SCV and CDP: what are they and what are the possibilities?
Covid changed the way we buy, but also the way businesses collected and activated their data
Building an SCV: A tool to centralise data
A single customer view (SCV) aims to build an aggregated, cleansed and consolidated view of a customer record. The SCV stores data about a single customer each time the customer interacts with the business (ordering online, in-store purchases, etc.). It collects weak signals that are set apart from other activation data, such as opening mail or website views per customer. The SCV is therefore very useful for gathering data from various data sources on a single interface.
What is an SCV useful for?
As an example, a business can take orders from a single customer who uses various email addresses. Usually, a different profile would be created for each separate address. The SCV matches these profiles and reconciles them into a single point.
An SCV is a data hub that allows you to build a 360° view of your customer. To put it briefly, it is a tool which harmonises the sum of available data. It is thus particularly useful for a business’s various departments, such as customer services and IT direction.
Most of the time, an SCV will be the best interface to efficiently gather and classify the client data each of your departments need.
CDP: marketing activation made possible
An RCU is built on the main events of the customer journey (order, purchase, etc.) and reconciles the profiles of a user in order to obtain a single view. The CDP also builds this view, but in addition collects all the signals with marketing potential that surround it (pages consulted, basket abandonment, etc.). Another difference between RCU and CDP is that, while RCU focuses on first-party data, CDP also collects all second- and third-party data.
But what really differentiates a CDP from an SCV is that a CDP allows marketing activation and personalisation (email content, website, app etc.) on as many channels as you want. Whenever you want to exploit a specific segmentation that you have created, CDP will connect to the appropriate tools to launch your campaign, whereas an SCV does not provide options other than storing what you know about your customers.
The most advanced activation possibilities
It is crucial to address your audiences with the right message at the right time. That’s what CDP is designed for. Whereas SCV provides you with a consolidated view of your customer, a CDP allows you to launch your marketing actions accurately, given the data you have on your customer. It is the best tool to take advantage of what you know about the customer journey, and to ensure interactions with your clients are optimised.
A strong and stable technology platform (e.g. a CDP) can improve the creation of a comprehensive and highly precise 360° view of your customers’ journey. It collects data and reconciles it into a single platform, to provide you with the most precise segmentation possible. Once the reconciled data is on the platform, you can activate it through all the channels you need. Known as the golden record, it is a single, well-defined statement of all the data entities in an organisational ecosystem. Users can turn to this data, certain they have the most accurate information.
The golden record encompasses all the data records kept within a particular organisation. Reliable and easily activated data provides you with greater capacity to adapt your campaign. In turn, this will generate insights allowing you to continue providing your customer with the right messages at the best time.
Final thoughts
Nowadays, the only thing we know for sure is that businesses should focus on what’s most valuable to them. Whereas CDP is crucial to multichannel digital marketing orchestration and to personalising marketing operations, SCV has proven important in obtaining a unique 360° view of your customer, especially when there are numerous data sources to reconcile. In this respect, customer relationship management systems seem to lack legitimacy, as they appear not to be able to provide you with a unified view of your customer, nor to create useful segments through your database. As they also do not allow you activate data marketing channels, their lifespan may be coming to an end.