Just think for a moment how complex modern business channels have become. What we now think of as a traditional transactional business would have a single real-world store-front. A customer would come in and buy products or services, the business owner would talk to them in an attempt to understand their needs, and they would leave. Perhaps the experience next time would be slightly more tailored to their liking based on that conversation. Today a customer may still walk in to a store, but they would just as likely order online, or via a call centre. That’s three different channels without thinking too deeply about it, and as Paul mentions in his article, if we think about touch points there are hundreds. And how does that business owner now know how many of its online customers also use the call centre or the store? How many store customers checked stock online or usually prefer to use the call centre?

An effective unified view of customer behaviour is the ultimate goal and one that is very hard to surmount. What is required is a truly representative customer perspective in order to join that data up and make those sources integrated. So, why isn’t everybody doing it? The answer is that on the way to the ultimate goal, come some fairly tricky challenges. Understanding what those challenges might be is a great way to prepare for those challenges, and the first question any business must ask itself is “Are we ready for cross-channel?” How would broader business strategy adapt to the intelligence resulting from cross-channel data? What would we do with a greater understanding of the combinations of roles each channel plays in customer journeys and ultimately in business success? Can the business afford to find out? Can it afford not to if it is going to de differentiated?

Culturally, organisations are not always structured adequately for measuring cross-channel behaviour. Most take a ‘silo’ approach to building their channel capabilities. Who ultimately owns the customer experience? Every business must ask itself this before even thinking about cross-channel measurement. Buy-in and full cooperation is needed from all channels to create a cross-channel picture of a customer base. The repercussions of leaving this question unanswered will hugely affect success. There are real people responsible for each channel’s success who own their own data and understand customers in their own way. If those channels are to be blended together, who then owns that responsibility, that data, that customer insight? Perhaps they won’t want to relinquish that control. Education and joint effort must be called upon to make such a transaction without a good deal of obstructive politics.

Organisations often find it hard to clearly understand customer behaviour and most importantly to yield business value through one channel, let alone combining a number of them. Where do they begin? It’s a good idea to start looking at combinations and weightings of each channel’s value to a business in different areas. Each channel has its own set of touch-points of interaction that need identifying. A business may feel its success relies on its website and the people who discover the business through the website, but if that site isn’t transactional and brings no actual bottom line value to the business, then attributing the value of that channel is very difficult. Do customers go to the website five times then place an order by phone or in-store? How does the business put a figure on that value to the customer journey? Indexing helps those businesses to look at that the bigger picture by monetising or scoring certain touch-points according to each transactional effect on the bottom line, helping to overcome this problem.

Every business must have its cross-channel measurement strategy formalised before it thinks about execution. The alternative is a Frankensteinian monster of great ingredients thrown into a framework without being properly joined up or disseminated in a way that enables the business to make clear decisions. A clear cross-channel strategy is essential before a plan can be executed successfully.

Cross-channel technologies are actually very few and far between currently. Those that do offer a competent cross-channel approach do so at a price. This market is so advanced and leading edge that it isn’t yet economically viable for mass market business. However, even popular desktop productivity suites are beginning to offer customer database blending and other functionality is slowly emerging for the mass market.

An appropriate balance of technology and people is required to achieve success, and the most pressing variable that affects both is financial resource. Should a business integrate its customer data into its web analytics tool or create a bespoke solution? Who is the person best positioned to look at overall customer needs? Is a web analyst the best person to measure cross-channel behaviour? Maybe even when the best person is found to start the effort, they will need help and support as the task continues.

For many, cross-channel measurement will prove extensive and expensive, and it’s not just a matter of combining the costs of measuring individual channels. This challenge isn’t a little side project, it’s a serious endeavour that demands financial backing. Considering the above will help many businesses begin their journeys of cross-channel measurement. And the first step must always be to evaluate where they are now and what form that strategy might take, before they strike out for the summit.

This article was written as part of the crossing the channels of experience March newsletter

So what’s the key ingredient for achieving successful customer experience measurement? Despite the probability of success being higher than ever before, how many companies are actually doing it? Customer experience measurement remains a relatively undeveloped field compared to many other measurement strategies, and as with all new experiences, mistakes are made but learnt from during the journey. Organisations have never given up in their attempts to understand their customers’ experiences, and from this perspective at least, the hard work has been done.

Success is certainly not dependent on the amount of money a business allocates to customer experience measurement. Too often there is an assumption that success is largely related to monetary investment. Does purchasing an enterprise level tool automatically mean that a company will succeed in measuring its customer experience? No. Indeed, with the advent of the era of measurement technologies such as Google Web Optimiser and Google Analytics, there is no longer an excuse for any business to fail to measure arguably the most significant and most lucrative channel of the customer experience – the web.

Perhaps the functionality of measurement tools is at fault? Granted, there are a number of well founded reasons why freeware technology is not always the best fit for all organisations. It can be agued that enterprise level commercial tools will always be on the leading edge of customer experience measurement. It was announced earlier this month, for example, that best-of-breed optimisation vendor Omniture was one of the first providers to integrate Twitter data within its web analytics tool. However, early adoption by itself is not the overriding factor as to why some companies succeed more than others with customer experience measurement, either.

So what else is there that could contribute to the success of customer experience measurement? The answer lies within the organisation itself, and whether it is willing, able or aware enough to invest the required time and effort.

Measurement strategy must be based around business processes and culture, not the enabling tools and technologies. Too many times we see companies that have pledged a significant financial investment in the core area of customer experience measurement – web analytics – only to lack the know-how to decide what to do next. It is this ability to turn insight into processes from which decisions can be made, that allows businesses to truly succeed in customer experience measurement.

I believe we are on the verge of a major shift. Businesses are ready to leave previous mistakes behind them and are now determining how they will measure customer experience in the future. We are entering a maturity phase in which businesses are beginning to achieve greater insight, while customers are finally receiving their desired experience. Exciting times indeed.

Another day, another Omniture acquisition! How fun it is watching the leviathan consume all in its wake searching for the Holy Grail that is the perfect online business optimisation solution. Is this the final piece of the puzzle? If so, how will this fit in with the rest of the Omniture suite?

On the face of it, acquiring these central elements of Mercado’s business will allow Omniture to help its own customers market their products better. Online retailers are gaining a good deal of experience selling products and services, but they also want to be able to provide customers with pointers towards related products that best marry with their purchases.

Merchandising in this sense is an effective way of collaborating products together. Mercado’s technology will allow Omniture to record sales details, receptiveness to merchandising, track and compare customer data from external search with internal searches, and manage keyword and pay-per-click campaigns dynamically. The concept of merchandising is not just about collecting information about what customers look at in terms of site design, it is about analysing pure product focus information – what is hot and what is not?

Of course collecting data across online channels is one thing, but refining businesses based upon the information collected is more of a challenge. One of Omniture’s more interesting acquisitions of late was web optimisation company Offermatica. This flagged Omniture’s intent of moving from its analytical routes to something much more ambitious, a completely automated online business optimisation solution.

Test & Target, as it is now known to Omniture customers, provides the ability to conduct real-time multivariate testing – an extremely powerful tool that could provide the answer to what combination of content drives customers the most. But here’s the flaw; what happens if all the permutations Test & Target displays are bad? Just because ‘Layout A’ has the highest conversion rate does not mean it is the most you can achieve, maybe it is the information itself and not the means by which it is displayed. What if there was a means of determining the best content to serve on products to push?

Enter Mercado’s merchandising technology.

Merchandising encourages commercial activity via the promotion of content. This process involves analysing sources of data to determine which content sells and what doesn’t. Quite simply, Omniture is attempting to come up with an automated merchandising solution that analyses data sources and serving product/services information directly into Omniture Publish (online CMS system) via Omniture’s Test & Target.

Omniture started life as a highly-effective statistical reporting company. By acquiring new tools like Offermatica & Mercado, the Omniture suite is another step closer to delivering a fully automated online optimisation tool. The benefit of which will be the most powerful tool on the market giving businesses a ‘switch to flick’, kick-starting a self-learning tool that will automatically increase the likelihood of turning visitors into a customers.