Unify allows you to organize your customer data in different record types, e.g. person, site, etc., depending on the hierarchy, i.e. business to business (B2B), business to customer (B2C), or B2C with household hierarchy. The hierarchy is set at initial implementation.
Record types
Person records - hold all the details for the individual customer.
Site records - hold information related to a site/household, e.g. address. Person records are then linked to the site record.
Company records - used when a business has multiple premises to group site records by company.
Organization records - used where multiple company records can be associated with each other, e.g. multiple brands within a corporation.
Hierarchies
B2C Hierarchy - the system is set to provide a single customer view at person level.
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All data is held at the person record level.
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People at the same address will have unique records and each will have their own version of the address, i.e. any changes to the address will need to be completed for each person at that address.
B2C + Household Hierarchy - a B2C configuration with the addition of a site record, i.e. household level.
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Each person record is linked to a household.
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The site record holds all address details, i.e. changes to an address are made once at the site level and applied to all linked person records.
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This configuration allows selection and analysis at the household level.
B2B Hierarchy - data is held at different levels to represent a business structure.
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Can be set up at 2-4 levels, dependent on the requirement of the B2B data set.
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A 2-level structure consists of a site record and person record and functions in the same manner as a B2C + household hierarchy.
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A 3-level structure includes a company record level that allows sites to be grouped by company.
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A 4-level structure includes an organization record at the top of the dataset.
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Each level can hold profiles and transactions. In each iteration, it is most common for the address to be held at site level.
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Example: if you only need to look at data for individual customers, it may make sense to include all of a customer's information at the Person record level. However, if you typically work with multiple people at the same company (a B2B relationship, for example) you may want to put name and phone information for a customer in the Person record, then link to the Site record or Company record for address information. The Site record can be useful if you want to associate persons at the same household or business location together.