From a conversation with a store manager to real-time digital tracking, data about your customers guides your business. As data collection becomes more widespread, consolidating and analyzing it becomes far more difficult. Just as data is everywhere, all the time, customers are too, and they can interact with your business through multiple channels. People want to feel like companies are loyal to them, not just the other way around. One way to keep your customers is to show that you truly know their particular preferences, habits, and needs whether they’re contacting you as @Love2Hike99 or jsmith@jsmith.com.
What is an SCV? A "single customer view" or SCV helps businesses create profitable customer experiences, generate accurate and actionable insight, and offer reliable, relevant services no matter how a customer interacts with the brand. Here’s how to build an SCV for your business.
One Customer, One Truth
A single customer view combines all relevant customer data from all accessible sources into a single customer record. SCVs can contain demographic and contact information, purchase and loyalty program history, digital engagement, and previous communications. Customer information is consolidated into an SCV to avoid duplication and inaccuracies far more efficiently than data entry or human record keeping can achieve. A Customer Data Platform ( CDP) collects and stores the data and allows for a drilldown to an SCV. The best SCVs are simple, customizable, easy to read, and are updated in near real-time. SCVs can be used to track marketing efficiency, sales, customer engagement, and more.
Win-Win: The Benefits of SCVs
SCVs provide comprehensive records of each customer. They are accurate, up-to-date snapshots using data from all sources. The benefits of an SCV include: more accurate analytics, reduction in redundant or irrelevant marketing, and real-time views of customer behavior. As an example, here’s how an SCV of a restaurant’s regular customer benefits the business and improves the customer experience.- Customer Service: Hosting staff knows where the regular likes to sit, which increases customer satisfaction and saves time.
- Marketing and Sales: Wait staff knows what the regular likes to eat and can upsell from “the usual” to a special more easily. Also, the restaurant can send out promotions highly tailored to the interests of that particular customer.
- Financial: General knowledge about past purchases leads to more accurate predictions about future purchases.
- Loyalty: The regular’s preferences can be shared with all staff so the customer experience is always relevant and positive. Because the regular feels personally valued and understood, they will be more loyal and more likely to bring in new customers.
- Cost Reduction: The restaurant won’t waste resources on marketing that would be irrelevant or irritating to the customer.
