Nice post here by Whit B McNamara on why single seller-centric suppliers (in this case Amazon) cannot build a comprehensive ‘view of the customer’……and thus sub-optimise all of the many things that they would wish to do with that single view.
So – to spell out that problem in more detail; with this flawed ‘customer view’:
- their segmentation will be sub-optimal
- their pricing will be sub-optimal
- their contact strategy will be sub-optimal
These are three very big chunks of a customer management budget – and when you consider that Amazon has a vastly better customer view/ ability to use it than most, then what state are the others in? …..All of course evidenced by the very poor response rates to direct marketing campaigns.
The solution – individual (user)-centric identity, and providing the inidividual with the tools and process to gather their own ‘view’ of themselves, and to make that available to their preferred suppliers. This will take some time to emerge, but when it does it will revolutionise the customer/ supplier relationship.
