As companies attempt to keep up with the surge in customer data, many have adopted tools and vendors for data collection. However, many are now faced with diverse data types that are not linked and may not be accessible to customer engagement systems. In the words of a director of marketing operations at a life sciences organization with 15,000+ employees, “The biggest challenge at this point is linking the data together.” Companies have largely shifted from having a lack of data to having an overwhelming number of data sources, leaving them unable to effectively use data to support the business. In surveying 425 respondents and conducting 10 interviews with customer data management decision makers. Companies have, on average, 17 different technology applications leveraging customer data, with an average of 28 different data sources used for generating customer insights and customer engagement.

Growing customer expectations spur changes in company strategies

In the past two years, companies have attempted to create a deeper emotional connection with customers, reduce the friction of internal processes, and increase omnichannel capabilities. Customer expectations have risen, and their demands span industries. Customers no longer compare their experience with an organization just against competitors, but instead compare to experiences with every other organization overall, regardless of industry. According to the director of marketing operations at a life sciences organization with 15,000+ employees: “The expectations are changing a lot. People are more demanding. Right now there is a rush within the healthcare industry to catch up with the other industries because the other industries are driving the consumer expectations.”

As a result of these changing expectations, companies have zeroed in on customer satisfaction as a top priority, followed by winning new customers, increasing profitability, and improving data measurement and activation capabilities. All four of these items are tightly intertwined. Improved measurement and activation are critical for winning new customers and improving satisfaction, which ultimately increases profitability. And today, the scope of customer experience has moved beyond existing customers to include customer acquisition. The chief marketing officer at a healthcare organization with 5,000+ employees noted that they track the number of people who interact with their company but never become customers. The CMO noted: “The whole idea is that there is a voice of people who don’t even really get to have an experience with us because we botch it on the front end. It’s like the antithesis of experience. It’s measuring the negativity associated with the non-experience.”

Leaders face measurement challenges while Laggards struggle with data fragmentation

Although firms are asserting more ownership, data management is still a top struggle. Lacking both realtime reporting capabilities (45% Leaders, 42% Laggards) and the required technology to perform tasks related to the management of customer/prospect data (39% Leaders, 44% Laggards) are categories that top the list for all maturity levels. However, Leaders also struggle with having poor quality, inconsistent, or inaccessible data (41%), while Laggards struggle with data fragmentation such as integrating multiple sources of customer data into their own platforms (41%) and aggregating siloed data and content from multiple systems (41%).

There’s just so much data from different vendors that’s not all hooked into one place. So, I’ll have email data from a subscriber, and then I’ll have social data from a subscriber. I’ll have sentiment data from a subscriber. I’ll have customer journey data and web analytics data, but it won’t all be in one place. Typically, it’s not. So, we’ve got to piece it together every week. Especially for high value customers that we really focus on retaining, that’s a challenge.

Fully outsourced data management will be cut in half

In the next two years, more ownership of data will move in house with fully outsourced management dropping by 48%. Companies move away from fully outsourced management in an attempt to get more visibility and control of data. In speaking about a data vendor that houses some customer data for a senior vice president of marketing at a retail organization with 10,000+ employees, the VP stated: “They don’t want us to know the customers that easily. They just want to give them to us in a way that we can’t identify them. If that makes sense? Because they want us to pay for the information.” The lack of transparency with vendors is a central issue for many.

Reliance on in-house teams and consultancies will experience significant growth as more companies seek alternative data management solution options. The largest decline lies in generic solutions such as third-party software. Consultancies and in-house teams are able to provide specialized support for the management of data in house. The vice president of marketing at a telco with 175,000+ employees noted that: “We’re spending more on capabilities with data vendors or internal data systems to bring other functionalities and capabilities of data reporting in house. And that means we’re spending double digit millions for one-off projects with our consulting firms to build the inhouse data recording capability and infrastructure within our own company.”

Data visibility and control eases challenges while enhancing customer experience

Moving data management in house and gaining more visibility and control bring benefits to companies, including: higher quality/consistent/accessible customer data (57%), improved customer experience (53%) and increased company revenue (48%). These benefits address key challenges head-on while supporting the businesses’ primary goals. While 50% of those who have brought more data ownership in house have seen an increase in company revenue, only 41% of non-implementers cited this as an expected benefit, suggesting that this may be an unexpected benefit of increased data ownership. “Marketing now has much more power based on the information that we’ve collected. Marketing is now provided with some key initiatives to help create more customized programs and artifacts for clients versus generic. We are looking to create the personalization factor.