CDP: The VIP Client Book for the Digital Age

Bridget Mora | March 31, 2021

Brick and Mortar Customer Management

Way back before the days of Internet shopping, I worked at an upscale retail store. Each associate kept a book with the VIP clients that she “owned” to track her best customers’ contact information, family members, style preferences, sizes, birthday, wish list, and even her store credit card number.

When her birthday was coming up, we called her husband with her wish list. When new arrivals came into the store, we called her to come in or even helped her shop sight unseen by phone and shipped to her. If she stopped into the shop, we knew exactly which items to show her. A high level of trust was developed, resulting in long term customer retention and increased revenue.

Customer Management in the Digital Age

Fast forward to the digital age, and retailers still need a strategy to capture all data points in one place for a unified customer view that allows for personalized customer care, effective outbound marketing, and ultimately, increased revenue.

Enter the CDP. Customer Data Platforms (CDP) work with CRMs to collect data from online and offline sources in real-time to create a unified customer view, using primarily first-person data. The more we move in an omnichannel world (online-offline), the more important it becomes to interact with your customers in a way that is both personalized and legally compliant. Unlike the VIP client books of old, CDPs meet GDPR, security, and privacy regulations.

A Personalized Omnichannel 360° View

CDPs unify customer profiles across systems in a manageable way to create a model that is customer-centric rather than channel-centric. Gone are the days of individual “ownership” of clients; every point of contact has access to the same “book,” so the customer has a truly seamless omnichannel experience that is consistent across ecommerce, retail, email, mobile, and call center channels.

3 Key Benefits of CDPs