Curing the Fractured Customer Journey With a Simple Omnichannel Mandate: Data First

For many marketers, the promise of a seamless omnichannel strategy remains unfulfilled. The modern customer journey is a chaotic, non-linear path. It's a messy web of interactions that jumps from Google to a neighbor's advice to an in-store visit and back again. But brands, often structured around rigid internal channels, are still delivering fragmented experiences that force customers to repeat themselves. To navigate a complex buying reality and truly understand the customer, marketers must gather and leverage all available data. The solution to this omnichannel challenge, however, doesn't always mean adding another piece of technology.

Jennifer Marino offers a clear perspective on the issue. A C-level marketing executive with over two decades of experience shaping brand and customer strategy at major firms like Rockland Trust, Liberty Mutual Insurance, and now MSIG USA, she explains that before brands can win on experience, they first need to get their data house in order.

• A costly misdiagnosis: The reason seamless customer experiences remain so elusive, Marino suggests, is that organizations are diagnosing the problem incorrectly. Too often, they see a channel problem and try to solve it with a unifying CRM. But that approach overlooks the fractured data foundation beneath it all, effectively treating a symptom rather than the root cause. "Organizations are trying to solve their data problem through a system or a technology, rather than creating a data foundation where all the data becomes the single source of truth. Rather than letting a platform like Salesforce solve that need for you, you first have to get your data right," she says.

• A company-wide pact: Without a universally accepted "source of truth," data silos persist, leading to the very fragmented customer experiences brands aim to eliminate. It transforms a technical necessity into a strategic, leadership-driven imperative. "You have to get agreement across the entire organization on a single source of truth. Whether you're in finance, sales, marketing, claims, or you're the CEO, everyone must agree on it."

In Marino's framework, AI isn't a silver bullet. Instead, it's the powerful enabler that makes a true data foundation practical at human speed. Making the data practical allows AI to instantly synthesize a unified data pool, preventing the friction that occurs when a customer service agent has to flounder through years of notes. "AI is not going to be the answer. It's going to be the enabler. It will mine data and serve up insights in seconds, making it feel natural to have a truly educated conversation. Whether that conversation is happening with a bot, in person, or over the phone, every interaction will feel seamless because the insights will come so quickly," she explains.

But smoothing out existing interactions is just the start. A true data foundation also allows AI to flip the script from defense to offense by proactively identifying opportunities. "AI will look for correlations that allow you to determine the next best product to offer a customer to keep them loyal, or the price at which they might walk away. All of those kinds of questions that used to require complex statistical models and tons of data to mine can now be answered by AI in seconds. It's really exciting."

• The data bargain: Within this framework, the goal of data collection is to understand the "total relationship" with a customer, moving beyond broad segments to see the unique potential of each individual. But that deep level of understanding can trigger the personalization-privacy-paradox, where customers want personalized interactions, but don't want to give up their privacy data. This requires an ethical framework built on a transparent and tangible value exchange. "You have to be transparent. For most of us gathering data for these reasons, we aren't interested in selling customer data; we're interested in using it to be more relevant and to ensure we aren't communicating with you in a way you don't want," she explains.

• Worth the trade-off: Marino points to Amazon as a prime example of this principle in action. "The more relevant you are, the fewer questions people have. I don't care that Amazon has my data because I know most of what they're serving up is relevant and helpful. It saves me a few steps." She emphasizes, "The more value you provide, the more they'll see that tradeoff is worth it."

Marino's philosophy is already yielding tangible results in the world of commercial insurance, a sector long challenged by slow, manual processes. Where it once took brokers thirty or even forty days to get a final submission and price for a policy, brokers operating off a unified data foundation can now generate that same quote in a fraction of the time. "One of the things we heard from brokers a few years ago was, 'I can't wait a month for a final submission. I need it now. My customer's asking for it, they're ready.'"

This example illustrates Marino's core thesis in action. Getting the data right first doesn't just reduce friction, it creates tangible value for the customer and transforms legacy processes into efficient, modern experiences. For marketers, building a robust data foundation isn't a technical task, but a strategic imperative that underpins every aspect of a successful, customer-centric experience.