Context:

Picture the scene. Summer is over, and you are already looking for your next vacation spot. You start searching for flights on your favorite airline company's mobile app and realize you need to talk to a human to ask a few questions about your status perks. As you call in, the agent greets you using your last name, answers all your questions, and helps you get the flights you need. You receive a confirmation email including a few personalized offers. Fast forward, you are now at the airport, and you receive a mobile push notification recommending which check-in lane to use based on your destination, status, and how busy the airport is. You then get recognized both at the airline lounge and when getting onboard before enjoying a meal tailored to your preferences. What a great start to your next vacation, right? Although this smooth experience is almost a reality for some airline companies, it is hard to get it done for the most part. 

Business Problem:

At the heart of successful customer experiences spanning multiple channels and screens, like the one above, is the ability to identify and recognize customers as they go from one touchpoint to the next. I often hear CX practitioners state their business problems through different variations of the following:

• — "I want to identify our website visitors so we can personalize their experiences as soon as possible." ‍
• — "How can we create continuous experiences as our customers go from one channel to the next?"‍
• — "Our customers get frustrated when we ask them to identify themselves again just because they bounce from one department to another. Our internal silos and technology shortcomings are showing to our customers, and this situation is hurting our image and bottom line."

Solution:

As I meet with organizations and discuss their business challenges and the best way to solve them, we often go through a white-boarding exercise to assess all the "data plumbing" they already have before we get into any solution. For this use case, I often ask CX practitioners to go through the four following steps:

1 — List your channels:

As we solve a customer identification challenge, one way to start is to map all channels customers might use to connect with the brand. This most likely includes:

• — Website ‍
• — Chat (through the website or mobile app)‍
• — Mobile App‍
• — In-App Messaging‍
• — Mobile Push Notification‍
• — Email‍
• — Call Center ‍
• — Text Messaging‍
• — Social Media such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, ... etc.‍
• — Store‍
• — Kiosk ‍
• — Direct Mail ‍
• — Search 
• ‍— Display Ads

As you go through this exercise, ensure you are as exhaustive as possible, and no stone is left unturned. Customer identification is also a B2B use case as much as a B2C one. B2B organizations will look at this use case to identify their prospects across channels and screens and, most importantly, determine where their visitors fit within the business accounts they are trying to target and convert. For B2B, make sure you also look at the following channels:

• — Webinars‍
• — Landing Pages‍
• — Tradeshows‍
• — Events‍
• — Outbound Calling 

2 — Map channels with identities

Now that we have a list of all the channels customers can use to engage with your brand, the next step is to determine how you will identify them, so you keep track of who they are even if they hop on another channel. In some cases, an identity could mean a Personally Identifiable Information (PII) such as an email or a phone number. In other instances, it could be a randomly generated and unique ID that will identify the visitor on a website, for example. 

I typically go back to the channel list (as described above) and start adding all the identities we might want to establish for each.

2-1 — Website 

• — A randomly generated and unique ID. ‍
• — A login if the visitor accesses their online account
• — An email the visitor leaves behind as they create an account or sign up for email communications. ‍
• — A phone number the visitor shares in exchange for deal alerts through text messaging

2-2 — Chat (through the website or mobile app)

• — a login if the visitor is already connected to their account as they seek help from the chat capability whether they are on the website or on the brand's mobile app‍
• — A randomly generated and unique ID, whether the visitor is authenticated or not‍
• — A first and last name the visitor provides‍
• — An account or loyalty number the visitor shares during their exchange.
  

2-3 — Mobile App

• — A randomly generated and unique ID tight to the mobile app whether the visitor is authenticated or not‍
• — A unique Mobile Token ID assigned to the customer's mobile device whether they are authenticated or not‍
• — A login if the visitor accesses their account on the app‍
• — Any PII the customer chooses to leave behind as they sign up and interact on the mobile app.
  

2-4 — In-App Messaging

• — A randomly generated and unique ID tight to the mobile app whether the visitor is authenticated or not
  

2-5 — Mobile Push Notification

• — A randomly generated and unique ID tight to the mobile app whether the visitor is authenticated or not‍
• — A unique Mobile Token ID assigned to the customer's mobile device whether they are authenticated or not
  

2-6 — Email

• — An Email address the customer shares in exchange for receiving email communications from the brand.
  

2-7 — Call Center 

• — The phone number the customer is calling from.‍
• — An account or loyalty number the customer chooses to share during the conversation 
  

2-8 — Text Messaging

• — The phone number the customer agreed to share in exchange for receiving communications

2-9 — Social Media such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, to name a few.‍

• — A social media handle the customer chooses to share in exchange for easier login and account management.
  

2-10 — Store

• — An account, loyalty number, email, or phone number the customer chooses to share during the checkout process.  ‍
• — An email, phone number, or any other PII the customer chooses to share as they sign up for brand's perks during the checkout process.
  

2-11 — Kiosk 

• — An account, loyalty number, email, or phone number the customer chooses to share as they expedite their process.  
  

2-12 — Direct Mail 

• — First and last name and a physical address the customer chooses to share in exchange for receiving statements, catalogs, or other paper communications. ‍
• — A company name and physical address the customer chooses to share in exchange for receiving professional communications.
  

2-13 — Search and Display Ads

• — No 1st party identification in this case, as the search will typically happen outside a brand's digital property. However, they are other ways to attribute search results and display ads to an individual or company.
  

2-14 — Webinars

• — An email address a participant leaves behind in exchange for attending ‍
• — A company name the participant shares as they register for the webinar. ‍
• — An email, phone number, or any other PII the participant chooses to share as they sign up as a registrant. 
  

2-15 — Landing Pages

• — An email address a prospect leaves behind in exchange for accessing a white paper, eBook, or other resources.
  

2-16 — Tradeshows

• — An email address a prospect leaves behind in exchange for information gathered at the company's booth. ‍
• — An email address and company name a prospect shares as they sign up for a company-sponsored breakout session.

2-17 — Events

• — An email address, first and last name, and company name a prospect shares in exchange for registering/attending an event. 
  

2-18 — Outbound Calling 

• — A phone number of a prospect or customer who agreed to share in exchange for receiving information

3- Data collection and ingestion

As we now understand the channels and identities one brand uses to engage with its customers, we can now make recommendations on how best to collect and ingest engagement events and ensure we recognize customers along the way. Every channel mentioned above generates data of its own contained in an isolated silo. In a previous post, I discussed the importance of Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) and strategically choosing to invest in a Customer Data Platform technology. One of the many benefits of using a CDP is to help accelerate your data collection and ingestion strategy and create a 360 Real-Time view of your Customers. All the channels mentioned above, along with their identities, will then be ingested into a common data platform that will help you streamline data processing and get us closer to linking customer behavior across channels and screens. This leads me to the next step, which is about how to connect identities and solve our customer identification challenge.

4- Identify customers

One of the most strategic capabilities a CDP can offer is identifying customers across many channels and screens. This capability is called the Identity Graph. In a nutshell, this capability will leverage all incoming data from all the above channels and will build a graph based on the identities we mentioned earlier. Some of these identities will be defined as primary (such as an email address from the Email channel or a phone number from the Call Center channel) or as secondary (such as an email address on the Website where this identity is not always provided).

As the CDP processes all incoming data along with its primary and secondary identities, overlapping identities will form. The CDP will then start developing a Profile graph that will play a critical role in creating a 360 Real-Time view of each Customer. This living graph will evolve in real-time as data is batched or streamed in, getting richer over time and covering all channels and screens each Customer will engage through.

The result is a fresh, up-to-date, and real-time profile used to track who customers are at every step of their experience with the brand.

Benefits:

When solving this business use case, organizations and brands can enjoy the following benefits:

• — Getting a solid foundation for cross-channel customer identification. ‍
• — Readying your CX teams to create continuous customer experiences that don't get interrupted by a loss of who customers are as they hop across channels.‍
• — Better CMO/CIO/CX teams alignment on identifying customers across the board.

Measuring Success:

As you implement this use case and start aligning your internal teams on how best to identify your customers, you may want to watch for the following KPIs to measure how you do:

• — Number of connected vs. non-connected channels. By connected, I mean a channel contributing to an Identity Graph. It would be best if you aimed at operating on 100% connected channels.‍
• — Customer Identification Ratio. 

Join the conversation and share your views and experiences around Customer Identification by leaving a comment below.