Customer Experience and Cloud Data Integration, Explained

With a myriad of customer experience (CX) tools available today, enterprises are flooded with options when it comes to the services they use to interact with customers. The challenge for businesses is sifting through the many data silos that these tools create. While CX tools are helpful for efficiency, they can create organizational blind spots if data is not integrated effectively.

Data integration is pivotal to the success of any CX program, regardless of the technological solutions that have been deployed. Enterprises managing data in the cloud need to know where that data lives, how to integrate it into their technology stacks and how to leverage it for analysis. Data management tools that automate the integration process are eminently more effective than manual integration and can yield more accurate views of where customers sit on their lifecycles.

Recent reports found that nearly 60% of corporate data globally is stored in the cloud. As the volume of cloud data storage continues to increase, it’s worth understanding the critical role data integration plays in CX, and how organizations can improve their integration strategies to yield better business results.

Data Integration Hurdles

One area where businesses tend to struggle with data integration is understanding the details of where their data is stored and how it’s processed. Oftentimes, data generated by different business units can be disparate. A very simple example of this is date formats. In the US, the date format is MM/DD/YYYY. In many other countries, they enter the day first and then the month – DD/MM/YYYY. If a global retailer wants to send a birthday promotion to a customer, they need to know which format was used to capture a customer’s date of birth.

Another common plague of poor data integration is data duplication. Multiple customer records can lead to poor customer service. For example, if different systems are not connected, it may be difficult to access relevant customer information. Customer service representatives may have trouble identifying the products a customer has purchased, as well as their serial numbers and other relevant information. This can lead to delays in service and unhappy customers.

A lack of access and visibility to customer data can leave businesses flailing when it comes to CX efforts. Today’s consumers have extremely high service expectations and demand personalized experiences. Without easy access to data, CX teams have no way to tailor an experience and gain the desired outcome.

Fitting Data Integration Into CX

Overcoming data integration hurdles can be challenging for businesses but is a necessary step to move the needle forward on the quality of CX efforts. Businesses need to have a holistic understanding of who their customers are and can only do so when their data is effectively integrated across the enterprise. This can be difficult when data is exploding in volume and complexity. New datasets that are continuously generated require a more thoughtful approach as to how they’re managed, analyzed and stored.

Businesses need a full understanding of their data, who’s using it, and for what purpose. They should ask themselves the following questions: What do I need to deliver on CX goals? Where did this data come from, and how was it generated? Is this data compliant with privacy laws and regulations? Is this data easily integrated for use across the business? Once there are clear answers to these questions, only then can the integration process begin.

Undergoing data integration in a way that can benefit CX efforts requires several steps to be successful. Data professionals need to be able to easily integrate and transform data so it can be stored securely and used effectively to improve customer experiences.

This approach to data integration gives businesses a deeper understanding of their customers, their lifetime value, where they are on their buying journey, and results in more competitive insights. Data integration also enables organizations to protect against customer churn and improve products and services. Serving as a single platform for integration, transformation and storage that combines first and third-party data, the Actian Data Platform provides businesses with real-time insights and access to hundreds of data sources and does so without performance disruptions.

Nailing CX through efficient data integration should be a priority for every business looking to improve their relationships with their customers. Actian’s ease of integration through automation simplifies this for businesses and helps optimize their decision-making processes on next steps with customers. To learn more about how Actian can help your business unlock maximum CX insights at a fraction of the cost of other leading providers, visit our Actian Data Platform webpage.

About Traci Curran

Traci Curran serves as Director of Product Marketing at Actian focused on the Actian Data Platform. With more than 20 years of experience in technology marketing, Traci has previously held senior marketing roles at CloudBolt Software, Racemi (acquired by DXC Corporation), as well as some of the world’s most innovative startups. Traci is passionate about helping customers understand how they can accelerate innovation and gain competitive advantage by leveraging digital transformation and cloud technologies.