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Clarkston’s Idoia Hidalgo Speaks to HBR on Customer Journey in the Omnichannel Environment

December 2, 2024 | Clarkston Consulting’s Idoia Hidalgo, was cited by HBR for her expertise on the customer journey in the omnichannel environment. This Harvard Business Review Analytic Services report, sponsored by NielsenIQ, explores how B2C companies are navigating the critical challenges of customer journey management. Based on a survey of 227 respondents and in-depth interviews with leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, the report provides insights into the strategies, investments, and innovations that organizations are deploying to keep pace with the evolving customer journey. View her quotes below and the full report here.


The Challenges and Opportunities of Customer Journey Management in an Expansive Omnichannel Environment

In the past, activating well along the customer journey may have been a point of differentiation for brands, but today’s customer may be put off by a disruption or gap in their expectation of the customer journey.”

“Brands should look at ensuring the seamless customer journey as not only a top priority but the lens through which they examine all that they do and how decisions are made.”

“People, process, technology, and data are the critical components to achieving an omnichannel view. From a people perspective, companies will need a more extensive data and analytics team and/or partner in order to effectively translate the vast amount of customer data into the right insights and business decisions. In terms of process, organizations will need to examine and evolve siloed processes to enable cross-functional collaboration and decision making. Technology and data are obviously critical here, as well. Organizations need the right tools in place to capture, store, and manage customer data in a way that they’re able to easily and accurately analyze for actionable insights.”

“To address this [issue of disparate and disconnected data sources], companies need to invest in data management to integrate data from various sources into a unified platform. Another challenge we often see is inconsistent data quality across systems leading to inaccurate insights and poor decision making.”

“The most successful companies are quick to pilot potential activations and learn what resonates with the consumer. This requires a company culture that encourages testing, learning, and accepting failure, as not all potential activations will be successful. In addition, companies need to have the right governance in place to determine what activations and/or technologies can move from pilot to rollout phase.”

“Customer feedback and data will obviously be critical, but there are further opportunities to share information and collaborate in marketing campaigns, loyalty programs, and cross-channel promotions. As we further explore use cases for AI and ML [machine learning] applications, the wealth of data afforded by the ecosystem of partners and CPG manufacturers will only become more valuable as a means for identifying trends, predicting customer behavior, and enhancing the full customer journey.”

“Channel partners will be critical to ensuring that manufacturers can effectively meet [customer] expectations, stay ahead of the curve, and continue to satisfy their customers. Traditionally, this relationship was a more oneway partnership where CPG companies shared significant consumer insights to channel partners. Now, there’s a need for data sharing and feedback loops across each and every partner.”

“This required Unilever, owner of the Hellmann’s brand, to think through the overall customer journey—from recipe ideation through purchase—and partner cross-functionally with their digital marketing and sales teams to activate successfully in the right channels.”

“Just look back five years. A lot of companies ignored TikTok in their social media activations, and here we are today where it’s become the leading social media platform for some categories and demographics. Customer-facing businesses have to stay as up to date as possible on advances in technology and stack those advances against their customers’ journey to find opportunities to better meet their customers with the right message at the right time on the right platform.”

Read the Full HBR Report Here