Customer data: a corporate asset to be valued

Customer data is a real treasure for companies. Yet, this data is often under-utilized, poorly structured or stored, or used inappropriately.

Developing a data-centric approach paves the way to balancing customer satisfaction and business profitability, but also to developing hyper-personalized offers that ensure the long-term loyalty of a happy customer.

Evaluate objectively

Focusing on customer satisfaction is of course essential - an optimal customer experience leads to better business results, while a dissatisfied customer is likely to turn to the competition.

"The satisfaction rate often becomes a goal in itself rather than a diagnostic tool," notes Simon Anthonis. "This is problematic because the focus is no longer on improving the customer experience but on improving the KPI."

To be useful, this measurement must first be taken authentically and objectively. We've all been confronted with those satisfaction surveys based on the Net Promoter Score (NPS) but which hijack it: it incentives to give a score of 9 or 10, offers an incomplete or wrong scale... "This is nonsense! This tool was created to identify and solve problems. To manipulate it is to hide from it since the underlying problems are not solved. Another bias occurs when customer satisfaction is coupled with individual or group bonuses."

Balance between satisfaction and profitability

Rather than measuring satisfaction at a given moment, it is interesting to do so continuously, at all stages of the customer journey: from prospecting to making contact, through payment, or requesting additional services. This diagnosis highlights the steps to be improved.

Taking into account the number of customers who experience this moment of dissatisfaction also makes it possible to measure its impact: if 1% of customers are concerned, the impact is marginal; if this is the case for 50% of the customer base, it is necessary to act to correct the situation. However, "setting priorities based solely on customer satisfaction is a risky business", warns Simon Anthonis.

"Striking a balance between customer satisfaction and profitability is essential." The customer experience impact matrix provides that extra dimension. This tool uses a mathematical model to combine the indicators for measuring customer satisfaction at different points in the customer journey, the number of customers involved, and the impact on the company's key performance indicators.

"Combining these metrics is essential to prioritize what needs to be improved in the customer relationship. You can spend a lot of money to make your customers happy: they will be happy... but you are running straight into bankruptcy."

Customer satisfaction measurement: example of bias

• An insurance company whose management's priority is to reduce the number of calls to the call center rather than analyze the reasons for the calls and improve customer information has made it more difficult for customers to access the call center.
  
  
• One bank that allows its staff to survey customers whenever they want discovered that these surveys were mostly conducted after a positive customer interaction.

This type of measurement manipulation, which skews the results, is unfortunately common.

Targeted below the line offers

A common mistake is to focus on the overall revenue that an offer can generate without using the right channel, the right level of offer, the right time, or the right targeting. For a telecom operator, this would be like sending an offer for a soccer package to a group of customers including soccer fans who would have bought it anyway without the promotion. The sales figures of the pack are good and the operator is happy. However, they lost money.

Lexicon

• NPS (Net Promoter Score): an indicator of customer loyalty, evaluating the probability that the customer will recommend the product or service to someone close to them. Levels 9 and 10 indicate brand promoters, 7 and 8 passive supporters, 6 to 0 detractors.
  
  
• Moment of truth: a key moment in the customer journey that strongly influences their perception.
  
  
• CDP (Customer Data Platform): a platform of customer data extracted from several sources to form a merged database accessible to other systems.
  
  
• Below the line (BTL): direct, personalized marketing, outside of visual channels (poster, television, etc.), as opposed to above the line (ATL) marketing, via mass media.