Intimate View of Customer

Intimate View of Customer

We often hear about ‘Single View of Customer’ whenever there is discussion on topics related to Master Data Management and Customer Data Integration.

I stumbled upon a new phrase recently, when a colleague of mine from sales used it to explain the benefits of MDM implementation as a customer data hub – the ‘Intimate View of Customer’. It means going a step further and helping organizations in understanding their customers a bit more.

Imagine this scenario – A rich client, who has been the premium customer for a really long time, walks into the bank for renting a safe deposit box. The usual process follows; a smiling bank staff takes charge and pulls customer details on bank’s internal application (which does a SOA call to backend MDM system as the bank now has a fully integrated master data hub for customer information). When customer’s details appear on screen, it shows the complete 360 view of the customer including his full name, his nick names, current address where he resides, multiple billing addresses, his privacy preferences, different accounts and products he has opted in.

Along with all the above information, the staff also gets an alert message which prompts him about an upcoming event related to this customer. For simplicity sake, let us assume the alert message says – This customer’s birthday is coming up on this weekend and he is going to be 60 years old.

Now that the bank employee is having a chance to see the complete view of customer’s details and the number of different accounts/products this customer is having with the bank, it allows him to decide how important this customer is for the bank. Without wasting much time, he talks to his staff (on the background) and arranges for a small birthday cake while he helps in getting necessary paperwork done for safe deposit box.

Later when many of the bank staff gather around the customer and surprise him with their wishes and a cake, the customer gets delighted by the treatment bank has given him.

This depiction is a simple example that shows recording interesting information about the customers is a very important aspect. Like the names of family members (usually stored in the form of relationship or household), birthdays and the attributes like retirement dates, help show your customers that you know them more intimately. When customers ask for a specific service, the organization gains their appreciation by having the answers they want. Also serving up additional information and offers that respond to their needs can deepen that appreciation.

Many organizations today attribute their growth to the culture they adopt while selling. In above scenario you can see how the information provided by MDM can help create a lively atmosphere for the bank’s staff to give a personal touch to the service provided. You can be sure by the time this transaction is over, the customer will truly and madly love the bank and will be so happy to invest more money leading to more profit for the bank.

Customer service is an important factor influencing success of organizations, and yet, the hardest thing to perfect. MDM technology can take your business to a new level of customer service by providing an “Intimate View of Customer”. Because, there is more to customer service than to just have smiling staff and tellers who give lollipops to kids.

What do you think? Share your opinion about this post using the comments section below. I would love to hear from you!!

COMMENTS

3 Thoughts on Intimate View of Customer

Intimate View of Customer | Serve4Impact

27 Oct 2011

4:52pm

[…] Data Management and Customer Data Integration. I stumbled upon a new phrase recently, w…Show original GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Origin", "other"); […]

Vinay Simha

13 May 2012

1:35pm

Good post. Thanks for sharing !

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