The Single Customer View (SCV) is not a new concept. It’s long been perceived as marketing’s holy grail – the ultimate solution, promising deep, seamless personalisation, smarter decision-making, and unparalleled operational efficiency.
So why, oh why, are we still just talking about it? And why now?
It’s easy to assume that all this renewed attention around the Single Customer View is reflective of the new era of data. The explosion of data and technology hasn’t just expanded the potential of the Single Customer View – the pressure to deliver increasingly personalised customer experiences has turned the Single Customer View into a constantly moving target with escalating costs and growing complexity.
But is that really enough reason for the lack of progress?
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Why Single Customer View initiatives fall short
The challenge isn’t convincing stakeholders and teams anymore; that case has already been made. The real challenge lies in execution – turning the Single Customer View from an aspirational concept into a practical, actionable reality. To do so means navigating the major technical, cultural, and operational hurdles that keep so many organisations stuck in neutral.
The reality is that achieving a ‘true Single Customer View’ – one that integrates all customer data seamlessly across all functions – is not only challenging, but for most organisations it’s often unrealistic.
The idea is deeply appealing, but in practice it overlooks a lot of the fundamental operational and cultural realities that are inherent to many organisations, especially when dealing with the scale and complexity of enterprises.
Internal departments don’t just use data differently – they prioritise entirely distinct types of data. What’s mission-critical to marketing is usually irrelevant to finance, while customer service teams need access to a completely separate subset of the data landscape.
And then there’s the issue of scale. Vast amounts of structured and unstructured data: CRM records, invoicing habits, clickstream analytics, email engagement metrics – the list goes on. Harmonising all of that into a single cohesive and compliant system slams most Single Customer View initiatives into technical and cultural walls. However, the cost of neglecting Single Customer View altogether is high – resulting in missed opportunities and unmet customer expectations. Research indicates that 82% of global B2B marketing decision makers agree that their customers expect personalised communication and experiences across their marketing and sales journey.
Single Customer View undoubtedly helps brands meet these expectations while reducing wasted marketing spend, leading to greater efficiency and far higher returns.
But what stands as the key to unlocking personalisation for marketers, to those who own data within the organisation such as CIOs, CTOs or CDOs it is a technically sprawling project riddled with risk.
And therein lies the problem: the drive behind most Single Customer View initiatives often starts in the wrong place, asking the wrong questions.
Wrong place, right time
Too many organisations set out to build an all-encompassing, enterprise-wide Single Customer View – aiming to achieve a singular, unified truth about the customer. The scope quickly becomes unwieldy. Budgets spiral out of control. Resistance builds as different stakeholders fight for ownership or push back against what feels like a complex, risky and unnecessary undertaking.
The problem isn’t ambition – it’s misdirection.
The goal shouldn’t be to achieve a mythical ‘single truth’ about the customer; it’s about defining what’s truly useful by asking a tougher, and far more valuable question:
What version of the truth do we actually need – and how do we ensure that it delivers results?
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By GlobalDataFocus on fit-for-purpose, not perfection
The reality is that most organisations don’t need a perfect Single Customer View. What they need is clarity and an approach tailored to their specific goals and challenges.
The Single Customer View isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution that can be applied universally across organisations – it’s a framework. And the first step towards building that framework is to start at the end and work backwards.
Begin by asking:
- What are the outcomes you need to achieve?
- Which use cases matter most to your organisation?
The key here lies in shifting the focus from unattainable perfection to creating a fit-for-purpose framework – one that’s designed to deliver actionable insights aligned with specific business outcomes.
Make your data work smarter, not harder
Historically, consolidating customer data relied on Enterprise Data Warehouses (EDWs) and Data Lakes – broad, large-scale solutions that were often unwieldy and expensive.
Today, Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) offer a more focused alternative, enabling organisations to bring together structured, actionable customer touchpoint data. And unlike EDWs, CDPs are designed to feed data into real-time decision-making processes, making it much easier for teams to connect, process, and act on insights.
For organisations looking to create a fit-for-purpose Single Customer View, incorporating tools like CDPs can simplify the journey, allowing teams to prioritise the data that drives meaningful business outcomes.
Because it isn’t about having every piece of data – it’s about asking the questions that get you the right data for the right purpose.
For example:
- What data does marketing need to identify and target the right audiences effectively?
- What behavioural insights are going to help sales engage and convert leads?
- What lifecycle engagement patterns are the most important for delivering exceptional customer experiences?
Anchoring the initiative in very clearly defined use cases first shifts the narrative from “we need all the data” to “this is the data we need to achieve these outcomes.”
A targeted, outcome-driven approach like this narrows the scope, making it far more achievable and valuable. And, perhaps most importantly, by focusing on the data and the outcomes that matter most, you’re able to ensure that stakeholders can see – and champion – the results right from the outset.
Chunk the elephant
The next big mistake organisations make is trying to eat the elephant whole. A fit-for-purpose Single Customer View doesn’t happen all at once – it’s built incrementally by focusing on what will drive the greatest impact first.
The goal isn’t to try and solve every data challenge overnight, but to take the most practical, high-value steps that align most closely with your defined use cases. What’s critical to accept from the outset is that the data will never be perfect. The key is in ensuring that whatever data you do have is at once actionable and relevant to your goals.
Narrow your focus, prioritise what actually matters and take the incremental steps necessary to deliver immediate value while paving the way for long-term success.
Calculating the ROI of that progress requires a narrower focus too – one aligned to your specific objectives. Marketing teams who rely heavily on digital interactions benefit from detailed audience segmentation and selection, opportunity mapping, interest caption and detailed understanding of the customer. By capturing and understanding their audiences’ preferences, marketing teams are also better positioned to predict their next best actions, leading to informed decisions and investments, instead of using hope as a strategy.
Progress over perfection
Whilst this approach pulls Single Customer View from the realm of mythical perfection into something far more realistic and attainable, organisations still need to tread carefully.
Overstepping boundaries risks alienating customers with personalisation that can feel invasive. Privacy laws governing the use of personal data must be navigated thoughtfully, and addressing internal risk aversion is critical to ensuring that progress doesn’t stall.
It’s about embracing progress: building a dynamic, evolving Single Customer View capability that balances financial and ethical considerations while adapting to the changing needs of your organisation, your teams and your customers.
The Single Customer View isn’t just a technical aspiration – it’s a strategic framework that aligns people, processes and data. And for those organisations willing to take a more pragmatic and strategic approach to it, the rewards are more than impactful.
Caroline Hodson, is founder and Managing Director of WoolfHodson,
