Ep 28 | Customer-Centric or Data-Driven with Tom Spencer, Head of Customer Data Science at Aviva

Driven by Data: The Podcast

In Episode 28 of Driven by Data: The Podcast, Kyle Winterbottom is joined by Tom Spencer, Head of Customer Data Science at Aviva (and Data IQ 100 No.9) where they discuss the relationship between customer-centric and data-driven, which includes:

• His experience of working in different cultures in Asia
• Why he thinks he was listed at Number 9 in the Data IQ 100 2021
• Why your insights are only as good as the change you can drive
• Why he focuses on shifting from "Reactive Servants" to "Proactive Partners"
• How he lives by the quote; "You tell us what you want and we’ll tell you what you need”
• The importance of understanding the real question
• Why there is still a place for instinct despite being data-driven
• Why customer-centric and data-driven aren’t mutually exclusive
• Why being truly customer-centric only works if it’s ingrained into the company culture
• The danger of conflating customer-centric with doing anything for the customer
• Why it’s equally important to identify the customers you don’t want as it is understanding who your best customers are
• The importance of hiring in the quest to be customer-centric
• The 3 phases by which to measure the success of the customer-centric approach
• Why measuring the impact your work has on your customers is better than attempting to measure ROI
• The difference between a customer-centric organisation versus a product/service-centric organisation
• The role of the board in being customer-centric
• Why connecting what’s important to the customers to what’s important to the stakeholders is critical