Driven by tech
The idea, product and principles of a SCV are nothing new. However, the advent of Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), and the rise of Cloud Platforms (Google, Microsoft, AWS) have made creating a single view of the customer easier and reduced the cost of entry. However:
- more channels mean greater complexity when it comes to confidently identifying a match across devices and between cookies
- tighter regulations around privacy and data protection have increased the risk of not being compliant and meant the ‘death’ of the 3rd party cookie
- more ‘walled gardens’, or data being held by social media providers or platforms, mean that interactions that are hidden and inaccessible to brands.
This trade-off is what makes decisions around a SCV so complex for so many brands today. Let’s take a step back and look at what a SCV is meant to do, how brands can extract its value, and why its success isn’t just down to the data (or technology).
Data from Kin + Carta and Google Cloud has revealed that 57% of business leaders see “building a single view of the customer” as the most important area of focus to enable business growth in the next 12 months.
Get the foundations right with a platform-mindset
For too many organisations there is not one SCV, but many - with different teams or functions housing their own version of their truth which they utilise to inform decision-making. This, unsurprisingly, results in disjointed campaigns, misaligned strategic and operational decision-making, and ultimately wasted or inefficient spending with a lack of realised return.
In this situation, organisations find themselves having to undertake resource-heavy and expensive analysis every time they want to bring data together, creating non-scalable data products (for example a churn model or recommender tool) which are not easily connected.
A platform mindset drives an integrated ‘horizontal’ approach by connecting and coordinating data across the customer journey. In this approach, there is a focus on the constant improvement of the SCV platform, taking on feedback to improve its capabilities as required by use cases and users. Organisations that are serious about creating one single view of their customer need to move away from the ‘project-based’ approach to analytics, and towards a platform-based approach. At Kin and Carta we call this a data-as-a-product approach, setting the foundations for real data-driven decision-making.
Set a strategy for getting to that ‘ta-da’ moment with your SCV
The SCV is an enabler in meeting the expectations of customers. It can unify different data from consumer interactions, stitching this together, and providing a more complete view of the consumer.
Analytical activities benefit from this consistent, well-structured data repository and the build of models or customer segmentation is simplified. This enables decisions to be made more readily on how to best create a personalised experience.
Too many organisations have built a SCV, or procured a CDP and immediately expect a ‘ta-da’ moment. But ultimately, without the strategy to activate and realise value from a SCV, the platform is at risk of being as useful as any other tech tool that just sits and gathers dust on the ‘virtual’ shelf.
