As consumers, we increasingly expect brands to recognise us as repeat customers and tailor our communications and experiences accordingly, says Matthew Biboud-Lubeck, General Manager EMEA, Amperity.

Although retailers understand the value of this approach, many struggle to connect customer data drawn from online and in-store interactions. They are often unaware that they are dealing with the same person, just on different sales channels. As a result, attempts at personalised engagement often fail to hit the mark.

These cross-channel capabilities are crucial, however, as, despite the significant growth in ecommerce sales over the past decades, physical stores remain the backbone of retail. This is also set to continue: Forrester predicts that $21.9trillion of an estimated $28.7trillion in worldwide retail sales will still be made in-store in 2028. Retailers that treat these separate channels in isolation will struggle to truly understand their customers and their shopping journeys.

To overcome this challenge, retailers need to be able unify customer data and act on insights from that information in real time. This is necessary if they want to build stronger relationships with their customers, nurture brand loyalty and encourage recurring purchases.      

Collating data from different channels

Most brands are capable of capturing data from their various interactions, at the point of sale, on their website, through email campaigns, loyalty schemes and other touchpoints. This data is an invaluable resource that can provide insights into behaviours, preferences and needs. It can allow businesses to tailor their marketing efforts and create relevant and effective campaigns that result in higher engagement, improved conversion rates and a better return on investment.

However, a significant challenge persists more often than not, customer data remains in the system it was gathered, stored in silos – spread across CRM systems, marketing tools, ecommerce platforms and other sources.

Even when businesses extract this information to combine customer profiles, it can take so long to carry out this process that any insights gained are out of date by the time they are produced.

This all makes tailoring engagements across channels difficult at best and, at worst, annoying for the customer – especially when attempts to personalise become inconsistent.

Consumers want personalisation

Tailored interactions are what consumers want, however. They expect brands to know who they are, no matter where and when they interact. A global BCG survey of 23,000 consumers found that four-fifths are comfortable with personalised experiences, and most expect companies to offer this to them.

For instance, a customer who browses coats on a retailer’s website might appreciate receiving a personalised text message about an in-store outerwear promotion when they enter the physical shop. Similarly, a customer service representative should be able to see a caller’s recent website activity and tailor their assistance accordingly.

Getting it wrong, however, creates a risk that the brand might lose a customer. The BCG survey showed that two thirds of consumers have had at least one negative personalised experience with a brand that led them to break off the interaction.

Enabling cross-channel customer engagement

Delivering personalised experiences across channels requires retailers to capture and make use of customer data gathered from every touch point. This requires data to be standardised, cleaned and unified much faster than it has previously been achieved.

Businesses must also remove all those duplicate customer profiles, generated across the different points of engagement, that often led them to believe they had more customers than they do in reality. This means identifying when separate profiles relate to the same person with identity resolution.   

Furthermore, to gain actionable insights and deliver a meaningful experience at the right moment, businesses also need to update profiles in real time. The information gathered, such as a shopper’s geographic location, shopping behaviour and spending patterns, can then be used to provide the customer with timely engagements.

Embrace AI-empowered customer data

These capabilities are not found in a traditional customer data platform (CDP), however. Dynamic personalisation, real-time decision-making and seamless customer experiences can only be provided when AI is powering a customer data cloud (CDC).

A CDC that can do more than just collect and store data, requires AI to unify customer profiles at speed, carry out the necessary identity resolution and provide real time insights. This will turn customer data into a strategic asset that can better inform marketing, sales and customer support decisions.

Moving forward

The retail landscape continues to evolve rapidly, with consumers moving fluidly between online and offline channels. As we navigate through 2025, retail success increasingly depends on how effectively organisations leverage customer data across all touch points.

The retailers who thrive will be those who build robust data foundations that enable dynamic and relevant interactions. By embracing AI within a CDC, retailers will be in a strong position to deliver the seamless, personalised experiences that today’s consumers expect – no matter where or how they choose to shop.