The impact siloed data has on your customer lifecycle

In order to really understand your customer you’ll need to breakdown your data silos. With a unified customer database, you can maximize your impact at every stage of the customer lifecycle.

Picture this: you've just launched a new product that is taking the world by storm. Sales are through the roof, and everyone is talking about your brand. But then, something strange happens—your sales start to go down and customers begin to churn. What could have caused this?`

Odds are, you’re working with siloed customer databases.

Without a unified view of customer data across all channels, it's hard to truly understand both your customers and your business. To keep your sales momentum going, you need to break down your data silos into a single customer view to get a holistic view of your customers.

What is siloed data?

Siloed data is information that is isolated from itself via different databases. As a result, this data is not able to be shared with other departments or systems. This can lead to wide-reaching inefficiencies and decreased productivity as your staff has to duplicate work or search for information that is not easily accessible.

When data is siloed, it hinders your ability to make data-driven decisions because it limits the visibility of information across teams and departments. These inefficiencies can have a negative impact on your bottom line, increasing customer churn and decreasing retention rates.

The Impact of Siloed Data on the Customer Lifecycle

The customer lifecycle is the journey that a customer takes from initial awareness of a product or service to becoming a loyal and returning customer. Each stage of the customer lifecycle presents opportunities to engage with your customers and provide an meaningful experience. However, if data is siloed, it can be difficult to get a complete picture of your customers, making it harder to engage and connect with them.

Acquisition

At acquisition your customers have become aware of your products and are considering making a purchase. During this stage you have the opportunity to make a good first impression, setting the tone for the rest of the customer’s journey.

If data is siloed, it may be difficult to identify potential customers and target them with relevant messaging. This can lead to a poor first impression and make it difficult to convert potential buyers into actual customers.

To win in retail, you must master acquisition. By unifying your databases you can identify who your high-value customers are. Use your unified database to engage with these customers directly, and find lookalikes to expand your potential for driving sales.

Retention

Retention is a  critical stage of the customer lifecycle, as this is when customers will have actively used your product or service. Winning in the retention stage can mean the difference between a one-time buyer and a repeat customer. It is important to keep customers engaged during this stage to prevent churn and grow their lifetime value.

When data is siloed, it is difficult to create a cohesive customer experience that keeps them engaged to return for that next purchase. In a siloed database, your teams will have an incomplete picture of who your customers are, leading to lackluster experiences that fail to keep customers engaged.

Advocacy

At the advocacy stage your customers become ambassadors for your brand and promote your product or service to their friends and family through word of mouth. This is the most valuable stage of the customer lifecycle, as it can lead to organic business growth. However, in order to turn your customers into brand advocates you must create targeted marketing that connects with them.

When your data is siloed it is difficult to turn your customers into brand advocates as you’ll likely struggle to engage them at previous stages of their lifecycle. By unifying your customer databases you can target your customers directly, optimizing the process of transforming them into loyal brand advocates.

How to Break Down Data Silos with CDP

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is a tool that helps retailers collect, clean, and unify customer data from multiple sources across channels. This provides retailers with a single source of truth of their customers, which can be used to improve customer understanding, enhancing experiences, and driving sales.

A CDP can help you break down data silos in several ways:

Collect data from multiple sources

CDPs are built on zero- and first-party data from multiple sources across various channels, including website interactions, CRM systems, and POS systems. This can provide you with a more detailed view of your customers and their unique interactions with your brand.

For example, a CDP can collect data from a website visit, a interaction with a customer service representative, and a purchase made at a brick-and-mortar store. By collecting this varied data in one place, you can get a complete view of that specific customer's journey. This information can be used to personalize the customer’s experience, identify cross-selling opportunities and improve marketing efforts. By understanding the complete customer journey, you can make informed decisions about how to best serve your customers.

Clean and unifying your customer data

A CDP can clean and unify your customer data, making it easier to use for marketing and other purposes by identifying duplicate records and standardizing inconsistent data formats. This process of "data wrangling" is essential for any retailer that wants to make proper use of their customer data.  In addition, a CDP can provide insights that would be otherwise unavailable.

Without a CDP, the task of cleaning, unifying, and identifying customer data would be much more difficult and time-consuming. By deploying a CDP you can ultimately save time and money.

Enable data-driven decision-making

A CDP can help you make enhanced data-driven decisions based on real customer attributes and data.

A CDP can also help you segment customers based on their behavior, preferences, interactions, and more. As a result, you’ll be able to target your marketing efforts and improve customer retention.

CDPs provide you insight into your customers who aren’t engaged too, giving you the tools to track, analyze, and potentially prevent customer churn. By understanding why customers are leaving, you can take the steps necessary to improve your experiences and bring them back into the fold.

Know your customers. Grow your business

Lexer’s Customer Data and Experience Platform (CDXP) is a powerful tool that can help you break down data silos and improve your customer experience. By collecting, cleaning, and unifying customer data, a Lexer will  provide you insights that would otherwise be unavailable.

Lexer is the only CDXP built for retail and is the tool of choice for over 150 industry-leading retailers like Supergoop, Quiksilver, Sur La Table, and Rip Curl. We put the power of your customer data directly into your hands, ensuring you have the insights necessary to grow your business. Our intuitive tools enable retail, marketing, and service teams to create data-driven engagement strategies that positively impact every stage of the customer lifecycle.

To learn how Lexer can quickly and easily identify opportunities and optimize experiences, schedule a demo with our team using the form below!