Customer 360, its continued relevance , Ai and RevOps
Gokul Anantha
This post draws inspiration from a CEO conversation I had some weeks ago. The CEO leads a fast growing SaaS focused on SMB’s ; likes the idea of full funnel conversion visibility , but agonized about his larger pain point – the lack of a true customer 360 view despite the promise from every CRM for over 2 decades.
The conversation took me back to my own career beginnings. In 2001, I started out as a CRM practice lead implementing 360 Degree customer interaction view for clients with PeopleSoft CRM or Siebel CRM as the core “integrating” customer data source.
I wrote about our approach in a blog post here-
With applications and datasets being so well connected ( via API’s), is this an issue? Why?
Here are some early insights I have garnered:
1.Real-time Revenue lifecycle disconnect is real. In particular for the C-suite!
The promise of CRM was to centralize contacts and conversion process. But with ever growing tools in the sales & GTM stack arsenal, customers, contacts, prospects & lead ; revenue lifecycle data remains decentralized as ever.
2.Customer360 is not just an outside-in Customer eXperience view , it’s also a critical inside-out view
I typed in Customer360 into ChatGPT – Here is what I got. A B2C perspective?
“ By having a Customer 360 view, businesses can gain valuable insights into individual customers, their needs, and their preferences. This information enables organizations to deliver personalized experiences, targeted marketing campaigns, and better customer service. It also helps in identifying cross-selling and upselling opportunities, predicting customer behavior, and improving overall customer satisfaction and loyalty”
For a B2B SaaS startup CEO, however, Customer360 is much much more. CEO’s & C-suite need the ability to discern all of the following in 1 place – a) Know who’s buying and where/ how to improve conversion ( lead or deal) b) Understand churn, its impact and what to address proactively c) Customer adoption / usage characteristics d) Optimize sales & GTM resources to manage acquisition costs and importantly e) Forecast pipeline and annual recurring revenue.
3. Application of Customer360 has a slightly different nuance in B2B context
Account led sales motion dominates B2B . Given the transitory nature of contacts, buyers and influencers in an account, how does customer360 work in a B2B context? Is it different?
Here is something to consider . Another B2B SaaS startup RevOps leader highlighted the different price points at which they sell. So , they are credit card transactions for single user subscription as well as large value enterprise sales motions. How can an account team know the low value individual subscriptions already in place within an account? Or the interaction/ engagement touch-points from their account contacts?
4. In B2B SaaS context PLG and customer360 are critical and complimentary
Sans 100% RFP led sales motion ; “Land and Expand” is the predominant motion for many B2B SaaS startups . This includes both “try / buy” and “freemium” ( albeit less so these days) options. Customer experiences around product research, purchase, adoption and usage based monetization are all tied together as a “Product” – even if not engineered together.
Tie in ABM into the mix and Customer360 is a natural next step.
That said, Do 360 Degree customer initiatives deliver ROI?
To answer this question, I looked up ROI or economic impact case studies. The commonly cited economic impact is from increasing efficiency and effectiveness of marketing campaigns – through optimized targeting – specifically (again) in a B2C context.
SAS Institute and Forrester put together a Total Economic Impact report that you will find interesting .
So, where are enterprises on their Customer 360 journey?
A 2022 Gartner Report highlights that only 14% of organizations have achieved a 360-degree view of their customer. 82% of respondents said they still aspire to attain this goal
SAS Institute and Forrester put together a Total Economic Impact report that you will find interesting .
Now, thats an interesting datapoint !
Making Customer 360 happen , AI leverage and the role of Rev Ops?
The common hurdles to customer 360 initiative appears to be a) an obsessive focus on all kinds of consumer data , specifically in today’s privacy conscious landscape b) Lack of alignment on what constitutes a 360-degree view c) time & effort to accomplish it d) Lack of data quality ( & continued governance around it)
Thankfully, the alignment problem appears to be sorting itself out . For B2B SaaS businesses < $100M in ARR –Customer 360 definition starts and stops at the CxO, quite often the CEO . And AI is a great lever to alleviate data issues , specifically where data definitions change over time.
Customer360 needn’t be a time consuming initiative. But it needs to be looked at as a continuum with clear governance & execution ownership. Per Gartner’s report , one of the critical success drivers for Customer360 initiatives is “Implementing a cross-functional governance structure for customer data”
Revenue Operations appears an obvious choice to take up that mantle , doesn’t it?
How should enterprises measure Customer360 outcomes as OKR’s?
Gokul Anantha
Gokul started his career heading a CRM service line at HCL Technologies. Over 20+ years , he has led revenue growth at Cognizant, Trianz and most recently at SAP, communication services business unit pursuing both product and sales led strategies. Loglens and its flagship platform BigPicture© is the outcome of personal experiences
