The Importance of Product Information Management for an Optimal Customer Experience

The Importance of Product Data Management for an Optimal Customer Experience  

Digital information exchange with consumers and suppliers is more important than ever. Consumers anno 2021 expect a personalized and consistent experience. In addition, consumers want comprehensive product information at every step in the customer journey, from orientation to purchase and use.

To stay in the market, organizations must grow with the rapidly evolving digital world and not want to compromise in delivering unified experiences. Professionalization of productdatamanagement thus still offers many opportunities to optimize the customer journey. This also brings challenges, because how can you manage product data properly?

Missed Sales Opportunities and Lower Revenues due to Poorly Executed Product Data Strategies  

The consumer expectation versus the current situation is causing frustration and increasing complexity for organizations, as they often do not yet have the processes and resources to deploy a proper product data strategy.

Recent research from Forrester (2021) shows that organizations see poorly executed product data strategies leading to missed sales opportunities and lower revenues. In fact, organizations that do not pay enough attention to product data management often do not operate efficiently, hindering consumer experience, customer satisfaction and growth. After all, consumers have to put too much effort into getting product data when they want it. In order to meet consumer expectations, product data-related processes must be continually optimized. This affects all parts of the organization, including operational departments, e-commerce, marketing and customer service. It therefore requires relentless attention to ensure that a consistent customer experience is delivered.

E-commerce is Bigger Than Ever  

The high consumer expectation can be attributed to the rise and use of e-commerce platforms. Dutch consumers spent €26.6 billion at online shops in 2020, up 7% from a year earlier. The total number of online purchases increased by 27% to 335 million. This growth was mainly caused by the corona crisis and related government measures (thuiswinkel.org, 2021).

Where are the Challenges?  

With the growth of e-commerce platforms and online purchasing, it is important to focus on optimizing product data management. However, receiving, managing and accessing product data quickly and accurately is not an easy task. Squadra’s research shows that the four biggest challenges in this are:

• Gathering rich product data from suppliers.
• Customizing product descriptions by channel, as each channel requires a different type of content.
• Maintaining consistent product information across all channels.
• Mass individualization of product data to create personal and unique content.

The Positive Impact of Data Syndication  

Every organization must receive product data from suppliers who all use different data terms. Then the product data must be sent to various channels, each of which also uses its own data terms. This is where friction arises. This can be solved by using data syndication in this process.

Data syndication ensures that market participants who each use their own data terms can still talk to each other, just as English is used between different nationalities to communicate with each other. Data syndication tooling supports the one-time mapping and, where necessary, conversion of data terms.

Cleverly designed product data processes and a good Product Information Management (PIM) system are crucial in this regard. A PIM system helps create a single view of product data across the organization (single version of the truth). Organizations can then distribute their product data correctly and achieve a high level of consistency across channels.

Conclusion  

To compete and stay relevant, brands, wholesalers and retailers are turning their focus to digital strategies to efficiently set up product data management and data syndication across channels. This enhances the customer experience as the customer journey feels personalized and appropriate.

• Poor product management means inconsistent product information across all sales channels, which not only leads to a poor customer experience, but also results in high returns and missed cross- and upsell opportunities. Ultimately, this hinders an organization’s growth and sales opportunities.
• To stay ahead in the market, organizations must implement a central repository for rich product data so that marketing and product teams can unlock the value of product data and boost the customer experience.