Quantta is building India’s first Customer Data Platform

Customers come in various forms. In the business landscape today, they also come from multiple sources. The same customer will purchase from you using a mobile app, a mobile browser, desktop browser or even an affiliate website. Worse, sometimes they will buy in their name, other times in their son or daughters name. Let us not forget the multiple ways in which they can pay for the transaction. Now let us add to this heady mix, the numerous ways in which we attempt to target customers. There is digital, and there is analog, there is in-person. I won’t even bother you with the sub-categories within. Any company trying to make sense of all this data will more likely end up scratching their head. The question we need to ask ourselves is – how can we create a unified view of our customers?

 

Let us not get ambitious, even removing duplicate customers is a great starting point. Ensuring that their proper salutation is used would be fantastic. But we need so much more, don’t we? Especially if what we are chasing is a personalised one-on-one relationship with our customer. That lofty goal that all marketing folks keep talking about?

 

A Customer Data Platform is a great starting point. The goal is to start by cleaning all your data. If your data is streaming in from different sources, the objective would be to create a unique customer ID. The ID would unify all the information you now collect.

 

Next, you could build simple tools to crawl the web to find additional information about this unique customer. Perhaps they commented on twitter about your product. Was it positive or negative? Customers are continually leaving breadcrumbs about how they interact with your business. It is possible to use this to build a more profound understanding of your customer.

 

Finally, you want to understand how your customers think and behave beyond your product or service. What else do they buy? What moves them? Once you have an in-depth understanding, you can begin your journey toward building a trusted and sustainable relationship. Finding look-alike from the rest of the Universe is the culmination of this journey. Remember though that before you look for look-alikes, genuinely knowing your customer is the best starting point.

 

Ritesh Bawri is the Founder of Quantta Analytics. Quantta is building India’s first Customer Data Platform to help companies develop deep relationships with their customers.