Customer Analytics: A Guide to Getting Started (Part 5)
October 15th, 2008 by Doug Bright(Read the entire Customer Analytics: A Guide to Getting Started series)
Now that we’ve explored a couple of possible customer analytics goals and developed plans to achieve them, we can now start thinking about execution. Before we do that, however, I want to touch on what is probably the biggest challenge in executing a customer analytics initiative: organizational behavior.
In short, the biggest threat to your success will be office politics. Some people will be threatened by using analytics, thinking it might expose them or hold them to greater accountability. Others will dismiss its value and proclaim experience and gut feel to be a more reliable way to market to customers. Still more will be unhappy about the shifting of responsilbities and power within the group.
Since every company is unique it is impossible to provide a specific process to manage the change that will result from a customer analytics initiative. My advice is simply not to underestimate the importance of getting everyone comfortable with the idea before plowing in headlong. It is, without a doubt, the single most important thing that you can do to ensure success.
Only when the goal is defined, the plan is in place, and the political groundwork has been laid, can we push ahead with the fun part. That’s what we’ll do next time.
Tags: Customer Analytics, getting started
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