Editorial
The Gist
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Regulation-ready systems. A customer 360 complies with GDPR and privacy laws by reducing data duplication and simplifying data management.
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Unified customer view. A customer 360 links data across systems, delivers accurate identity resolution and aligns with privacy standards.
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Privacy-ready tools. Customer 360 solutions adapt to evolving regulations, and they support secure data access, deletion and processing restrictions.
In the age of hyper-personalization, the ability to truly know your customer has a profound impact on businesses. As Mark Abraham and David Edelman emphasize in their book “Personalized,” a key principle of personalization lies in building a comprehensive, 360-degree view of the customer.
This framework is commonly known as a “customer 360,” and it entails not only collecting detailed insights but doing so with the customer’s digital permissions, which forms the foundation of an intelligent personalization stack.
With this in mind, I spoke with Shash Goyal, vice president of data cloud product strategy and operations at Salesforce, to explore what it truly takes to deliver a real customer 360 and how organizations can harness its transformative potential.
Table of Contents
- Reasons for the High Failure Rate of Customer 360 Projects
- Beware of 'Enterprise AI Anti-Patterns'
- How to Drive Measurable Marketing Outcomes
- Successful Implementation of a Customer 360 Strategy
- How to Stay Compliant with Data Privacy Regulations
- Turning Customer Insights Into Action
Reasons for the High Failure Rate of Customer 360 Projects
In the book “Future Ready,” the authors highlight a critical paradox. While industrializing data and systems promises better customer experiences, it often raises costs and creates complexity. Few organizations, says Goyal, succeed at building a customer 360 because their data remains siloed and trapped in disparate systems without proper integration.
Too Much Customer Data?
Organizations struggle to support seamless interactions across sales, service, marketing and other business functions. Governance challenges exacerbate the issue, with data often languishing in silos or lakehouses, which renders it inaccessible or inconsistent. To address this gap, agentic AI offers a complete, integrated customer view, and it enables smooth handoffs and robust collaboration across teams, which fills a critical void in the enterprise landscape.
Goyal says that several technical hurdles have prevented organizations from achieving a unified customer 360 historically. Chief among these are data silos, which have proliferated with the explosion of customer data and the variety of services managing it. According to Goyal, 72% of company applications are disconnected, which results in fragmented customer engagements. To thrive in the agentic era, companies must bridge these silos, connect their existing IT investments and access data in real time without relying on complex and expensive data pipelines.
The Scarcity of Trusted Context Around Data
Another critical barrier has been the lack of trusted context. When data remains trapped in silos, businesses miss out on valuable insights and cannot equip customer-facing teams with the trusted, actionable information needed to make decisions. This lack of context undermines the ability to deliver personalized and meaningful customer experiences.
The absence of cohesion across customer touchpoints is problematic, Goyal says. Customers today expect uninterrupted interactions where sales, service and marketing teams work in harmony. Disjointed systems deliver frustrating experiences, such as irrelevant communications. Such missteps erode trust and loyalty, and this highlights the importance of unifying touchpoints into one coherent customer journey.
The marketing vision should be to unify all the company’s data, regardless of where it resides, and enrich it with retrieval-augmented generation. By grounding data in meaningful, real-time context, organizations can discover insights and deliver personalized, connected customer experiences throughout the customer lifecycle.
Beware of 'Enterprise AI Anti-Patterns'
For CIOs and CMOs embarking upon the journey to a unified customer 360, Goyal says that collaboration and clarity are essential. Both roles must establish a shared vision for delivering exceptional customer experiences while driving organizational productivity and revenue. This starts by avoiding what Patrick Stokes, EVP of product and industry marketing at Salesforce, describes as “enterprise AI anti-patterns.” These include becoming stuck in endless AI experimentation cycles or the assumption that simply training proprietary large language models will solve all challenges. Such thinking overlooks engineering complexities, infrastructure demands and the ongoing tuning required to deliver reliable, up-to-date insights at scale.
Instead, CIOs and CMOs should focus on building a fully realized, unified environment where AI agents are deeply integrated with enterprise data and business processes. This integration allows AI to work easily alongside human employees and empower them to act on a shared, accurate customer view. True integration eliminates silos and allows teams to improve customer experiences, enhance productivity and drive revenue — achieving both CMO and CIO objectives simultaneously.
CIO-CMO Mandate: Customer-First Data Strategies
At the same time, true innovation requires intentional organization. CIOs and CMOs must take concrete, unified action to establish a customer-first strategy rooted in data accuracy and operational efficiency. A fragmented approach will only dilute efforts, so it’s critical to adopt platforms and practices that enable collaboration across teams. This will break down barriers between sales, marketing and service teams.
The Goal: Wholesome Customer Experience
Finally, success hinges on cultivating a relentless obsession with the total customer experience. Every decision — from the tools you implement to the processes you design — should center on creating seamless, relevant and personalized interactions for customers. This focus not only strengthens loyalty but also delivers measurable business outcomes. This proves that an integrated customer 360 isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a competitive necessity.
Related Article: How CIOs Transform Companies Through Building Trust
How to Drive Measurable Marketing Outcomes
Smart organizations take their customer 360 and turn it into actionable insights for solving key marketing use cases like cross-sell and upsell opportunities, Goyal says. To achieve this, they leverage integrated AI platforms that combine data flows, business logic and workflow automation to drive real, scalable outcomes.
While large language models are transformative, they are not enough on their own. Without an AI system that includes real-time data ingestion, unification and actionable workflows, enterprises will struggle to deliver on their goals. CIOs report that 62% of IT leaders recognize that real-time data is increasingly a competitive necessity. Platforms that support let organizations act upon customer data immediately and turn insights into meaningful actions.
Building Customer Loyalty and Customer Satisfaction
Action-oriented customer experiences are critical to eliminating the frustrations of disjointed interactions. For example, a retail agent should have enough context from a customer’s profile to exchange a poorly fitting item for a better size while also suggesting complementary products, highlighting in-store pickup options and tailoring recommendations based on past shopping behaviors. This level of personalization builds loyalty and satisfaction by reducing friction and creating memorable interactions.
Ultimately, turning customer 360 into action requires more than just connecting data. It demands breaking down silos, creating trusted context and empowering agents to act in real time.
Successful Implementation of a Customer 360 Strategy
Operationally, a customer 360 should not rely on creating a single, centralized copy of transactions and databases. The traditional approach of copying and consolidating data introduces numerous challenges, including increased costs, complexity and risks, Goyal says. He adds that creating a customer 360 goes beyond traditional master data management. MDM is often too rigid and unsuitable for solving marketing and customer experience challenges, where flexibility and responsiveness are key. Instead, organizations should focus on building a scalable, unified and extensible data architecture.
A zero copy approach provides a more modern alternative. It eliminates the need to duplicate data across systems like lakes and warehouses. By allowing direct access to distributed data without moving or reformatting it, this method ensures data consistency and avoids the inefficiencies of replication.
What Erodes Customer Trust?
The drawbacks of traditional data duplication are significant. Replicating data leads to multiple versions of the truth, outdated or inaccurate updates and increased operational costs for synchronization and governance. It creates compliance challenges and a higher likelihood of errors during data transfers. These issues can directly impact customer satisfaction, erode trust and inflate IT budgets.
At the same time, to achieve a high-functioning customer 360, businesses must prioritize real-time data accessibility. This approach allows agents to deliver contextual, informed interactions during customer engagements. While true real-time performance may not reach the precision of manufacturing systems, the ability to act on near-real-time insights is transformative for customer experience.
Goyal’s advice is clear: Organizations should focus on solutions that promote transparency, simplicity and scalability. A zero copy strategy not only simplifies operations but also aligns with the broader objective of delivering a seamless, unified customer experience without the pitfalls of traditional data duplication.
How to Stay Compliant with Data Privacy Regulations
Goyal says that a customer 360 must adhere to regulations such as GDPR, which limit the cross-border movement of data and require careful planning and intentional system design. He highlighted the importance of building the system with identity resolution as a foundational element. Identity resolution ensures that customer data is accurately linked across systems, and it allows businesses to comply with privacy requirements while maintaining a unified view of their customers. This foundational capability reduces reliance on moving or duplicating data, which often triggers compliance risks.
Equally important is establishing robust data access controls from the outset. By designing access frameworks that align with regulatory requirements, companies can make sure that sensitive customer information is appropriately protected and accessed only when necessary. Geo-locating data further mitigates compliance risks by keeping data stored and processed within permissible regions, which helps companies avoid violations related to cross-border data transfers.
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Turning Customer Insights Into Action
Achieving a true customer 360 is about more than just connecting data. It’s about transforming fragmented information into actionable insights that deliver easy, personalized customer experiences. Success lies in breaking down silos, implementing scalable platforms and supporting cross-functional collaboration to unify customer touchpoints, Goyal says.
By embracing modern strategies like real-time data accessibility, zero copy architecture and AI integration, organizations can realize the full potential of their data while maintaining compliance and trust. In today’s competitive landscape, delivering a real customer 360 isn’t just a technological challenge; it’s also a business imperative for driving loyalty, revenue and differentiation.
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