Companies which collate and analyse customer data across online and offline channels have grown 16 per cent in the last year.

A global survey of 235 organisations with revenues over $50 million by data platform provider BlueVenn, in collaboration with London Research, found that organisations with clear customer data were almost twice as likely to have fully synchronised cross-channel communications - at 40 per cent compared to 24 per cent for non data users.

The study found that businesses with data consolidation programmes were more than twice as likely to significantly exceed business goals and see strong return
on investment - at 32 per cent compared to 14 per cent.

The report found that that the pandemic has served to increase the importance of customer data platforms as part of the marketing technology stack, with 78 per
cent of companies reporting increased traffic to their digital properties.

As a result, there has been a 24 per cent increase (51 per cent to 63 per cent) in the proportion of companies now using a customer data platform compared to 2019.

Despite these efforts, only nine per cent of respondents said they have engineered a seamless customer experience across online and offline channels in the last 12 months.

The most significant contributing factor to omnichannel marketing improvement was the apparent lack of c-suite involvement with the customer experience, with only 17 per cent of organisations having a dedicated customer experience team and ownership at executive level.

The study found that data platform-equipped companies were more than five times as likely to be using advanced customer data analytics to support real-time or
time-based triggered messaging and personalisation - 37 per cent versus seven per cent for non-data users.

Geographically, business adoption of customer data analysis is higher in the US than the UK (70 per cent versus 64 per cent).

The European market is positioned behind the US in its data analysis adoption cycle, but the research showed that implementation is growing, with 29 per cent of UK respondents planning to use a data platform, compared with 20 per cent in the US.

In addition, while 30 per cent of companies integrate their paid, owned and earned digital channels in a strategic fashion, only 21 per cent of those surveyed synchronise and coordinate both digital and offline activity across a variety of inbound channels in the context of customer acquisition.

Steve Klin, chief executive of BlueVenn, said: “The path to omnichannel maturity is anything but straightforward - as this omnichannel maturity report shows,
it will be some time before all organizations realise their omnichannel utopia.

“Companies are definitely getting better at mapping customer journeys, but only nine per cent are delivering seamless experiences across both their online and
offline channels,” he continued, adding: “In large part, this is due to a cultural barrier, highlighted by the fact that only 17 per cent of organisations say they have CX representation at C-level."

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