Has your team ever failed to meet customer demands or struggled to understand customer behavior?
If so, don’t worry! Your company isn’t alone. Several small businesses lose sales and miss potential segments because they haven’t developed a 360 customer view.
Hi, my name is AJ! After selling my business for multiple seven figures, I decided it was time to share my knowledge with other aspiring entrepreneurs.
Building a company from the ground up teaches you a lot. One lesson I learned early on was the importance of 360-degree customer profiles!
What do I mean by customer profiles? Keep reading to learn more! I’m revealing everything you need to know!
Key Takeaways
- A 360 customer profile encompasses all the data a company has on one particular customer.
- Creating customer profiles helps you predict customer demands, build a loyal customer base, and boost sales.
- Duplicated data, similar profiles, and conflicting data are challenges of customer profile building.
- Using a CRM to integrate customer profiles ensures you get the most from your customer data.
Related Reading: Best CRM for Small Businesses
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What is 360 Customer View?
A 360-degree customer view is all your customer data in one place.
Ideally, each customer has a customized profile with in-depth details about the following information:
- Interests
- Purchase history
- Effective marketing strategies
- Activity on your website
- Activity on social media
Customer intelligence helps you and your team access a complete and accurate picture of your consumers and what they’re looking for from your company.
Usually, companies keep track of customer data in a customer relationship management (CRM) platform.
CRM and customer data integration ensures your sales and marketing teams get the most from the information, allowing you to track patterns, trends and forecast changes accurately.
What are the Benefits of 360 Customer View?
Why is storing all your customer data in one place a good idea?
360-degree profiles allow your team to build meaningful, personalized customer relationships. As a result, you enjoy more sales and loyal customers!
Let’s look at the seven benefits of building 360-degree customer profiles!
Accessible Customer Information
First and foremost, 360 views ensure your data is easily accessible.
For instance, when customer support agents help a customer, the last thing they want to do is put that person on hold so that they can find the records they need.
Instead, your team needs real-time customer data.
That way, they can provide instant solutions and fast responses, leading to better customer retention rates!
Future Customer Behavior Prediction
Another benefit of 360 customer views is predicting future customer behavior.
For instance, by analyzing a customer’s purchase history, you can determine what items they might be interested in purchasing.
Meeting future customer expectations lets your team proactively reach out with valuable information and offers!
Additionally, predicting the customer experience helps create higher-value customer relationships while increasing sales.
Enables Personalization in Your CRM
When you create a 360-degree customer view, your team has access to the information they need to personalize their interactions with customers.
For instance, your sales and marketing teams can send personalized messages tailored to each customer’s interests and needs instead of generic emails.
Personalizing customer experience makes customers feel valued by creating a unique, individual customer journey.
When companies personalize each customer journey, they are likelier to have loyal customers who spend more money on their products or services!
Ensures a Great Customer Experience
The customer experience you provide is a significant factor in customer retention.
Using 360-degree customer views, your team gains access to the data they need to ensure customers have great experiences each time they interact with your business.
For instance, your team can offer discounts on items related to past purchases or send follow-up emails after deliveries.
By leveraging data, your team understands customers’ needs to feel comfortable shopping with your company.
Helps Manage Cross Channel Customer Communication
With 360-degree customer views, managing communication across multiple channels is easier.
For example, let’s say you’re running a marketing campaign and need to collect customer feedback.
Using your CRM software, you can quickly contact customers on Facebook and Twitter to ask for feedback.
Plus, once you collect customer feedback, your team can use it to improve the customer experience and boost sales!
A customer data platform also ensures you contact customers via their preferred communication channel!
Better Customer Engagement
The more customer data you have, the better your team can engage with customers.
For instance, by understanding what interests customers, you can create content and offers that make them feel special!
A 360-degree customer view also helps your team anticipate customers’ needs and adapt to changing demands.
Remember, a personalized customer experience goes a long way, and you can only do this if you understand how to engage with your customer base.
Increased Brand Loyalty
Finally, a 360-degree customer view helps you build customer loyalty.
Customers feel valued and appreciated when they have great experiences with your company.
Further, when customers shop with you because of the offers or discounts you provide through customer profiles, it solidifies their trust in your brand.
The more loyal customers you have, the more likely they are to recommend your brand to family and friends!
How to Use a 360 Customer View
Your business can utilize 360 customer profiles to your advantage in numerous ways.
Below, I’ve compiled four easy ways to use a customer’s data to benefit your business objectives!
Let’s take a look!
Smarter Decisions for Your Small Business
When you create a 360-degree customer view, it helps you make data-driven decisions for your business.
With this information, you and your team aren’t left guessing which path is best for the company!
Guessing isn’t always accurate, but enhanced customer intelligence is! So, it’s better to rely on all the data you have in your CRM.
CRMs utilize information to develop accurate reports and forecasts, ensuring you and your team ALWAYS utilize the best-performing strategy.
Better Cross-Departmental Pitching
A 360-degree customer view ensures your team has the necessary information to give customers the best experience.
For example, when a customer reaches out with an issue that’s beyond the scope of what one department can do, it’s crucial to have access to all customer data to deliver a solution.
Having access to a customer’s data helps your team deliver better solutions and ensure that the customer is satisfied with their experience.
Also, superior predictive analysis and tracking customer experiences ensure your marketing team delivers on-point ads and campaigns.
As a result, each customer’s experience feels personalized and superior to other brands.
Predictive Customer Analysis
A 360-degree customer profile also helps your team determine consumer behavior and how to adapt.
For example, predictive analysis allows you to predict what customers will do in the future.
By looking at past purchase patterns and other customer data, your team can better understand which products or services customers will be interested in!
Meaningful Customer Engagement
Lastly, you can use 360-degree customer views to develop meaningful customer relationships and experiences.
Why do meaningful customer engagements matter?
When companies personalize the experiences at customer touchpoints, they enjoy the following benefits:
- More brand loyalty
- More cross-selling and upselling opportunities
- More sales
- Better, more accurate marketing campaigns
Challenges with Creating a 360 Customer View
Although creating a 360-degree customer view is beneficial, there are some challenges associated with gathering this customer information.
Some of these challenges include the following:
- Duplicated data
- Matching like records
- Conflicting data
- Insoncicstant data formats
Let’s look at each of these challenges in-depth!
Duplicate Data
Tracking a customer’s interaction history can often lead to duplicated data points.
And while having two of the same pieces of information doesn’t sound like a big deal, it can cause challenges throughout your company.
Some issues that can arise as a result of duplicate data include the following:
- Less effective segmentation
- Lack of a single customer view
- Missed opportunities
- Inaccurate reporting
- Less-informed decisions
Matching Like Records
When it comes to collecting data, your team needs to make sure they match like records.
For example, if two customers have the same name but different addresses, you don’t want your CRM to count them as one record.
Your customer data platform should ensure that each customer is tracked and identified correctly. Otherwise, it can lead to inaccurate results.
Inaccurate results and reports can cause your team to follow an ineffective marketing strategy, costing you valuable time and money.
Conflicting Data
Conflicting data is another challenge that can arise when collecting customer information.
For example, let’s say you have two different customer data sources that contain conflicting information about a particular customer.
This problem can be tricky to solve and lead to inaccurate customer profiles.
Inconsistent Data Formats
Finally, when it comes to customer data, you also need to ensure that all the data is formatted similarly.
For instance, if your company collects customer information from various channels, such as emails and web forms, you want to ensure they are all stored in a consistent format.
Otherwise, it can lead to headaches and confusion when managing customer data.
What is the Purpose of 360 Customer View?
The ultimate purpose of building a 360-degree customer view is to gain a holistic view of your customers’ needs, behaviors, and preferences.
This comprehensive profile, built from all your data points collected across multiple channels, enables your business to:
- Deliver highly personalized experiences
- Enhance customer satisfaction
- Drive loyalty
- Track and predict customer behavior patterns
A 360-degree view lets you track every customer interaction with your brand, providing invaluable insights that drive effective decision-making.
Plus, a 360-degree view can help you identify opportunities for cross-selling and upselling and empower your marketing team to create more targeted and effective campaigns.
Essentially, it’s about leveraging data to deepen every customer interaction and boost your business’s bottom line!
What is an Example of 360 Customer View?
Consider a small local coffee shop, “Brew & Beans.”
This company has a loyalty program where customers sign up with their email and phone number and earn points with each purchase.
When “John Doe” first signed up for the loyalty program, Brew & Beans started a record for him.
Each time John makes a purchase, whether in-store or online, the information about what he bought, when he bought it, and how much he spent is added to his record.
Additionally, Brew & Beans runs monthly email marketing campaigns and tracks whether John opens the emails and clicks on any of the links.
John’s interactions with the Brew & Beans website include looking at the menu or ordering a coffee online.
And the coffee shop adds each of these actions to his record in real-time.
Brew & Beans can also track his reviews and ratings on social media.
With all this information combined, Brew & Beans now has a 360 customer view of John Doe.
The company knows his purchase habits, his favorite products, how he interacts with their email campaigns, and his online activity.
This comprehensive view allows them to customize his experience, recommend products he’ll love, and interact with him in a way that encourages loyalty and enhances his satisfaction.
How Do You Make a 360 Customer View?
Now that you understand the importance of creating a positive customer experience, it’s time to learn how to combine all the pieces!
Most people assume creating a 360-degree view of their customers will be difficult.
However, when you follow my simple four-step plan, the process goes faster than expected!
Let’s take a look!
Step 1: Start with a CRM
Step one is finding the best customer relationship management (CRM) software for your company.
There are numerous providers in the industry, each offering unique features and functionalities for different industries.
What factors should you look for in a CRM? Consider the following things:
- Price
- Features
- User interface
- Whether the company offers a free trial or a demo
- How your company will use the software (for sales, marketing, customer service, etc.)
CRMs gather meaningful data that you and your team can use to efficiently resolve customer issues, understand customer interactions better, and promote business growth!
Take your time finding the right CRM platform for your business.
If you rush the decision, it can be a massive waste of time and money!
Step 2: Identify Customer Data
The next step is to identify all the customer data you need.
Identifying the necessary information includes everything from customer profiles, contact information, purchase histories, preferences, and more.
Your team must understand what kind of data they should be collecting to get a comprehensive view of your customers.
You also want to make sure you’re collecting the right data.
For example, if your company sells clothes, you should collect data on what size and color customers buy.
But this data won’t be useful for creating a 360 customer view if you don’t sell clothes!
Take time to brainstorm with your team about what information you need to build customer knowledge.
Step 3: Conduct a Data Audit
Once you know what data needs to be collected, it’s time for a data audit.
A data audit is when you take inventory of all the existing customer information you have on file.
This way, you can identify gaps and make sure your team collects all the necessary data points.
It also helps you identify any problems with data quality.
You might find that some of the existing customer information is outdated or missing important details.
If this is the case, you’ll need to devise a plan for collecting and updating customer information.
Step 4: Enrich Your Current Data
The final step in creating a 360 customer view is to enrich the existing data.
Enriching data means adding additional data points to provide more information about your customers.
For instance, you might add demographic information such as age or gender or psychographic information such as interests.
This extra layer of customer knowledge can help your team better understand customers, anticipate their needs, and create more meaningful experiences.
It’s important to note that the data enrichment process should respect customer privacy and comply with all necessary regulations.
Lastly, creating a 360 customer view is an ongoing process.
You must consistently monitor your data and update things as your customers change.
360 Customer Data Closing Thoughts
A 360-degree view of your customer base is something that may not seem essential, but it helps various business aspects.
Customer profiles help teams deliver accurate marketing strategies, predict customer demands, and boost sales!
What techniques does your team use to collect customer data? Let us know in the comments section below!
And good luck finding the best CRM to help your team build comprehensive customer profiles!