1 Introduction
Data is one of the most important assets for achieving an ideal customer experience. For many companies, how they gather, manage, and use customer data in a way that ensures customer centricity and customer engagement can be improved.
The customer lifecycle or journey comprises various steps: It starts with creating consumer awareness of a product or a service. In the next step, the consumer will consider if this offer is relevant for him or her and will make a decision on whether to buy it or not. A purchase—or so-called “conversion”— represents the “moment of truth” (in both online and offline scenarios). But it’s not just about the conversion. The customer journey continues afterwards. Retention and advocacy are further important steps that can help a business stay in touch with its customers and furthermore can create “advocates” for a specific product or brand, with the aim that these advocates will give recommendations promoting the product or brand to their associates.
Each step of such a customer journey creates specific challenges for a retailer to address customers in the right way. Intelligent data management can help overcome these challenges, based on existing data, analytics, processing, and predictions.
To achieve the desired customer experience, various systems need to be orchestrated: in such cases, marketing automation systems are typically a central hub. Nevertheless, further systems and solutions play essential roles in enabling an individualized customer journey, while also providing valuable insights and analytics to the organization.
Internally, customer relationship management systems or product management systems are important pieces of the puzzle of how to achieve a fit-for-purpose customer experience. Furthermore, solutions that are focused on specific sales or communication channels are key, such as conversational interfaces, chat bots, individual landing pages, or solutions focused on social media marketing.
Often though, such a best-of-breed approach leads to a scattered landscape in terms of data. In such cases, data management is the key to successfully managing customer-focused business initiatives, such as personalization, conversion optimization, and customer journey orchestration (in order to determine the “next best action”). Furthermore, analytics are essential in order to continuously improve marketing measures, especially those related to individual customer interaction, but also from an overarching point of view, e.g., in order to consider if a particular marketing or sales measure has led to the desired effect.
Founded in 1993, Informatica focuses on enterprise cloud data management. The company is headquartered in Redwood City (California) and has over 4,700 employees. For over 25 years, Informatica has been providing its services to more than 9,000 customers in 82 countries.
Informatica’s Customer 360 includes a configurable customer MDM solution with a pre-built data model and role-based dashboards, and capabilities for a next-generation Customer Data Platform (CDP). The solution comprises various products and features that meet a wide range of business and IT-focused requirements. Furthermore, Informatica offers other data management solutions related to getting a 360-degree view of a product or supplier information.
