In the latest edition of the CDO Podcast series hosted by CDO Magazine, Purvi Shah, VP of Enterprise Big Data Platforms and Digital & Data Product Development at American Express (Amex) joins Syniti's Chief Customer Officer, Leonard Maganza, to discuss how Amex is leveraging data as a powerful asset to better understand customers across the lifecycle.
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Responsible for managing Amex’s global Big Data ecosystem, Shah focuses on bringing data together from across multiple systems and unifying that information so it can be effectively utilized for analytics and insights. Whether for acquisition, customer service, or detecting credit and fraud risk, finding new ways to utilize data analysis and management is at the forefront of improving the customer experience. “In my mind,” Shahs says, “data management and digital transformation are all intertwined to create the greatest customer experience for all our customers.”
For example, Amex Offers provides merchants the opportunity to give discounts or incentives to customers who shop at their locations. Using AI, machine learning, and the data they already have, Shah and her team are better able to understand and predict customers’ needs and behaviors in order to provide the right offer at the right time. As Shah emphasizes, this level of insight is very important to ensure customers return to the Amex app or the Amex website, log in to see what information is available, and create the best customer experience possible.
“This is really important to manage the data well, understand the data, and bring it together with the customers' needs are and to anticipate them using the AI/ML technologies,” Shah explains.
The Next Generation of Data Management
Using data, Shah and her team continuously look for ways to evolve in order to offer the kind of services, products, and best experiences that customers have come to expect from American Express.
“As we look to the future, it’s really important to A) listen to the customer,” Shah begins, “B) understand the data – So, how do they interact with us using the variety of channels that Amex has to offer the best services - and C) actually have a conversation with our customers to understand what their needs are.”
“The two things that really stand out for us as we look to the future is further leveraging our AI/ML capabilities,” says Shah. Not only using the structured data and unstructured data that American Express is already tapping into but bringing that data and insights together to better predict disruptions and anticipate customer needs."
Using the data and machine learning models to advance this field further, Shah has a second predication: a more customer-centric approach to data management will become imperative. In conjunction with Amex’s many card products, their non-card products such as the Amex mobile app or Amex website depend on data to remain intuitive and meet customer needs. For Shah, moving away from product-centric interactions to a more customer-centric methodology is the key to this level of user experience. "And data is going to be at the heart of everything that we do,” Shah concludes.
Interested in learning about how data management can enhance your customer relationships? Get in touch with Syniti today to get a customized assessment of how to better leverage the data you already own.