To Stay in Tune with Customers, Make Sure You Use All of Your Enterprise’s Data.

Posted by Scott Bounty on May 26, 2010 in Customer Communications

This past weekend I redeemed reward points for a free night’s stay at a major hotel. As a frequent guest at this hotel chain—close to 40 nights over the past five years—I assumed my hotel preferences (king-size bed, room far from the elevator, USA Today) would be well documented in their enterprise database. Plus, I had completed a detailed profile of my likes and dislikes when joining their frequent-guest program a few years back. Just to be sure, I always confirm my room requirements when making a phone reservation.

When I checked in, I was disappointed to discover the hotel was booked to capacity. It was graduation weekend. The only rooms available had twin beds and, worse yet as it was to prove, were near the elevator. Not the end of the world, but disappointing. When I was awakened at two in the morning by a group of loud hotel guests coming off the elevator, my disappointment turned to anger.

Clearly (and loudly) this hotel chain was unsuccessful in managing their customer data. It’s likely they house silos of data around the world, but failed to integrate all their customer data within the enterprise. They are not alone.

According to a Forrester Research report, although 92 percent of companies surveyed believe having an integrated view of customer data is either “critical” or “very important,” only 2 percent have actually managed to achieve that goal.

I believe a big part of the problem is cultural—the unwillingness of business units within an enterprise to share customer data. I was excited to see that Tom Hoffman, executive business editor of 1to1 Media, raised this very issue at last month’s SAS Global Forum. In a recent blog posting, “Breaking Free of Customer Data Fiefdoms,” he relates how companies are devising a range of solutions to this problem. It’s interesting how many different approaches there are to driving customer data sharing. How does your organization share data?

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Tags: data, data sharing, personalization