We have already seen that having a good segmentation is really important for designing a unique customer experience for your customers and for them to feel at home.

When a customer makes a purchase online they usually leave behind a few breadcrumbs that we can follow and collect to give us an idea of who they are, what they like and which products they may need in the future. By making the purchase they give us details such as their address and email address, which we will then use to send them discounts and suggestions and to let them know where their nearest store is.

The problem arises when the customer visits the store, they are offered a customer card to receive other benefits and a new customer file is created, either because the data between the online store and the physical store is not synchronized, or because the shop assistant cannot easily find the file of an already registered customer.

This is when the alarm bells start to ring. We are creating multiple files per customer instead of working with a unique customer ID for all sales channels.

The information itself

When the customer arrives at the cash register and is about to finalize their purchase, they can’t remember the email address they used to register, or if they registered in store, so perhaps, so as not to make them wait, the file was created just with their name and somebody wrote it down wrongly by mistake and… and… and there we have a customer with several files.

If working with a traditional CRM, we would have to pay special attention to the customer file creation process to make sure that the appropriate steps are taken, to make it a quick and easy process both for the customer and for the staff in the store.

If the customer has created their file online, they should have no problem as long as the customer management program is correctly implemented in all stores both online and offline, and as long as there is a well explained procedure for employees to strictly follow.

In reality this is a very difficult target to achieve.

The best thing would be to be able to have a field for each customer to act as a connection between their registration in their Ecommerce account and their account in the management system that also allows us to identify them in the physical store. This field should also allow us to verify that the customer registering is really who they say they are.

Once a unique ID has been established per customer in both worlds, the ideal scenario would be to provide the customer with a “safe, private and error-free” identification method for each purchase. In many businesses we can still see customers giving their personal details to retailers out loud for them to search in the CRM, with the ensuing lack of privacy, security and possibilities for error in the search that we saw at the beginning of this article.

The problem with having several files for the same customer

 All the positives that we can take from one customer file become and inconvenience if the information is incorrect or if we have duplicate files.

It is possible for the customer to purchase different items in the online store and in the physical store, and has ended up receiving mobile notifications for one product and an email with offers for a completely different product.

The duplication of management not only takes resources away from us that we could focus on other things, it also prevents a full view of their entire behaviour in our business, leading us to the wrong conclusions. The customer will see that we don’t understand their preferences as we send them offers that aren’t in tune with their tastes, and we could even end up suggesting items that they have already purchased.

Not only do we not give them any value, we give them the impression that we are disorganized and even seem like a nuisance.

If we have set up weekly contact but have two files for the same customer, they may receive a mobile notification and another email in the same week and end up growing tired and cancel their subscription or deleting our app.

Uniting Human Identity and Digital Identity

 We all have our own identity, that which defines us and characterizes us as we grow. With the arrival of new technologies related to information and communication we have our human identity and our digital identity.

This doesn’t mean that we should have a double identify, if everything works as it should both online and offline identities have to be the same. Sally will be the same if she purchases online and if she purchases in store, and that’s how her experience must be, unique and designed for her regardless of where she makes her purchase.

If we want to be able to offer a good omnichannel experience as expected by our customers we must avoid the lack of connection between customers who register online and those who register offline.

Not all CRM systems are geared up to take on this challenge. The retail of the present and of the future deserve a solution designed taking into account their features to provide a real, reliable and error-free solution.

It is possible to identify the customer under a unique ID regardless of the channel in which they interact with the brand if you know how. And we know how ;).

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Wapping Team