In the modern context, being onboarded as a customer can be an onerous process of submitting incredible amounts of personal information that often leave you wondering why its all required to begin with. Quite often, we share all sorts of professional and private bits of information that collectively constitute a massive amount on everything about you. 

Thankfully, given that Kenya has had its Data Protection Act in place since 2019, as well as the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) that operationalizes it, we can rest assured that our data can only be used within limited parameters by any organization that captures it. However, sadly, we (still) see many instances where organizations violate data privacy laws that often leads to substantial fines from ODPC.  

Anyway, as it turns out, it was my birthday recently and I received a few congratulatory messages via email from a few businesses where I have been a long term customer. In each instance, the messages were clearly automated via customer relationship management or ‘CRM’ platforms as they all wished me a ‘Happy Birthday!’. This is nice, even ‘quaint’, as a first-order level of customer experience or ‘CX’ given the sheer amount of data these businesses have on me. 

One of the birthday messages came from a bank and all they sent to me was a ‘canned’ email message with a standard graphic that clearly goes out to all of their customers — there was nothing unique or compelling about it. Given that this particular bank ‘sees’ many of my transactions, this particular message could have been far more personalized. The bank could have sent me a free coupon for something they already know I like to buy whilst being respectful of data privacy protocols. Alternatively, had they looked at my social media, seen that I’m an ardent Arsenal fan, and plunked for a 2025/6 season t-shirt or scarf, they would have me as a customer for life! True story 🙂

The other birthday message I received came from my Opticians. In this example, they not only wished me a Happy Birthday but also offered a 5% discount with a call to action or ‘CTA’ that would allow me to redeem this offer online via their website. This was a little more impressive than the one from the bank which was basically the bare minimum a large and multi-billion shilling earning financial services organization can be expected to do. 

The last message I got came from one of the leading airlines in Kenya and once again, just like the bank, it was all about ‘good feelings’ and nothing more. I have been a customer of this airline for decades and through their loyalty program they know so much about my travel history and could have offered me a discount or some kind of value-add that I could redeem on my next flight. I find this quite disappointing to be honest and a missed opportunity for them. 

In a nutshell, what I am saying is that organizations that spend so much time capturing and consolidating a myriad of data points on their customers from a first-party perspective can leverage key insights as a basis for delightful customer experiences that can be the foundation that strengthens customer loyalty and growth over time. Indeed, as the saying goes, ‘data is the new oil’, and the organizations that figure out how to really use customer data will be the ones that ultimately lead the market from this simple yet seemingly hard to execute rationale.