In this latest customer insights article, Billy Loizou, Area Vice President, Amperity unveils some startling facts and figures about customer data and shares some tips for marketers to manage their data more effectively in the year ahead.

Marketers, brands and retailers continue to struggle with the growing volumes of duplicate, fragmented, ‘dirty’ customer data, which is muddling their efforts to get a clear view of who their customers actually are. And it’s costing businesses millions of dollars in revenue.

Revenue lost because of ‘dirty data’

According to a recent study from Validity, 44 percent of respondents estimated their company loses more than 10 percent of their annual revenue due to poor quality CRM data. Even more, the companies surveyed reported customer loss, blow new business deals and delay revenue-driving initiatives like marketing and brand awareness campaigns thanks to subpar data. 

Millions wasted on managing messy data 

By wrangling ‘messy data’, brands continue to miss the mark. Customers are treated like strangers – and it’s costing them big. Consider this: When you have multiple versions of the same people in your database, you end up spending on duplicate marketing messages. At first thought, it may not seem like a big deal. However, on closer inspection, you’ll see that if you spend $10 million a year on targeted marketing but have a 25 percent duplication rate in your customer data, which is not uncommon, then you’re wasting $2.5 million – that’s a very big deal.

So, instead of trying to ‘clean’ the data, organisations need the right technology. They need technology that takes a flexible approach to gathering and matching data and can account for its ever-changing nature – allowing organisations to (finally) put their data to work.

Customers want an experience beyond the transaction

According to the global Zendesk Customer Experience (CX) Trends Report 2022, nearly 70 percent of APAC consumers feel as though customer service is an afterthought for businesses, 94 percent say they are willing to spend more with companies who personalise the customer service experience, and 71 percent reveal they would switch to a competitor after one bad customer service experience. 

In the APAC region, there’s also a strong appetite for loyalty programs among consumers. According to Mordor Intelligence, 92 percent of customers are more enticed to shop where a loyalty program is part of the offering. And for brands, the economic benefits of loyalty can’t be ignored. 

Loyalty customers also make great cohorts for testing and experimentation. So work within your loyal customer base to drive growth for new products and services and remember to always include a hold-out group to measure incremental revenue. Or perhaps evolve your program from points to experience, whereby exclusive product drops, premium services and support and next-level incentives that go beyond points and cash back captivate customers and redefine how they interact with your brand. 

Not knowing your customers a billion-dollar problem

The cost of not knowing your customers is high. More so than annoying customers with promotional emails for products they already own, blasting them with ads for clothing they don’t like, or placing them on hold for 45 minutes as a customer service representative tracks down their details when they want to return a pair of shoes; this disconnected view of the customer is impacting the bottom line – to the tune of AU$16 billion, in some cases. Never has there been a more urgent need for brands to get to know customers, truly and intimately, than now.

Identity (ID) resolution is one solution, which is the process of connecting and matching different data points across multiple devices and channels to form a unified view of a single customer. It allows brands to connect the dots between ‘messy data’ to form a complete picture of an actual person. ID resolution holds the key to treating your customers like the unique individuals they are, setting the stage for happy, repeat customers and no wasted money on duplicate marketing.