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Treasure Data Executive Interview

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Sheri Greenhaus, Managing Partner, CrmXchange, and Zack Wenthe, CDP Evangelist, Treasure Data, discuss the benefits of Treasure Data’s Customer Data Platform.  

What is a customer data platform?

There are a variety of definitions. Gartner describes it as a marketing technology platform that brings customer data together. Essentially the CDP application brings together all of your customer data sources into a single source. It is having a single unified view of the customer, so the brand does not see each customer as multiple profiles: separate sales, service or marketing profile. We bring all of this data and make it actionable. It is what we call identity resolution -bringing all of those identities together.

There's a lot of value in unlocking customer data. That's what a CDP can ultimately provide. The Holy Grail of marketing has always been the 360-degree view of a customer. Service organizations are now looking at the value of having this view and seeing it as something that they can use.

The smarter organizations had started to do that organically. In the last 2- or 3-years with all of the changes and people going more digital, there's less human interaction. Contact centers, chat, bots, communication channels have exploded. When the consumer makes a call after going the digital path, it’s optimal for the agent to have all the available customer data in front of them so the customer does not need to repeat themselves.  Teams are starting to look at the whole customer experience across the board from acquisition through retention and growth. Contact centers are a huge part of that growth strategy and starting to move from a cost center to a profit center.

Tell us a bit about Treasure Data.

We've been in the data business for over a decade. The phrase CDP was coined in 2016.  We have been operating in that space since. Last fall we released a dedicated application for service in partnership with Genesys, Zendesk and Cinch. The application is built on the same infrastructure, data sets and governance that the marketing team uses, but now with tools built specifically for a contact center team.

Is CDP for Service and CDP for Marketing the same with the exception of different pieces of the interface depending on which team is using the data?

The underlying data is the same across all of those tools. It’s putting an interface together that's applicable for each user.  In Genesys, our interface is inside the Genesys application. The agent can click on the Treasury Data button and see the full profile of the customer they are interacting with.  The data store is the same.

Our audience is always looking at how they can help their agents. What would you say are the primary benefits to agents?

Before the customers pick up the phone, they have probably been clicking around online, and have done some research.  Too often when you call the call center, the agent's blind to all of that interaction. All of our data is real time, meaning the pages that you just looked at, the articles – if you downloaded something, you clicked on something, all of that profile data is right there for that call center agent to see - along with past history, past purchase history, past campaign activity.  You have all of this information about the customer.  The agent has more insights and feel like they are part of the team. If they are in an upsell or cross-sell mode, they have all the information to personalize for the next best step. 

Can companies customize how much the agents change or add to the customer database?

It is all customizable. CX professionals can decide which information their agents have access to and what they can update.  And conversely, what's happening is the data that you're storing in Genesys or Zendesk gets fed back into the CDP. It’s built into the same tools you're already working with.

We have rules that resolve that information. For example, even if you overwrote their email address and phone number that doesn't mean it necessarily updates that master record. This is all business rules and logic and controlled by the company.

What type of person typically implements the solution?

It depends on the organization, the size of their contact center organization and their application. If they have Treasure Data for Marketing, the data is already there. Using Genesys as an example, the call center application is there. It’s a matter of imbedding our application in the Genesys platform.

There's some implementation work. Typically, it's your contact center, your technical team, and your IT organization.  With some customers we use crawl, walk, run and figure out where they want to go.

What integrations do you have?

Zendesk, Genesys and Cinch are our core application partners. There are a variety of chatbots that we also work with as well as many communication channels. We have a full API and the ability to leverage either other connected tools or cloud based connecting databases. Even if somebody was on a proprietary platform, they could tie into this data. It may require some implementation services as opposed to an out-of-the-box integration.

How long does it take to be up and running if an organization has no CDP?

We like to see value driven use case within 6 to 8 weeks for first use case. We have some customers that were up and running in 60 days.

How are you different from the other CRM and data systems?

CRM was really built for sales professionals – not to be true data storage. People were pushing the systems to do more than they were made for. Something else was needed to sit between systems to be an independent broker of data.

When someone tells us that they already have a CRM, I ask - how clean is your data? How much duplicate data do you have?  Often, they have duplicate records and it’s pretty messy because they don’t have those tools to stitch all those profiles together. Organizations may also have a data warehouse that’s messy because they don’t have tools like identity resolution to stitch all those profiles together.

If they are storing the data, I ask how actionable is that data and can your marketing team get quick access or are they putting in a support request to IT to run a query?

For Treasure Data, we are very good at solving complex issues for the enterprise. Take for example manufacturers like Subaru, who have OEM, dealerships, different data points and profiles they are trying to stitch together to understand propensity and digital interactions. Complex enterprise is a sweet spot for us because we offer a very customizable platform. It can be used for sales, service, etc. 

You rolled out Treasure Data for Service last year.  What have your customers found?

The big thing is real-time nature. It's one thing to feed in touch points about a customer such as their last purchase. The problem is, that tends to be very static and that may not tell you the whole picture. It is also not giving the customer service agent enough credit.  We were telling them the story we thought they needed to know by giving them a couple of data points. But when you give them a whole profile, they had a more personal communication.  They still follow the script and have their guidelines, but they were given more insight into the customer.

The other thing is the contact center has become more of a profit center able to do personalized product recommendations and next best actions.  Agents can see the profile and make the best offer for that customer and not just push the ‘product of the day’.

The key competitive advantage is organizations need to be able to control and own the data.  These companies will succeed. There is a huge opportunity for the contact center to embrace customer data and really add that next level of the experience. It gives the brand the ability to stand out and own the conversation.