Engage Hub’s latest research reveals that:
- 90% of retail consumers unsubscribed from communications in the last year due to irrelevant or too frequent messaging
- Nearly half of consumers would consider switching their bank as a result of receiving a poor customer experience
The message is clear: consumers today have high expectations
Fail to keep pace with their demands or engage them with relevant material, and you risk alienating and even losing customers.
Bad communication is often responsible for this situation. Whether you’re inundating customers with irrelevant messages or failing to send them operational updates at the right time you’re likely to be missing out on delivering the seamless experience that your customers expect. Likewise, if your business operations lack cohesion and efficiency – perhaps due to disparate databases or legacy systems – it’s likely to be costing you both time and money.
But what should you do if your systems lack the agility to cope with today’s rapidly-changing requirements?
The solution lies with data orchestration: managing your data more efficiently to improve the services you offer. Here’s how.
Leverage data from your current systems
If you’re worried that some of your systems are antiquated or not fit for purpose, it can be tempting to adopt a ‘rip and replace’ approach. However, this quick-fix option is incredibly risky and rarely advisable.
Your data may be housed in different locations and different systems. But the information you’ve collated about a customer over time is incredibly valuable, as it enables you to gain and develop a precise picture of who that customer is. In other words, the data you hold will arm you with the tools you need to deliver a relevant, personalised experience.
That isn’t to say that you should manually manage your systems and operations. Not only is that expensive and time consuming but it’s subject to human error. Instead, these processes should be aligned and automated, saving your business a huge amount of extra work.
Simplify your data feeds
If you’re looking for ways to manage your data more efficiently and effectively, you need to simplify your data feeds.
Let’s use the example of parcel delivery to demonstrate. A parcel is typically scanned on numerous occasions during the delivery process: when the driver arrives to collect it, when it reaches and departs the sorting centre and when it’s out for delivery, to name a few.
The important thing here is identifying the parts of the data you need to notify customers of their parcel’s whereabouts – as well as selecting the right time to send a message.
Effective orchestration involves combining customer data from a variety of sources, such as, device, channel preference, opt-in or consent information and even data based on past behaviours or location– all into one place. That way you keep your customers up to date and deliver a connected experience across multiple channels.
Get personal to keep your customer happy
Hyper-personalised offers boost both engagement and sales. For example, a recent McKinsey report revealed that 35% of Amazon purchases result from intelligent data recommendations (such as ‘frequently bought together’ and ‘customers who bought this item also bought.’)
The more personal the information, the better. So, banks should offer updates that include things like activity, balance and budgeting tools, usage patterns to demonstrate to their customers that they care about the service they provide and to differentiate themselves from the competition. Retailers should provide promotions to their click and collect customers that would push them to do enter the store, with potentially additional incentives around the loyalty programme.By combining this level of service with messages that are of genuine interest to the recipient, retailers can boost retention rates.
This,however, isn’t always easy because these types of services involve data reconciliation.
Understand the importance of avoiding disparate communications and you’re on the path to delivering a consistent communication experience, leading to increased customer satisfaction levels and improved sales.
Reach your full potential with a customer engagement platform
It stands to reason that you’ll be more successful if your services are faster and better connected. A recent Forbes survey of 357 executives of large organisations across a range of industries found that benefits range from reducing costs to boosting efficiency, as well as improving the customer experience.
But how do you go about achieving that?
The answer is simple. You need a customer engagement platform that enables data orchestration, so that you can automate and manage all your data in one place. In other words, you gain power by turning customer data into actionable insights.
At Engage Hub, we’re specialists in customer engagement. Our flexible logic builder configures services while the CRM effortlessly manages your data. Ultimately, our platform integrates all channels into a single system, empowering you to deliver personalised cross-channel messages that resonate with your customers.
Data orchestration is fundamental in driving effective customer engagement. If you want to stay ahead of the curve – and remain ahead of the competition – this approach allows more agility and flexibility, which means you’re best positioned to act swiftly whenever the need arises.
Want to learn more about how data orchestration will benefit your business? Get in touch.
