Gartner recently categorized the buzzword “360-Degree Customer View” on its Hype Cycle and determined that it was at the “peak of inflated expectations.” Marketers everywhere are touting a “360-Degree View” as the holy grail for customer experience. And yet the actual results are mixed.
I’ve heard reference to another Gartner study (but I haven’t found the original source) that claimed that fewer than 10% of companies have a 360-degree customer view, and only 5% use this view to systematically grow their business.
The state of a “360-Degree Customer View” reminds me of the saying about Big Data that made the rounds a few years ago:
“Big Data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.”
Here are a few related cartoons I’ve drawn over the years:
“The Customer Journey” September 2016
“Customer Journey Mapping” April 2016
“The Customer Journey” March 2018
