This article originally appeared in the April 2011 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY.

Many companies have more internal data than they use, plus they have access to lots of public data sources that can help them provide compelling experiences. So why aren’t we using data to create better, smarter customer interactions? Often, customer professionals are overwhelmed by too much data, or find that data is in silos that prevent them from understanding the full customer relationship. 

Successful companies consider data to be an important corporate asset, enabling them to act strategically and nimbly. They harness and integrate data across the organization. And once they harness the data, they use it to empower agents and systems and to provide intelligent, compelling customer experiences across all channels. They analyze data for insights, patterns, and actionable information to create meaningful and ongoing conversations with customers. The goal? To connect with customers on emotional as well as practical levels.

Here are some guidelines for using data in customer centric ways:

·         Use data in ways that support your customer experience strategy and are in line with associated self service design, processes, agent training and tools.

·         Identify data and databases that help you craft an ideal customer experience – these may be found inside your company, or there may be public databases that you can use to create smarter interactions.

·         Make sure the data you use is relevant and customer-centric; high quality, current and accurate; presented logically; channel-appropriate; seamless and consistent across channel; and dynamic and real-time.

In my next column, we’ll discuss the three keys to create a compelling customer experience: History, Memory and Knowledge.

Elaine Cascio is a vice president at consulting firm Vanguard Communications Corp. (www.vanguard.net).