How user data becomes a competition zone

 Technology has put a period on product uniqueness. Any product or service today can be reproduced quickly and with the same quality, and the user is aware of the market and the variety of offers on it sometimes even better than your own sales representatives - thanks to the "belief. The key business driver is not the product portfolio, but the service, the customer base and the customer capital, i.e. the solvency of this base. Also, i would like to advise you to think about the possibility movers software.

Medical clinics, retail chains, banks and insurance are businesses for which reducing customer churn and maintaining customer loyalty are becoming major challenges. But according to Gartner analysts, only 5-10% of companies in these industries truly have a customer-centric culture - most are engaged in improving products and services in isolation from consumer interest.

Customer-centric can be defined as a business that declares the user experience and, as a consequence, the customization of products for it (and not vice versa) to be the core of its corporate culture. Such companies form a business development strategy based on the data of user experience analysis. Some go even further - "tailor" their product to the wishes of their customers. For example, a UK brewery changed its beer recipes based on machine analysis of consumer opinions on the Web.

CRM vs CEM

That's why one of the key trends on the market today is the transformation of CRM into CEM (Customer Experience Management) systems. The work of back offices and standard business processes of "customer processing" have been automated almost everywhere. After a business has made its work convenient with the help of CRM, it begins to make the life of its customers more convenient and learn its consumers, to involve their emotions in communicating with the brand.

According to the concept of CEM, the interaction with the customer does not end after the service or sale. In case of CEM approach a company:

work with company reviews and recommendations;

Analyze the degree of confidence in the brand by the client;

form and offer the customer a personalized offer, entertain and even integrate into the person's lifestyle.

In order to get to know the customer better and offer them the best possible products based on data, companies are increasingly integrating analytical technologies into CRM - machine learning algorithms, big data analysis, predictive analytics. For example, an analytical system in a bank may even at the moment of distributing an incoming call between operators suggest what the client is calling about and immediately connect it to the right specialist. Investment companies are building robo-advisers - automated systems that, based on personal information about a person (purpose, age, assets, resources) and market data, can quickly create the right investment portfolio for a specific investor and take those investments into trust management.

"Aeroflot has implemented cognitive data analysis technologies and aggregates structured and unstructured data on more than 40 million customers from specialized booking sites, social resources, CRM and other internal company systems to determine user preferences, improve loyalty systems and generate accurate targeted offers. And the implementation of the "Personalized Offer" program for mobile app users based on in-depth analytics of user preferences and purchases made allowed the Azbuka vkusa retail chain to increase turnover for customers who responded to a targeted offer by 30%.

You don't have to love everyone. You can selectively

In a customer-centric business, the basis of a company's income is the customer's profitability and their willingness to have a long-term relationship with your brand. You don't have to love every customer - not all of them are good for business. You need to be able to choose those whose goals are close to the company's strategic vision and goals. Focused customer outreach helps a company increase its margins by selling to profitable customers. Using CEM approach you can determine "value" of each potential client. And not only the real and potential income from the client should be taken into account, but also its influence on groups of potential and real customers, for example, in social networks.

CEM analytical tools allow to track customer behavior, take into account the experience of previous interactions, monitor customer satisfaction (feedback and recommendations), monitor the degree of risk of customer churn and, ultimately, determine whether the customer is suitable for developing relations with him, through which communication channels and with what messages to work with him best. Today it is possible to learn quite a lot about the customer: where, when and for what purpose he uses his computer and smartphone, how often and for what purpose he uses social networks, what brands and how he reviews them, whether he goes to the corporate site on your recommendation, for example, on the links from your e-mail listings. Based on the analysis of these data it is worthwhile to create an individual omni-channel strategy for communication with him/her.

The format of customer communications should take into account the strengths of each channel. Thus, the advantage of smartphones - the ability to use geolocation and accessibility anywhere, laptops and computers - viewing videos in high resolution.

The customer doesn't like you very much either.

Consumers who are in a digital environment are more aware of the products on the market, but less loyal to brands. Offline stores become a kind of "showcase" where a person chooses a product and goes online to buy it, where completely different rules of digital marketing and e-commerce apply. The opinion of a particular blogger on social networks will have a more serious impact on the final choice than direct advertising.

The real competitive advantage becomes service. Therefore, omni-channel and CEM approaches involve the integration of front and back offices: order placement, control of logistics, marketing and sales are carried out in a single IT system. Companies analyze the user's digital history (requests, views and clicks) to determine, for example, the best way and time to deliver the product to the customer and automatically select the method of payment for the purchase. This gives an impetus to the development of IT solutions at the intersection of CRM, e-commerce, payment systems and marketing: they provide businesses with simultaneous website development and hosting, order management, export control, tax management, sending of physical and digital products, customer support, etc.

CEM is not a new CRM

CEM systems, while covering more types of communications with customers, cannot be called a replacement for CRM. CEM is rather the next stage in the development of Customer Relationship Management. Therefore, the CEM approach makes sense to build into the company's existing infrastructure. Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, SalesForce, SAP are already creating or acquiring platforms that allow for comprehensive analysis of the digital customer experience. For example, solutions have already been created that analyze social networks by keywords, determining the tone of messages and the probability of making a deal with a potential customer, and then transfer the data to CRM.

The trend of a "personal" approach to users is evident, and CEM solutions allow to trace and comprehensively analyze the experience of a customer's interaction with a company, a brand or an individual product. Today, analytics company Virtal forecasts the CEM solutions market to grow from $4.36 billion to $10.77 billion by 2020.

Further technology development, self-learning machine algorithms, and the spread of the Internet of Things will help provide better service: 2.4 billion smart devices will be connected to the Net by 2018, and Microsoft predicts that by 2025 their number will increase to 80 billion. The realities of business in the next 10 years will change beyond recognition. One of the main challenges will be the restructuring of the business infrastructure for device-to-device communication, without human involvement in the process - yes, it is the refrigerator that has been described by many science fiction writers, the one that orders products in the store, or the washing machine that remotely buys powder in an online store. And it will be a completely different world of marketing, advertising, and sales.