Anthony Uliano started AMC Technology over 28 years ago after seeing an opportunity to streamline contact centers data collection. Leading the CTI industry, Uliano has well rounded insight into what 360 Customer Data Consolidation is all about and how it can benefit contact centers bottom line.
We caught up with him to find out his take on what customer data consolidation is in his own words in this quick Q and A session:
1. In your own words, define 360 Customer Data Consolidation.
360 Customer Data Consolidation is a way of improving the customer / employee experience by improving access to profile and interaction data across systems. Many enterprises have separate systems (for sales, support, marketing) and separate touch points (call center, website, mobile app, etc.), but without a goal of strategic consolidation of all these touchpoints and data sources.
One thing to note, data consolidation is not a new concept. CRM companies have led the charge on this topic by suggesting that businesses put all their customer data into their single platform. Our concept is more of a virtual consolidation of customer data. Regardless of where the data resides at rest, it can be consolidated and accessed in real time for improved customer journeys and organization outcomes.
2. What types of information can 360 customer data consolidation show?
360 Data Consolidation is more about strategic data management. Overwhelming the customer/employee with too much data leads to bad outcomes. It can dramatically improve customer experience and organizational efficiency. For example, a customer starts a return on the website, but chooses to make the actual return at a physical location. As the customer walking into the store, their mobile app automatically lets the employee know they’ve walked in and had just initiated a return. The employee can then interact with the customer more efficiently, maybe by offering the item in another size. This is an example of strategic data consolidation.
3. What are the benefits of having a 360 Customer Data view?
- Regardless of how a customer engages with an organization, 360 Customer Data can improve the customer experience.
- Improve organizational outcomes by anticipating the next best action by many systems
- Allow organizations to define their ideal customer journey and compose solutions regardless of where the data is stored, what touchpoints the customer uses.
4. What are limits organizations’ experience without 360 customer data consolidation?
Organizations without this consolidation are missing tremendous opportunities for improved customer experience and improved organization efficiency. Organizations tend to be somewhat siloed, with data segregation and touch point segregation. 360 Data Consolidation is a way to overcome these silos in real-time to improve customer and organizational experiences.
5. I want a 360 customer view. What do I do first?
First, audit your data source and touchpoints during a customer’s lifecycle. Once you clearly understand data sources and touchpoints, then you need to build a workflow that has visibility into these systems and deploy the workflow into the various touchpoints. 360 Data Consolidation goes hand in hand with a real-time context tracking engine.
6. If I implement the solutions I need to get a 360 customer view, how soon will I see benefits?
Organizations will realize increased productivity and efficiency immediately, as time is saved not having to perform manual search and data access. Benefits to the customer will take further time, as you incorporate 360 Data Consolidation and Real-Time Context Tracking into each touchpoint.
7. What do you need in place to begin implementing a 360 data strategy?
A customer needs a powerful workflow engine that has access across data sources and a real-time context tracking mechanism.
8. What are characteristics of an ultimate or superior 360 customer view?
With a solid 360 Customer Data strategy and real-time context tracking, you’re well on your way to improving customer journeys and improving organization outcomes. The ultimate use case, is when bots can be deployed that utilize the consolidated data and context tracking to aid the organization in better engagement, more revenue, more efficient interactions, and greater customer satisfaction of common activities, while employees can be utilized for more specialized high touchpoint interactions.
9. What is the future of 360 customer data consolidation?
360 Customer Data Consolidation combined with real-time context tracking, so regardless of touchpoint and customer intention, the organization’s resources can respond quickly and with agility.
10. Do you envision the removal of third-party cookies impacting 360 customer data consolidation in multi-touch journeys?
Removal of 3rd party cookies may require organizations to identify gaps in context tracking, if it includes tracking beyond the boundaries of the organization. A proper data consolidation strategy will be permissions-based from the start, so it shouldn’t be impacted by the removal of 3rd party cookies.
