Guest Post: Graham Hill on Are Companies Collecting the Right Data for Better Customer Experiences? This one is a DON'T MISS!!!

I've talked about Graham Hill many times. The reason I never get tired is because he is a seminal thinker on how the real world works with customers and companies. He adds to the scholarship and has a wealth of that real world experience and success that few others can claim. He is also cutting edge and one of the people defining CRM 2.0/Social CRM or whatever you call it. (BTW, I'm about to throw in the towel and call it Social CRM. Its sounds so much nicer than CRM 2.0. I'll let you know). This is a short and great piece on what kind of data you actually need to design customer experiences that work - and why that is. Read it and weep - for joy. Go Graham, Go Graham, Go Graham, Go Graham.

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Do You Have the Right Data to Design Better Customer Experiences?

Jeff Gilleland recently wrote an interesting article about Customer Experience Success Starts with Insight: Transforming Data into Action. The article was based upon a recent SAS whitepaper on The State of Customer Experience Capabilities and Competencies. Gilleland's article identifies one overwhelming challenge for customer experience designers. Namely, collecting customer data and generating insights to guide experience design.

But are companies collecting the right kind of data to design better customer experiences? My experience suggests Not!
And are companies even approaching the design of experiences properly? My experience also suggests Not!

The fundamental data required to design better experience experiences - that enable customers to cocreate value throughout the end-to-end customer experience - is data about customer needs and the context surrounding their behaviour at key touchpoints. My own anecdotal evidence from working with many different companies is that they simply do not have this data to hand. Nor are many of them planning to collect it. Instead, they are gorging on transactional data that is of limited use in designing better customer experiences.

Paradoxically, customer experiences cannot actually be designed in the same way a physical product can. This is because experiences are cocreated together with customers at the point at which mutual value is created during each touchpoint. In other words, experiences are cocreated one touchpoint at a time. All we can provide is an experience platform that enables the cocreation of value together with customers. To design an experience platform requires both a deep understanding of what jobs customers are trying to do and what outcomes customers are looking for at each touchpoint, and of the context in which customers actually engage in the touchpoint. The job, desired outcome and context of calling a service number is hugely different if we are e.g. calling a Realtor for information about house pricing versus calling the Fire Brigade to put out a burning house!

If we are to design better experience platforms, we need both these types of data and to think more carefully about how value is co-created with customers at each touchpoint. Data landfills worth of transactional data are of little real use in experience design.

What do you think? Is transactional data enough to design customer experiences? Or do we have to go back to the basics of customers' needs and context if we are to design better customer experience platforms?

Graham Hill
Customer-driven Innovator
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Further Reading:

Jeff Gilleland, Customer Experience Success Starts with Insight: Transforming Data into Action

SAS, The State of Customer Experience Capabilities and Competencies

Graham Hill, It's Time for a Balanced Scorecard for Customer Data

Frow et al, Towards the Perfect Customer Experience

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Del.icio.us : Graham Hill, customer experience, data

Comments

[Esteban Kolsky]

Oh, please... this is directed to the person who said that because it is expensive to get non-operational data (oh, let's call it -- i don't know, feedback? opinions? suggestions?) you need to find a way to do with what you got.

that is so 15th century thinking in business. it is like when my clients ask me for benchmarks so they can manage their business the same as everybody else. sure, if your competitor spends $12.00 per call, and you do the same, you can't get fire. also, you cannot grow, you cannot innovate, you cannot distinguish yourself - you are your competitor! you have to do away with the "its expensive" label for CEM, EFM, and other similar initiatives.

if you think it is too expensive, you are asking the wrong question. the question if not "how much does it cost" but rather "how much am i going to lose if i don't do it". you can also ask yourself the question "how much can i gain if i do it". see, similar to building surveys, asking the right question is all about using the right words, in the right order.

[Brian Vellmure]

Paul,

Thanks for sharing this, and Graham's insight is right on. The transactional data is valuable for laying the framework and identifying trends and opportunities from a business model perspective.

However, it has been proven and shown over and over that the customer experience is the primary contributor to loyalty, retention, word of mouth marketing, etc. This is what provides the bricks on the road to long term success!

Best regards,

Brian
http://freecrmstrategies.wordpress.com

[Rotkapchen]

We've known this for over a decade via our Data Warehousing experiences. Businesses run on "operational" data: transactions, etc. "Informational" data is different -- it's more expensive to collect, to store and to evaluate (a LOT of it is not nominative -- therefore not 'crunchable'). Data Warehousing and thus Business Intelligence has had to find ways to 'make do' with operational data.

[Glenn]

Paul, I agree with you on changing the name to Social CRM if only to move away from a "version number" that would be dated after awhile. "Social CRM" is not defined by time.

Now, what about changing your loyalty from the Yankees to the Cards?

Regards,

Glenn

(How about that Pujols?)