With the next generation customer data platform, companies can offer their customers a completely new experience in all interactions from commerce to marketing and sales to service. The announcement was made at the SAP Customer Experience LIVE online conference, to which SAP invited customers, partners and industry leaders on October 14th and 15th.

The customer experience is becoming an increasingly important competitive factor for companies around the world. For various marketing purposes, many of them want to create a unique, personalized experience for their customers with a customer data platform (CDP). Too often, however, the strong focus on marketing means that the actual potential of a CDP cannot be used. The aim of the SAP Customer Data Platform is to provide comprehensive context information for all commerce, sales and service interactions and to combine this with relevant marketing content. By capturing and managing customer data, the SAP Customer Data Platform is intended to create the conditions for a personalized experience. Companies should be able to access extensive information every time they interact with a customer. This enables them to address customers specifically and to ensure their long-term loyalty.

Linking and evaluation of data for a personalized experience and reliable data protection

The SAP Customer Data Platform specifically supports four ways to improve brand awareness and impact:

1. Linking the individual data sources in the company: When customer data is stored in multiple data sources, the number of data silos grows and a fragmented view of the customer emerges. With the SAP Customer Data Platform, customer data can be recorded and displayed from all sources within the company. This includes internal CRM data, data from business partners and third-party providers, offline data, event and activity flows, data from the back office and data on transactions as well as customer behavior and experience. This data is maintained together with context information, regardless of the source, and supplements the operational data. This allows systems to be connected that depend on reliable data quality. This creates dynamic, uniform customer profiles that can be updated in real time.
2. Development of a holistic strategy for the protection of customer data: In order to be able to comply with data protection regulations, companies need to know how, when and where customer data can be used. The SAP Customer Data Platform can recognize the purpose for which data is being collected and enables a holistic data protection strategy. The recorded data will only be added to the customer profile if the required declarations of consent are available. This makes data collection methods and the reasons for processing data more transparent, and customers can be confident that their data is protected
3. Evaluation of large amounts of data: The SAP Customer Data Platform provides meaningful key figures for segmentation and customer activities, which are calculated in real time and can therefore provide precise insight into the preferences and behavior of customers. This creates a data basis for the definition and individual addressing of target groups in order to enable relevant, personalized interaction with customers via any channel. By centrally managing their target groups, companies can support a uniform user experience in their marketing, personalization, commerce, service and sales solutions and in this way improve their customer orientation
4. Highly personalized interactions thanks to a comprehensive view of the customer: The SAP Customer Data Platform enables the merging of extensive operational data from the back office with front office and experience data. As a result, meaningful real-time information is made available on the basis of the consents granted in the company-wide solutions for customer interaction, with which companies can offer their customers a relevant experience tailored to their needs via the preferred channel at the right time.

�Every customer is different and a customer's behavior can never be accurately predicted,� explains Trond Andersen, who is responsible for IT strategy and architecture at Elkj�p Nordic AS, one of the largest consumer electronics retailers in Scandinavia.

�The SAP Customer Data Platform enables the context-related view of the customer, which we can link to a uniform profile. This enables us to better anticipate the wishes and requirements of customers and respond to them immediately. Thanks to real-time data management, we can interact with customers even more effectively and at the same time ensure that we comply with all regulations when using the data and also respect customers� wishes for their data to be protected.

A strong foundation

The basis for the SAP Customer Data Platform are the solutions from SAP Customer Data Cloud, which are based on Gigya technology. By linking to SAP Customer Identity and Access Management and SAP Enterprise Consent and Preference Management, companies can ensure that these profiles are secure and do not violate data protection regulations. All information in these real-time profiles is linked to one another via the SAP Customer Data Platform. It forms the basis for comprehensive insights into customers and enables a targeted approach when a customer wants to interact with the company.

�We didn�t invent the concept of the customer data platform, but with the SAP Customer Data Platform we're adding a multitude of new possibilities,� said Bob Stutz, President of SAP Customer Experience. �The SAP Customer Data Platform is one of the most modern enterprise-class CDPs. By bringing together extensive front office, back office and experience data, it supports personalized experiences. In this way, anonymous users become known, loyal customers who interact with the company via the channels of their choice."

Source:marketing-boerse.de
Image: primefeed.in/Customer-Data-Platform-1