Data’s third dimension

Bring together operational data and human experience data, and companies can respond with greater impact to address human needs and desires in the moment, and identify opportunities to improve specific processes or functional areas.

Three Deloitte transformation specialists unpack how integrating ERP experience management applications forms a sophisticated end-to-end loyalty solution for understanding the customer perspective, generating insights companies can use to act immediately and intelligently. 

Potential and prediction

Historically, enterprises have gathered insights into operations (the ‘O’ data such as finance, inventory, or consumer purchasing) and consumer experience (the ‘X’ data of satisfaction, market sentiment data, or brand loyalty) as mutually exclusive data streams. However, new solutions are fusing the two, creating what Steve Hibberd, partner Deloitte MCS Limited, calls “a third dimension of data” that can have a huge impact on business, particularly spending. When companies look at experience data through an enterprise lens, “you start seeing better capital expenditure decisions, quicker routes to market, now as a completely different business case and KPIs” than it would have been otherwise.  

James Sharpe, Director at Deloitte MCS Limited, crystallises the potential of X and O data citing a case where consumer sentiment exposed a discrepancy the experience the business thought it was delivering, and warehouse and supply chain problems that were the root cause. “You simply couldn’t see that with O data. Without getting that human understanding, decisions to repair such issues often may be incorrect.”

Merging operational data and sentiment also gives companies a new world of knowledge about how the customer behaves, interpreting their interaction and allowing companies–especially agile, kinetic ones–to predict consumer behaviour. The results, explains Raquel Pinillos, director at Deloitte Digital, “provide the intelligence companies need to be predictive and act even before the customer needs what they really wanted.”

B2B, B2C give way to H2H

With emotion and connection moving to the fore, the vernacular used to define consumer relationships is changing. Business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) are giving way to something different: human-to-human or ‘H2H’. Says Pinillos, “Now it's just human-to-human which means we take human emotion into account in every transaction.”  That emotion-based connection builds loyalty–but only if a company is willing to understand the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of consumer behaviour through reveal its own humanity by acting on it. Something Hibberd seconds, but also offers: “Making sure you actually can act on it…that’s what is underlying the kinetic enterprise.”

For Sharpe, the key word is ‘relationships’ and he points to a Deloitte study on emotion-driven engagement that revealed 62 per cent of consumers feel they have a relationship with a brand. “They're expecting the brand to listen and evolve as their needs and wants change over time. An organisation that's focussed on the human quality and the human connection will survive.”

Reducing organisational & business debt

Clean, intelligent, inclusive, responsive–the four core principles of the Kinetic Enterprise™ that reduce a company’s technical debt and ensure it’s built to evolve. Sharpe proposes that combining a Kinetic Enterprise with experiential data reduces organisational and business debt through better decisions. “If you bring X and O data together you get to the true root cause [of issues] and can make better spending decisions. Organisational business debt is the root cause of technical debt, because without insight, you could make poor choices and increase the technical burden.”

Disruption and experience management

Hibberd offers the COVID-19 pandemic should be seen as a disrupter versus a new phenomenon for which there is no response rulebook, and highlights the need for companies to be agile, built to evolve. “Disruption is the new normal and organisations will need to contend with it forevermore.”

COVID-19 has also magnified our innate need for a human connection, and the relationship they have with companies is included. This is forcing businesses to meet customers’ changing needs, and with a huge potential upside: Loyalty. Says Pinillos, “Companies need to understand the customers' expectations so they can adapt. And if they are able to demonstrate through this crisis how close they are to customers, they will create a very strong loyalty bond.”

Driving home the importance of connections during this pandemic, Sharpe adds: “This is one of the biggest disruptive moments we've had, and if we don't listen to humans and the connections that we have, business will not thrive afterwards is my general opinion.”

All levels, all in

For experience management initiatives to be transformational and enduring, the entire organisation needs to be aligned and involved–a noticeable departure from conventional thinking that makes it the sole purview of customer-centric departments like customer service or marketing. Says Pinillos, “There are more interaction moments, more channels of contact, we are there for our customers 24/7. All of the company must understand the role they play in delivering that experience no matter if they're on the frontline or in the back office.” Successful organisations will understand, adopt and promote that approach, and embed it into their culture. Sharpe adds that in practical terms, the challenge is ensuring “these insights are given to the right person at the right time so they can act…and allowing that freedom and responsibility to exist.”

Hibberd presents a final perspective on the conversation that dives right to the heart of the matter for companies that want to move forward with an experience-centric approach: “Having the experience data and the O data points is fundamental to help an organisation at all levels to recognise where they need to change and become one that’s built to evolve.”

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