Customer Insights
Five files are about the same person. She, on the other hand, has only one.Customer Insights aggregates your data sources, consolidates information about the same customer, and maintains a single profile for each person. From there, your campaigns are no longer mass mailings: they’re triggered by what actually happens— a purchase, a complaint, or six months of inactivity.
Three situations you'll recognize
None of these is a marketing issue. They all stem from the same source: no one has ever decided, once and for all, what makes a line in one system and a line in another refer to the same person.
The same customer, counted three times
Management asks for the number of active customers. Three people look it up from three systems. They come up with three numbers, and all three are plausible.
In the end, you end up choosing the one that works, and no one dares to drive with it anymore.
The ill-timed campaign
A welcome offer is sent out to the entire customer base. It goes to a customer who has been with the company for twelve years, and to someone who has had an open complaint for ten days.
Both will remember the shipment. Neither will remember the offer.
Consent stored separately from the data
The address is in one system, the person's consent is in another, and the request to delete it is in the inbox of someone who was on vacation.
When the time comes and you're asked to prove it, you can't.
One name, two halves
Customer Insights is marketed as a single product; in reality, it consists of two tools that complement each other. Knowing this from the start prevents an unpleasant surprise in the second month: they are activated and billed separately.
Bringing People Together and Reconciliation
It retrieves your data from wherever it’s stored— CRM,ERP, the online store, the email marketing tool, and customer service—and consolidates it into a single profile per person. It doesn’t replace any of these systems; it synchronizes them.
- Matching Duplicate Records
- Standardization of addresses, company names, and numbers
- Data Enrichment: Customer Value, Tenure, Churn Risk
- Making the profile available in other applications
What it replaces: the reconciliation binder that someone carries around, and the cross-checks at every executive committee meeting.
Initiate and coordinate
It turns what you know into action: a message, a follow-up, a task for a sales representative, or an event registration. Not on a predetermined date, but the moment the person takes action.
- A path with branches, including waiting periods and conditions
- Email, text messages, notifications, and actions in the CRM
- Events and Registration
- Measurement by journey, not just by message
What it replaces: an email marketing tool that relies on an exported list and has no idea what the customer has experienced since the export.
You can start with either one. In practice, starting with Journeys without having your data set up properly is like automating your mistakes faster. We’ll let you know this before we sell you anything.
Eighty thousand lines, ten thousand people
The gap between the two is the whole point. And it isn’t narrowed by collecting more effectively or by sending items more effectively: it’s narrowed in the middle, where we decide what is a duplicate and what isn’t.
The numbers in this diagram are meant to illustrate the order of magnitude. In your case, they will be different—and that is precisely the first thing we measure, before making any promises.
How this changes the workweek
Six things, written just as they are experienced. None of them requires you to know what a data warehouse is.
One customer, one record
Sales, customer service, and marketing all view the same person, along with their purchases, requests, and preferences. When one of them corrects an address, the others see the correction.
Lists that can no longer be re-exported
"Customers in French-speaking Switzerland who have made two purchases and none in the last eight months" is a definition, not a database. It recalculates automatically, and on Monday morning, someone is freed up.
The message is sent at the right time
Second purchase, abandoned shopping cart, contract about to expire, prolonged silence: it’s the event itself that triggers the email, not a date chosen three weeks earlier.
We finally know what worked
Measurement is done by campaign and by customer group, not by mailing. The question becomes “What was the return?” rather than “How many opened it?”
The agreement is based on the data
What the person agreed to, when, and for what purpose: stored in the same location as their address. A request for deletion is no longer considered an internal investigation.
What Might Be Lost, and What Is Worth Keeping
Lifetime value of a customer, churn risk, probability of a second purchase. These are indicators to be verified, never absolute truths: we’ll show you what they’re based on.
What does a career path actually look like?
This isn't a campaign. It's a mechanism that runs continuously: it waits, observes what the person does, and adapts accordingly. Here's a follow-up after an initial purchase, as it unfolds.
What we do, and in what order
The product can be installed in a single day. What takes time—and what determines the outcome—boils down to the five points below.
The Actual State of Your Data
We take your data sources and count: how many records, how many probable duplicates, how many invalid addresses, and how many records without traceable consent.
It's a metric, not an opinion—and it often changes the scope of the project before it even begins.
Reconciliation Rules
Two records have the same last name and the same street address: same person, or father and son? A company has changed its name: same customer, or a new one? A couple shares an email address: one record, or two?
These trade-offs aren't obvious to outsiders. We propose them, your business units make the final decision, and we put them in writing.
Integration with your systems
ERP, CRM, the online store, customer service, the website. Via a connector when one exists, via a web service when one does not—and in both directions, so that the unified profile also benefits those who contributed to it.
The Processes, and Consent
We work with you to design your initial workflows, including the rules for stopping a process: what suspends a shipment, what permanently excludes a person, and what triggers a human review.
Consent is treated as a top-priority piece of data: its purpose, date, and proof.
Maintenance
A segmentation model becomes outdated. A source changes its format without warning. A matching rule that was correct in January becomes incorrect in September because you acquired a company.
Without periodic review, the database reverts to its previous state within eighteen months.
How long, honestly?
Almost no one dares to give a timeframe on this topic. Here are ours, based on a clear assumption—to be corrected as soon as we know yours.
The assumption: three data sources, totaling approximately 100,000 records, a marketing team of two to three people, an accessible web ERP , and business contacts available for half a day each week. Any deviation from this assumption shifts the ranges, and we’ll let you know in which direction.
Framing and Metering
Inventory of sources, count of duplicates, scope finalized.
Rules and First Profile
Reconciliation, business-specific adjustments, first single view available for review.
Segments and Routes
The segments that matter: two to four routes that have been built and tested.
Weighing and Measurement
Start-up, team training, monitoring charts.
Eight to fourteen weeks between the first meeting and the first run that operates on its own. Handling a complex legacy system or a source without an access interface extends the second phase, but never the others.
A unified profile built on flawed rules generates fake customers on a large scale.
And it does so with the authority of software
An error in a spreadsheet is obvious. The same error, when generated by a system, becomes the company's official figure: no one questions it anymore.
The product will never make decisions for you
No publisher can know whether two entries in your database refer to the same person. This is a business matter, and it should be decided in consultation with your teams.
That's where our work lies
It takes a day to set up the tool. Writing the rules, getting them approved, measuring their effectiveness, and maintaining them over time takes the rest—and that’s what you’re paying for.
What You Need to Know Before Signing
Five things they won't always tell you, which determine both the budget and the schedule.
The quality of your data makes all the difference
This isn't a template. It's a database where company names are entered arbitrarily, where the email address is sometimes that of the assistant, and where the records created in 2011 have never been updated: the matching process will be time-consuming and imperfect.
We assess it before making a commitment, and we give you the figure—even if it limits our offer.
Data and Journeys are not the same license
The two components are purchased separately, and their pricing depends on both the volume processed and the number of users. Microsoft’s pricing tables change every month: we provide a quote tailored to your specific situation at the time of the offer, and we do not publish prices that would be outdated by the following week.
Data protection isn't just a box to check
Compiling scattered data into a single database changes the nature of the processing. Purpose, retention period, legal basis, right of access and right to erasure: these issues arise during the planning phase, not at the time of implementation.
We work with your data protection officer—or we’ll let you know that you need one.
Artificial intelligence features are being used up
The agents and assistants built into the product operate on a credit system that is deducted as they are used. This isn’t a problem, but it changes the way we think about things: a mechanism that calls on the AI with every interaction doesn’t cost the same as one that calls on it once a week.
The first course should be small
The temptation is to start with the most ambitious scenario. That’s the most common mistake: it ties up everyone’s time, takes four months, and teaches us nothing.
A simple process—one that can be implemented in three weeks and is well-measured—is better—and it funds the next steps.
What plugs into it
A single customer profile is only useful if it’s put to use. Here are the three ways it makes a difference right from day one.
Dynamics 365 Sales
The sales representative can see where the lead came from, what the customer has already purchased, and whether they have an open complaint—before picking up the phone.
The Sales Page ServeDynamics 365 Customer Service
The agent processes a request from a known person, not from an email address. And what the agent learns is fed back into the profile.
The Customer Service Page AutomateCopilot Studio
An agent who interacts with customers is only as valuable as what they know about them. The unified profile is what makes the agent helpful rather than a hindrance.
The page Copilot StudioStart by figuring out where you stand
Describe your sources, your volumes, and what you hope to be able to do in six months. We'll get back to you with a scope, workload, timeline, and specific deliverables.
Preparing the proposal is free of charge. Design studies and audits are included in the scope of work. Three agencies: Renens, Sion , and Châtel-Saint-Denis ; a Microsoft partner for sixteen consecutive years.
Please send us two export files
Two files from two different systems, anonymized if you wish. We’ll tell you how many unique individuals they contain and how many duplicates are hidden within them.
This isn't an audit, and it doesn't replace a scoping exercise: it's a figure, obtained in just a few days, that tells you whether the topic warrants a project.
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