Around the world, CMOs are pushing their teams to combine all the data they collect about customers into a “single customer view,” where they can see one complete, cross-channel story about each customer and their unique journey.
But that’s proving to be a real challenge. A number of studies have found that despite being top of mind for marketers, only a select few have successfully implemented a single customer view. For the most part, marketers have been held back by bad data, lack of technological infrastructure and organizational rigidity.
Experian, a global marketing services provider, recently published its 2015 Digital Marketer Report, for which researchers polled 1,000 marketers globally about whether they’d attained a single user view. Only 24% said they had.
Globally, respondents said attaining a single customer view was the biggest barrier they faced to adopting a cross-channel marketing strategy.
The North American numbers were a little different — U.S. and Canadian marketers ranked organizational structure as the biggest barrier to having a cross-channel strategy. Thirty-eight percent said it was a problem, compared to 31% who said obtaining a single user view was a problem.
The vast majority of marketers (89%) said they’ve experienced challenges in arriving at a single customer view, with the most significant of these being poor data quality, followed by siloed departments and inability to link different technologies.
Again the numbers were different for U.S. and Canada, where siloed departments were the number one challenge, experienced by 43% of marketers. A close second was inability to link different technologies, which 42% identified as a major hindrance.
Though North American markets seem to be less concerned about data than their overseas counterparts, it was clear concerns about customer data hygiene have been growing everywhere. Experian cited another study from earlier this year finding that on average, marketers now estimate 26% of their data may be inaccurate, compared to 22% last year and 17% in 2013. Concerns were actually the highest in the U.S., where marketers estimate 32% of their data is inaccurate.
“Data remains the mainstay of creating a complete customer view. Without a winning strategy and the right technology for collecting, linking and managing all the structured and unstructured data coming into an organization today, brands will not be able to create customer experiences that will hold the attention of today’s omnichannel consumers,” the study authors wrote.
You can check out Experian’s full 122-page report here, including its recommendations for dealing with data quality issues and channel silos.
