, incorporating this data from digital channels and devices into a central customer profile is essential. Then, you have to actually use the data to derive the most effective marketing message – which in some cases, may be no message at all. All of this seems logical and simple. But the practice can be difficult, particularly where organizations remain extremely departmentalized. Optimization and real time decisioning offerings will assist in helping to contextualize the customer decision journey. Optimization allows for channel and time appropriate messages to be sent at the best times and in the best ways, while real time decisioning enables responding in a timely and contextual manner to customer inquiries and concerns.
. - Responding appropriately to customers. Appropriately is the key word here. When was the last time an organization sent you an offer that was timely (delivered at the “right time” and not always in “real time”), relevant to where you were on your customer decision journey with the brand, and personalized, based on information the organization should have had about you? The need to deliver appropriate offers will become more imperative as mass marketing wanes. But first, organizations must get their data and analytics in order. Then, they must identify customer journeys and map every single customer to one or many of these customer journeys. Again, this is tedious – but the results will be transformative. Put in place the concept of a customer decision hub to bring this to life - allowing your brand to leverage data and analytics for the sending of appropriate offers from a central decision making facility.
There’s no better way to get closer to your customers than to understand everything you can about them. And in today’s connected marketplace, understanding only emerges from a data and analytics perspective. Mapping how they behave and what journeys they take with your organization allows you to predict their next move. In turn you can prescribe an offer or message that will leave them charged up – and not running on empty when it comes to being satisfied with your brand and the experience you provide.
Editor's note:
This content from Jon originally appeared on Wired Innovation Insights as, "Do You Have What It Takes to Fuel a Digital Business?" Details on the analytically-driven marketing solutions Jon refers to can be found at www.sas.com/customerjourney.
