Identifying Customers

Nilesh Joglekar

Setting The Context

1. All enterprises use

information about their
customers to make
smarter decisions.
2. But for most traditional
marketing decisions
and actions,
information is really
needed only at the
aggregate, or market,
level.
3. The enterprise then
uses this information
to plan its production

Relationship
Before any relationship
can start, both parties
have to know each
others identities and
be able to build a
comprehensive view of
the other.

What it involves
Making decisions and taking
actions at the level of the individual
customer, using customer-specific
information in addition to information
about the aggregate characteristics of
the market population.
This is because a relationship
inherently implies some type of
mutual interaction between two
individual parties.

Individual Information Requires

Customer Recognition
The essence of
managing customer
relationships is treating

different customers
differently

The Purpose of Identification

1. Recognizing each
customer as that
customer, each time we
come in contact with
that customer
2. Linking those different
data points to develop a
full picture of each
Refers
not socustomer.
much to figuring out which customers we
particular
want (that comes later).

Steps in identifying customers

Step 1
Take inventory of
existing customer data

Step 2
Get Customers to
Identify Themselves

Step 1: Take inventory of existing

Customer Data
Take an inventory of all of the customer data already available
in any kind of electronic format. Customer identification information
might be stored in several electronic places, such as on the Web
server or in the contact center database.
Find customer-identifying information that is on file but not
electronically compiled.
Data about customers that has been written down but not
electronically recorded should be transferred to a computer
database, so that it will be accessible internally and protected from
loss or unnecessary duplication.

Step 2: Get Customers to Identify

Themselves
To engage a customer in a genuine relationship, a company
must also be able to

1.Link the customer to her own

specific purchase and service
transaction behavior.
2.Analyzing past behavior is
probably the single most useful
method for modeling a customers
future value

Ways to get customers to identify

themselves
Sales contests and sponsored events are
often designed for the specific purpose of gathering
potential and established customer names and
addresses.
A one-time contest or promotion might help a company
identify customers it did not previously know the
customer
Company needs to link the customers identity to her
actual transactions is also important.

Frequency marketing programs

Suit both purposes, providing not only a mechanism to
identify customers, but also a means to link customers,
over time, with the specific transactions they undertake.
Such programs have been used for years to strengthen
relationships with individual customers, but its important
to recognize that a frequency marketing program is a

tactic, not a strategy.

What Data Do We Need When We

Identify a Customer?

Behavior
al Data

Attitudinal
Attitudinal
Data
Data

Demograp
Demograp
hic
hic Data
Data

Behavioral
data

1. Purchase and buying habits

2. Clickstream data gleaned from
the way a firms website visitor
clicks through the firms website
3. Interactions with the company
4. Communication channels chosen
5. Language used
6. product consumption Company
share of wallet

Attitudinal
data

1. Attitudes about products, such as

satisfaction levels
2. Perceived competitive positioning
3. Desired features
4. Unmet needs as well as lifestyles
5. Brand preferences
6. Social and personal values
7. Opinions

Demograp
hic data

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Age
Income
Education level
Marital status
Household composition
Gender
Home ownership

Data Classification
Stable Data
Birth date or genderwill need to be gathered only once. Once verified
for accuracy, these data can survive in a database over long periods and
many programs.
Updates of stable data should be undertaken to correct errors, but,
except for errors, stable data wont need much alteration.

Adaptive Data
Persons intended purchases or even her feelings about a particular
political candidate that will need constant updating.
Note: This is not a binary classification, of course. In reality, some data are relatively more
stable or adaptive than other data.

What Does Identify Mean?

The purpose of identifying individual
customers is to facilitate the
development of relationships with
them individually.
we are using the word identify in its
broadest possible form.

Activities Enterprise can undertake

as a part of identifying Customers
1

Define

Collect

Link

Integra
te

Recogniz
e

Store

Update

Analyz
e

Make It
available

1
0

Secure

Define and Collect

Define

Decide what
information
will comprise
the actual
customers
identity

Collect

Arrange to
collect these
customer
identities.

Collect Data using

1. Frequent shopper
bar codes
2. credit card data
3. paper applications
4. Web-based
interactions via
Web site, blog
comments,
Facebook, Twitter

Link and Integrate

Link

Customers
identity must be
linked to all
transactions
and interactions
with that
customer, at all
points of contact

Integrate

Identity need to be
integrated into the
information
systems the
enterprise uses to
run its Business.

Recognize and Store

Recognize

The customer who

returns to a
different part of
the organization
needs to be
recognized as the
same customer,

Store
Identifying
information about
individual customers
must be linked,
stored,
and maintained in
one or several
electronic

Update and Analyze

Update

All customer data,

is subject to
change and must
be regularly
verified, updated,
improved, or
revised.

Analyze

Customer
identities must
serve as the key
inputs for
analyzing
individual
customer

Availability and Security

Make it Available

The Customer data

must be shared to
the people and
functions within
the enterprise
whenever needed

Secure

Customer data is
both competitively
sensitive privacy
is critical to
prevent its
unauthorized use.

Summary
The first task to accomplish in building
relationships with a customer is to recognize
Each one at every point of contact, across all products
purchased or locations contacted, through every
communication channel, over time.
Doing this requires knowing the identity of each
customer at every contact point in the organization.