Customers today want their needs to not only be met but anticipated and exceeded. This means relying solely on a robust marketing strategy isn’t enough. Now that the brands have unprecedented access to customer data and digital footprints, customers expect the businesses to do something with this knowledge that’s in their interests. After all, they know the worth of their data. This is where a powerful new duo emerges. Where the customer data analytics meets generative AI (genAI) – offering a transformative approach to customer experience (CX) understanding.

Current POV

Customer analytics solutions have traditionally depended on historical data - a valuable snapshot but outdated. This static approach struggles to capture the dynamicity of customer behavior which ultimately shows its effect on the customer’s journey. Businesses often find themselves responding to problems instead of using the situation to their advantage to make a better customer experience. The solution lies in real-time data - an unbroken flow of information coming from clicks on websites, references on social media, chat records, and other sources.

However, organizations lack the capability to extract and derive actionable insights from the data clutter. This is where GenAI comes into the picture. Before we go into it, let’s talk about Customer data platform which essentially forms the foundation of all the analytics and generative AI applications.

Customer data platform X GenAI to the rescue

Faced with a growing need for customer retention and growth in a highly data-regulated environment, marketers are looking for ways to use their first-party customer data. That’s why the role of CDP has become more important.

Gartner defines a Customer Data Platform as a data management platform that controls the flow of data in and out of an organization. It supports data-driven ad strategies, such as segmentation. Simply speaking, it enables marketing and customer experience teams primarily to unify customers’ data by offering a “single trusted view”.

But before we understand “how” it's important to understand the “why”.

 Though the most common benefit of a customer data platform as explained above is improving customer experience and the other one is for targeted insights and ads, other benefits include:

• Unified Data View
• Profile Unification
• User Segmentation
• Predictive Scoring
• Customer Journey Optimization
• Cross-channel Integration
• Compliance and data governance
• Demand Planning
• Improved business efficiency
• Customer lifetime value optimization with loyalty offers.
• Better Demand Planning

Though CDPs existed in the past too, the added advantage now is Generative AI.

GenAI doesn’t function independently. But when combined, the Customer Data Platform, it acts as a tool, allowing GenAI to access retrieve, and synchronize customer data from diverse origins. Having this consolidated perspective – one can recognize trends, anticipate actions, and reveal customer emotions with exceptional precision right away. This enables companies to utilize customer data analytics at different level. They can grasp customer needs and preferences with incredible precision, leading to a highly personalized CX leading to –

Revealing the Customer Experience in Real-time:  With CDP x GenAI understand customer feedback with a certain product right when they come across it on your site. This enables taking proactive measures such as providing real-time chat assistance or recommending choices.

Predicting customer behavior with precision: By utilizing genAI to create multiple scenarios for customer needs and questions, you can create a system to predict customer expectations before they emerge. This could result in tailored product suggestions, focused advertising strategies, and proactive problem-solving.

Automating personalized interaction at scale: CDP solutions consolidate customer data from different sources to build a complete customer profile. GenAI uses this profile to suggest customized interactions on multiple touchpoints, such as website, email, and chatbots, improving the overall customer experience.

Future-proofing your Customer Experience strategy

Although generative technologies have great potential for producing strong insights, a strong foundation is necessary to effectively revolutionize customer experience (CX) for businesses.

To stay prepared for the future in the constantly changing CX environment, companies need to exceed the traditional components such as data, algorithms, and integrations. These

three important key points will help you in successful CX adoption:

Identify Critical Touchpoints and Sources of Data: Using customer data solutions, chart the path of your customers and locate all possible sources of data such as website analytics, social media data, chat logs, and customer feedback.

Invest in secure solutions for data collection and management: Make sure you have the necessary infrastructure to collect, store, and analyze real-time data while respecting customer privacy securely and ethically.

Responsible AI Implementation: If your organization is considering adopting generative AI it is crucial to establish a proper AI strategy that guides every individual in harnessing the technology's capabilities.

At Polestar Solutions, our experts can assist you in realizing the complete capabilities of real-time data and bringing out the most sophisticated insights from their data in a value-oriented manner. From analytics foundation to analytics innovation initiatives, we offer a comprehensive range of services that help businesses succeed with data to develop a distinct CX strategy.

Ready to unlock the power of real-time data for your organization?