Losing customers means losing business. By intentionally addressing the customer experience and making it truly orchestral, the relationship between the customer and the company is stronger.

Matt Parisi, director of product marketing at Tealium, said:

Tealium, a customer data platform that uses tag management, APIs, and other integrations to connect data and manage digital properties, is a sponsor of Simpler Media Group’s recent Digital Experience Summit. First Party To follow up on Matt’s session on his data strategy, SMG spoke with him.

keep up with customer demands

Simpler Media Group: Why are digital marketing technologies important to the customer experience?

Parisi: In nearly every industry, the customer journey is enhanced by digital technology. Not only are the majority of customer journeys completed in a digital context, digital technology can better enable nearly all customer engagements, including physical interactions. As such, digital will not only become the most dominant channel, but also the technology that enables all customer engagements.

For those who doubt it, the pandemic has put the spotlight on those who are digitally capable and those who are not. Verticals and verticals look a little different, but what they have in common is that digital, and by extension, data-agile companies, have thrived.

SMG: How has digital marketing and tracking customer preferences changed in recent years?

Parisi: It might be easier to ask why it hasn’t changed. The importance of first-party data and the practices associated with it are indeed undergoing a dramatic shift. While technologies are constantly emerging to help solve these challenges, there is also a constant stream of new limitations to deal with.

As I mentioned earlier, the pandemic has put the spotlight on the importance and effectiveness of digital. At the same time, businesses’ use of digital is maturing, societal expectations are changing, governments are enforcing regulations, and customer expectations are constantly rising.

Privacy has really surged to the forefront. Find out what Apple has done over the years to limit access to your data. At the same time, customers still have high expectations of how companies deliver their experiences. It all depends on how well you apply insights from the data you have access to. You can’t establish that trust unless you really prioritize how you use data throughout the customer journey.

data decision

SMG: What do these changes mean for your data-driven business strategy?

Parisi: That means you have to be good at connecting and coordinating customer experiences. Consistently close manual gaps in delivering CX so you can always focus on the most valuable areas for improvement. Not just the experience itself, but how we learn and optimize the experience.

This suggests that companies need to be truly intentional in how they manage the data that represents and drives the customer experience. Improving data management and integration in this way is the single most effective way to succeed in customer experience.

This is easier said than done, as it’s not realistic to expect a single system, department, or team to handle it. This is something that really needs to be done holistically, and in many ways it requires new skills, new technology and, most importantly, a culture to match. Otherwise, the customer will eventually pay the price and that’s not the best business strategy at the moment.

SMG: What do you think is the biggest gap between the optimal digital experience and reality? How can businesses do better?

Parisi: The single biggest gap right now is the culture of data usage that exists within the organization. Compounding the challenge is the lack of talent for specific technical skills.By combining the right technology and partners An organizational culture that embraces the use of data across departments allows companies to create ecosystems that create great customer experiences without requiring every employee to be a developer or data engineer. Many of them take what was previously accessible only to a small number of technical and privileged people (whether privileged or not because of their skill set, department, access to technology, etc.) It comes down to making the value of tactics more accessible to the entire ecosystem.

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There is a huge gap between how companies think about their performance and what their customers perceive. Fortunately, this is also an area where data can fill gaps.

Intentionality of experience

SMG: What advice do you have for organizations that want to overhaul their digital experience as part of a digital transformation initiative but don’t know where to start?

Parisi: First of all, I think we have to recognize the relevance of the customer experience and the need for something to support it. As you can see, I believe the foundation is the use of data and managing it in a channel agnostic way. It’s important to keep in mind the entire lifecycle of that data, rather than dealing with it one at a time.

For example, how you collect data really affects how quickly and how you activate it. So if you are talking about collecting data without thinking about how it is activated then that needs to be fixed first. What is connecting the dots on the customer journey mosquito?

From there, we think about the customer journey itself and work slowly but surely to improve that journey at each step. Not only does it improve your experience, it automates how scaling happens.

Over time, when you do this around data by looking at the entire data management lifecycle (collection, governance, insight generation, experience activation), you learn to use data throughout the customer journey. I can do it. The true orchestration of CX opens up as you master and manage more data throughout your journey.

By gaining control over how data is used for each use case, businesses can deliver value faster while also building for transformational change.

SMG: What do you like to do in your spare time?

Parisi: I’ve recently retired from being an avid Ultimate Frisbee player, coaching Ultimate Frisbee and using my newfound time to play disc golf. But I am looking for new hobbies. I love sports, mostly soccer, basketball and baseball, so I spend a lot of time on that. Walking his dog, reading, and gardening are among his favorite activities.

Watch Matt’s full Digital Experience Summit session on demand.