How to Accelerate Growth with a Customer Data Platform

Saphyte Team

3 min read

Updated: April 27th, 2022

Data is everywhere. From a business perspective, data can be taken from the amount a customer paid for a purchase, the number of website visits a day, any information typed in by the customer, and a whole lot more. 

On average, businesses receive data and metrics from 28 unique sources, according to Deloitte. 

Data lets us know what’s going on in the business, what we can do more to get more people to do something, and what we need to avoid doing to keep customers coming back for more.

But to ensure that businesses get clean and accurate data, and so they can organize this data to gain some insights out of them, businesses need to have a customer data platform.

What Is A Customer Data Platform?

A customer data platform is a software that collects data from your customers. 

It may have tools and features that let you perform tasks like telemarketing, email marketing, lead generation, catalog management, and etc. Customer data platforms may also have dashboards that showcase important and relevant data and insights at a glance.

In 2018, the customer data platform market size was valued at USD 730.1 million. It is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.5% from 2019 to 2025.

Why Having A Customer Data Platform Is Important

Customer data platforms give you an in-depth understanding of every individual customer so that you can personalize your services to cater to their unique needs and preferences.

Knowing what an individual customer needs and wants allows sales, marketing, and support teams to effectively address the customer’s issues and solve their problems. 

Without data, businesses may have to repetitively ask the customer for information (especially when the issue has to be handled by multiple teams) to deliver the appropriate response. This can delay the service which may affect the customer experience and give the brand a bad reputation at the end of the day.

A customer data platform may collect the following types of data:

• Customer identification: this refers to the identity of the customer— their name, address, mobile number, email address, and other related information.
• Qualitative (feedback, opinions, suggestions, etc.): this refers to other useful information gathered from the customer that cannot be quantified, such as their opinions, statements, suggestions, feedback, notes, and etc.
• Behavioral: this refers to any data related to a customer’s behavior such as their purchase behavior, marketing behavior, app usage, social media behavior, etc.
• Product: this refers to any data related to the customer’s interaction with the product and services of the business such as products purchased, products viewed on the website, abandoned products added to the cart, etc.

4 Ways A Customer Data Platform Can Accelerate Business Growth 

These are the common ways a customer data platform accelerate business growth:

1. It lets businesses gain a deeper understanding of their customers to deliver better services

Customer data platforms can automate the collection of data from customers to lessen the tasks of sales and marketing teams. 

They can prompt website visitors to fill out needed information which will then be automatically migrated to the database of the platform. 

There, the customer data platform can sort the information and give sales and marketing teams a quick glimpse of the type of lead or customer they’re dealing with.

When sales and marketing teams have a deep understanding of the lead or customer they’re facing, it allows them to craft a workflow that best suits the needs and preferences of the target customer. 

In fact, according to Econsultancy & IBM, 33% of elite marketers say having the right technologies for data collection and analysis (such as a customer data platform) is the most important step to understanding customers.

Having the right data allows businesses to improve the experience of the customer, which increases the chances of the customer moving forward in the sales funnel.

2. It provides users important and relevant data for quick, data-driven decision-making

Customer data platforms often have dashboards that showcase ongoing data related to the business’s sales, marketing, and support efforts.

They may even automatically interpret the data to provide insights, which helps managers and leaders make quick decisions to steer the company to success.

Data analytics help inform businesses which strategy is working and which isn’t. Because of this, businesses can continue implementing workflows that give results and stop or change those that aren’t working.

3. It allows businesses to quickly monitor marketing ROI

Marketing efforts are needed to promote the brand to the market and hopefully establish connections with potential customers. But some marketing activities require a hefty investment for them to work. 

This is why businesses ought to monitor their marketing performance to ensure that they’re giving the expected results or return on investment (ROI).

Without a customer data platform, this may require many manual, repetitive tasks and calculations which can be stressful to the team responsible.

A customer data platform can automate some of these tasks. It can even quickly provide the results of marketing efforts (such as email marketing, advertising campaigns, etc.) to businesses so they can make the necessary adjustments without delay.

4. It helps businesses improve offline and online customer experience

The pandemic has accelerated the online activities of consumers— more and more people buy over the internet now than before.

Because of this, businesses need to emphasize the importance of providing quality service to their customers online as they have done over the past few years on their brick and mortar stores.

A customer data platform can bridge the distance between businesses and consumers on the internet. It can predict what a customer wants and allow the business to offer it even before the customer says it. Some information provided by the customer data platform can help inform businesses what to do next when the customer visits.

With a customer data platform, businesses can quickly collect customer feedback so they can improve what needs to be improved to cater to future customers and encourage repeat purchases. 

Conclusion

Customer data platforms help accelerate business growth in the following ways:

• It helps businesses provide better service through the data it collects from customers with minimal user participation
• It quickly provides relevant data and insights to aid managers and leaders in making business decisions
• It allows businesses to monitor marketing efforts and ensure they provide the expected results
• It improves the experience of customers online and offline to encourage repeat purchases and establish customer loyalty

Learn more about how you can accelerate your business growth with a customer data platform. Click here to get started.