Customer data platforms (CDPs) and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions are both tools businesses use to manage and organize customer data. While they do have similarities, there are also some key differences between CDPs and CRMs. For example, CRMs consolidate and store data, while CDPs unify your data across platforms.
In this post, you will explore what exactly makes these two systems different from each other and their similarities.
Understanding Customer Data Platforms and CRMs
Customer data platforms (CDPs) are a type of customer relationship management (CRM) solution. In a nutshell, CRMs store and manage customer data to help companies manage their customers, sales, marketing and other business processes. CDPs combine this functionality with sophisticated analytics so that companies can analyze their historical customer interactions to predict future trends and behaviors. Adobe Real-Time CDP states, “CDPs are built to incorporate fresh marketing channels and tech.”
CRMs Consolidate and Store Data
CRMs are designed to store data. All CRM systems have some sort of data storage capability, but not all CRMs can store all types of data. So, for example, if you’re looking for a solution that can track your customers’ phone calls, emails, and social media activity, then you’ll need something more robust than a basic CRM system.
On the other hand, if all you want is an easy way for people in different departments to share information about each customer without having to constantly pass around spreadsheets or email attachments—like the manager who needs contact information for his salespeople or vice versa—then even something like Salesforce might be it for what you’re looking for.
CDPs Unify Your Data across Platforms
One of the main benefits of a CDP is that it unifies data across your organization. This means that all of your customer data gets stored in one place, no matter where it originates. So whether you’re looking for information about a customer from an email or website visitor, or an order placed on the phone, or their social media profile—it’s all in one place.
This can help with reporting and analysis as well since you can pull insights from one system rather than multiple ones. And because CDPs are designed to be a single source of truth for customer information and interactions, they provide a single view of each person across touchpoints and channels so that everyone can access what they need at any given time (without needing anyone else).
Both Systems Offer Benefits to Your Company
Both systems can help you organize and manage your sales, marketing and customer relationship management processes.
CDPs help you to organize, store and analyze customer data. CRM systems allow you to manage your sales and marketing processes. They also have a number of other benefits:
- The ability to share data across departments
- Accessible from anywhere at any time
- Built-in reporting tools for real-time analysis
In conclusion, CRMs and CDPs differ primarily in how they handle data. While both systems can be used to manage customer information, the CDP is designed to combine disparate data sources into a single database that’s easier to search through and analyze. This makes it a great choice if your company has multiple departments working on different projects at once but needs access to all their client information at any time.