Challenges:
- Sitecore XP – most features were not really in use
- Decentralized user data like CRM, ERP, Lead Management Tool, …
- Isolated customer views / silos on the user data
- Physical touchpoints (e.g. sales people „on the road“)
Goals:
- Usage of personalization
- Enhancing of the conversions of the online shop
- Break up the (data) silos
- Centralization of Userdata
- Connect all touchpoints, including the physical touchpoints
In the picture below (1.1) you can see the existing landscape with the Newslettering Tool which has his separated userdata, also the webshop and the Sitecore DXP where is no direct connection or data exchange with the CRM for example.
The CRM has a connection to the ERP like the shop has, but there is no data exchange between these systems so in conclution there are 4 data silos in this picture:
- Newsletter
- Website/Shop
- ERP
- CRM
Measures to achieve goals:
- Migration from Sitecore XP to Sitecore XM (This is also the first step to become ready for the XM Cloud migration)
- Integrate CDP in the system landscape
- Connect Newsletter, Website, CRM and offline touchpoints to CDP
- Migrate Data from the connected tools to the CDP
- Create and im plement the Usecases
What is planned to do is to integrate Sitecore CDP as a central point of truth – a centralized view of the customers data. Every of the further data silos exchanging the data to the CDP, mostly with the email-address as primary key to map the datasets. The plan to solve this you can see in the picture (1.2) below.
Here you can see that the newsletter tool is directly connected to the CDP, as is of course the CRM and other touchpoints (here also physical touchpoints). The ERP is still connected directly to the web shop for prices and order information. Added to this is the connection to Sitecore Personalize – an AI-supported high-performance personalization tool
Introduction of the customer data platform
So, in theory the CDP introduction looks like this:
Kickoff phase with workshops for the definition of business goals and the creation of a personalization strategy. Createing a program plan, this means to create identity rules, commiting to an initial scope, creating some first usecases and define the channel integration strategy. When these things are clarified the CDP tenant should be setup.
Next steps are to implement the website tagging and import data from offline feeds, this means processing and importing the data. Also the first channel or channels, like email or social media, can be integrated. If this is done we are pretty far an be able to create the use cases and hypotheses and develop the experiences, test and deploy them.
To be honest now the real work is beginning … so, meassure the performance and operational results and do optimizations – that sounds so simple but to be honest this is where the real work is.
In practice, of course, things rarely go according to plan, which is why work is often necessary beyond that. Business processes have often evolved over a long period of time – grown historically. These often have to be adjusted in the course of this, which can be quite a challenge.
This all leads to the following phases:
Strategic development of a tracking concept based on the customer lifecycle
One thing to keep in mind is the importance of the Customer lifecycle and the corresponding KPIs.
A good possibility to become a common understanding with your customer:
- Joint development of the Customer Live Circle
- Identification of customer touchpoints
- Analysis of internal dependencies and interfaces
- Definition of the KPIs
- Matching targets with data (e.g. shop)
Learnings:
- Create a clear and common understanding what is possible with the CDP and was not.
- Don’t sell Sitecore CDP without Sitecore Personalize (at least not for now), right now there are missing features in the pure CDP like Dashboards !
- Measure it or forget it
- Take your time and create a solid plan
- Talk talk talk … to your customer … paint a clear picture of every step and clarify expectations
