Industry Insights
Insights from Data Management Professionals and Industry Insiders
Customer Experience
Customer Experience In a recent survey about Customer Data Management, over 82% of respondents said that they found manually filling online forms tedious. Furthermore, 80% of the respondents wanted a centralized Personal Data Management tool. More than 90% of the survey participants also expressed interest in the services offered by UniMe due to Data Privacy, Marketing Spam and Customer Experience considerations.
Data Quality
Customer data is used by businesses for many internal processes. These processes include marketing and advertising, communications, billing, deliveries and other critical activities. Data quality issues that arise in these environments have potential operational, regulatory, financial and reputational repercussions. Thus having access to high-quality customer data is a key step in mitigating against these risks. UniMe’s self-curated customer data has both pre-emptive and corrective components that help ensure the delivery of the high-quality data that business organizations require. Factors that motivate for elaborate Customer Data Quality Management include regulatory compliance (e.g. the POPI Act), improved business and IT operations as well as the provision of accurate data for Business Intelligence and Analytics purposes. For both customers and businesses alike, UniMe provides a convenient tool for the capture and dissemination of such customer data. This data is pivotal to improving the Customer Experience through its integration with business IT systems. It also gives businesses information about customer purchasing intentions as well as their consent to receive electronic marketing material.
Marketing Analytics
Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics form the basis of Data Driven Decisions (DDD). With DDD, managers do not depend on traditional ’gut feelings’ to make decision. Instead, decisions are made based on factual evidence presented by data. Hence the name Data Driven Decisions. The expectation and assumption are that DDD is more accurate than gut feel. The basic idea is to provide situational awareness and decision-making across the enterprise. In the context of Marketing Analytics, Customer Data provides the foundation of a process that takes customer data as input, cleanses, augments, integrates, and analyses it to create contextualised information. This information is the input into Marketing Analytics programmes. The key aim of these initiatives is to use analytics to improve marketing processes. When businesses have timely access to accurate customer purchasing intentions as well as the consent to market to these customers, they can target prospective customers with tailored offerings
Data Privacy Laws
Electronic marketing is as a popular way in which businesses market their products and services. It allows new businesses to quickly engage with many people and rapidly grow their customer base. Unfortunately electronic marketing is an irritating experience for many consumers as they are bombarded with an endless stream of unsolicited telephone calls, emails and phone messages. In jurisdictions such as the European Union where here are strict and mature data privacy laws, such behaviour by companies can attract heavy penalties. For example under the auspices of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Amazon, the US ecommerce giant was fined a whopping $877 million in 2021! WhatsApp didn’t fare much better – it was hit with $255 million in fines for data privacy violations.
In South Africa, the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI Act) went live in June 2021. Part of its purpose is to set the rules for direct electronic marketing. It is now incumbent for companies to ensure that they comply with the new legislation. Similarly to the GDPR in Europe, the POPI Act allows the South African Information Regulator to issue fines if they violate the privacy of customer data. To ensure compliance with the POPI Act while undertaking marketing to customers, recommended key steps include:
- 1.Seek customers’ consent before sending them marketing material via email, telephone, SMS or electronic relevant media
- 2.Ensure that customers can readily and easily opt out of receiving electronic marketing material should they decide to do so
- 3.The marketer’s information (including contact details) must be included in all communications sent to customers. The purpose of including the email address, telephone number or other contact channels is to ensure that the targeted person can inform the marketer to stop communicating with them should they so desire
In South Africa, the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI Act) went live in June 2021. Part of its purpose is to set the rules for direct electronic marketing. It is now incumbent for companies to ensure that they comply with the new legislation. Similarly to the GDPR in Europe, the POPI Act allows the South African Information Regulator to issue fines if they violate the privacy of customer data. To ensure compliance with the POPI Act while undertaking marketing to customers, recommended key steps include:
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