Delivering Exceptional Customer Experiences: Inspiration from the World’s Most Innovative Companies

One of the many things I love about my job is that our customers are marketers themselves. Marketers’ pressures, struggles, and wins are close to my heart, and this is a high-stakes moment in marketing. Marketers who rely on small, incremental changes to make this year better than the last are going to lose out.

At LiveRamp , we are proud to have the most innovative companies in the world as our clients—from iconic consumer brands and tech platforms to retailers, financial services, and healthcare leaders. Our clients are marketers who are not settling for the status quo, who believe they can do better for their customers. Every day I see how they partner with LiveRamp to do big, bold things that will transform their customer experience.

I have been writing lately about how companies that aren’t taking full advantage of data collaboration are missing out on its potential to drive their business forward. Today I want to focus on customer experience specifically and look at a few examples of how our incredible clients have used data collaboration to invest in customer experience and long-term loyalty.

Our goal as marketers is to deliver magical moments to our customers—to know them, celebrate them, and delight them as no other brand can.

These moments cement the loyalty to our brands that grow customer lifetime value, reduce churn, turn customers into advocates, and more broadly create the foundation for a thriving business. Meeting our customers’ expectations, let alone exceeding them, can feel increasingly challenging as the bar continues to rise—expectations are higher than ever, and competition is fierce. And yet, there is technology available to marketers that we could only dream of a few years ago.

While deep customer connection and long-term loyalty are the end goals, there are a few key things that need to happen first. They may sound basic, but shockingly few companies feel confident they have achieved them—in a recent Forrester report, we saw that while 48% of respondents say that achieving privacy-forward, personalized experiences requires the most up-to-date customer information, only 18% have what they need to do this today. Let’s take a look at how our inspiring clients have been leading the way with powerful new tools.

 1. Figure out what you know about your customer.

Many companies have a ton of first-party data, but it’s stuck in silos across the organization. Eli Lilly and Company, for example, had rich first-party data for each step of the customer journey, from digital engagement to customer support, but the data was fragmented and complex. As Steve Rommeney Associate Global VP of Engineering, Platforms, and Capabilities posed the challenge, “Are we seeing customers the way they want to be seen?”

The Lilly team worked with LiveRamp to unify their data and build the most accurate, connected view of their customer possible. Privacy and consent were paramount, so they used pseudonymous RampIDs to identify customers without personally identifiable information. (RampIDs have the added advantage of eliminating dependencies on third-party cookies and mobile identifiers.) Lilly can now harness the power of their first-party data to connect the end-to-end customer journey. They have the ambitious goal of serving customers along their full health journey, helping more people around the world lead healthier lives— building a 360-degree customer view with their own first-party data was a critical step.

2. Fill in the gaps in your knowledge.

Some companies have a little customer data, some have a lot, but all can benefit from filling in gaps in their knowledge. CPGs, for example, lack the first-party data and direct contact with customers that retailers with brick-and-mortar and e-commerce storefronts have. LiveRamp unlocks data collaboration with its premier global ecosystem of potential partners.

Danone , L'Oréal , and Mondelēz International are just a few of the multinational CPGs that have used LiveRamp to collaborate with retailers that sell their brands for a much clearer and more holistic view of their customers. Who exactly is buying their products at retail? What does the customer journey look like? What else does the customer buy, and how often? What advertising actually drives sales? CPGs—and companies across industries—can finally get answers to their burning questions about their customers.

Our clients also deepen their customer insight with trusted third-party data sets, easy to access within the LiveRamp Data Collaboration Platform. Demographic data, behavioral data, prescription data, and geospatial data are just a few examples. Our clients tell us it’s like being kids in a candy store, having at their fingertips so much information that can help them understand their customer.

3. Delight customers with a personal experience.

Once our clients have visibility into their customers’ needs and complexities, their preferences and behaviors, and the inputs driving their decision-making at every step, so much possibility is unlocked.

Companies like the CPGs above, collaborating with retail media networks, can get just the right message at the right moment to the right customer, so a customer receives an offer that resonates and feels valuable. 

Consumers benefit from the more relevant advertising outside of retail as well. As Derek Leonard, PhD , Head of Data Collaboration at Roku, said about Roku’s collaboration with Kroger , TV advertising is “part of that overall consumer experience. It doesn’t make sense for us to inundate consumers with ads and make it a terrible experience. We want to show them relevant ads, for things that would actually lend themselves to their lifestyle. When you are providing some true value to the customer, that is a wonderful thing.” 

Delta Air Lines is another example. At RampUp 2024, Sarah Downs , a Managing Director in the Customer Experience group at Delta, shared how they are making “the journey part of the joy” by tailoring each trip to the traveler. They have partnered with LiveRamp to enable a privacy-centric, connected customer view. With this solid foundation established, they can now deliver relevant, personal messages throughout the customer journey with new Delta Sync wifi products. When travelers log in on their personal devices or seatback screens, Delta welcomes them by name, knows their preferences, and guides them through their travel day, with updates on their connecting flights.

Delta Sync also delivers unique experiences with partner brands before, during, and after the flight—for example, allowing a traveler to enjoy a free Paramount+ trial to continue viewing later from home, or earning miles with every Starbucks purchase. Delta has been committed to uncovering the brands their customers would be excited for them to partner with, so they can deliver entertainment and experiences their customers will love. The Delta team can now quickly activate any collaboration they can imagine to delight their customers.

The Stakes and the Opportunity

We live in an age of instant gratification, whether speedy customer service, same-day delivery, or instant access to information. People expect brands to know them inside and out, and to provide a fast, personalized, and seamless experience while they hop between websites, apps, social media, and brick-and-mortar stores. In this high-stakes environment, it is no longer acceptable to not recognize a customer from touchpoint to touchpoint, deliver tone-deaf or irrelevant offers, or do one-size-fits-all marketing.

However, the opportunity is tremendous. New technologies allow marketers to streamline processes that were clunky or impossible, and to understand their customer better than ever. Our clients have shown that we all have the power to deliver exceptional experiences to our customers that show them we know and value them at every step of their journey. We can do better by our customers, and they expect nothing less.