Acxiom, the global leader in customer intelligence, today unveiled a comprehensive study that underscores the paradox of modern customer intelligence: While many businesses recognize its importance, few realize its full potential to create truly differentiating, market-leading experiences.

Key Findings

The study, Customer Intelligence: How Well Do You Understand Your Customers?, provided an in-depth assessment of US and UK brands’ customer intelligence (CI) maturity – how well these businesses use data-driven CI to understand and engage with people across the entire customer journey.

The findings revealed a startling reality. Only a tiny fraction of brands (4%) have become masters of customer intelligence, seamlessly integrating CI across their organizations. This accomplishment sets these businesses apart, giving them a distinctive edge over their competition.

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Challenges and Contradictions

The report also highlights the main challenges and contradictions that brands face in their data-driven strategies, such as:

• While 56% of businesses align their CI function with company objectives, only 7% report CEO-level advocacy.
• Although 46% of businesses use a blend of first-, second-, and third-party data, just 9% utilize an identity resolution to unify customer signals into a single view, impacting their ability to deliver meaningful experiences.
• While 60% of businesses claim to use advanced CI analytics, only 23% integrate artificial intelligence or machine learning into their analytics capabilities.
• Despite 63% of businesses establishing CI Centers of Excellence to share best practices, only 22% have implemented real-time collaborative data platforms accessible to all teams.
• Data quality, integration issues, skill and resource shortages, organizational silos, privacy concerns, and technology complexities are common barriers impeding CI maturity.

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