How Segment Powers Twilio: Unified Customer Profiles

In 1969, the Apollo 11 mission landed humans on the moon for the first time. It wasn’t just rocket science that made it possible—it was the ability to gather, unify, and act on precise data from countless systems working together in real time. Without that data, Neil Armstrong’s famous first step might never have happened.

Today, businesses face their own challenge of coordinating data across countless systems. While the stakes aren’t lunar landings, delivering seamless, personalized customer experiences depends on unifying fragmented information.

That’s where Segment and Twilio come in. 

Segment unifies all your customer data into a single, real-time profile, giving your team the full context needed to provide fast, personalized service across channels. With this unified data fueling Twilio’s AI-driven tools, like Twilio Flex, your business can deliver smarter, more efficient interactions that keep customers satisfied and returning for more.

The challenge of fragmented customer data

Most companies have customer data spread across different tools and departments. Your marketing team has a record of a customer’s browsing behavior, your sales team knows what products they’ve purchased, and your support team has a history of their previous tickets. But if this data isn’t connected, agents don’t get the full picture when dealing with customer inquiries.

This fragmented data creates inefficiencies and leads to disjointed, frustrating customer experiences. Consider an airline that loses track of key customer details during a travel disruption. A passenger might have their ticket information stored in one system, their loyalty membership in another, and their flight rebooking request in yet another. Without a unified view, support agents can’t immediately see the passenger’s full history, causing delays in rebooking and compensation. For the customer, this feels impersonal and frustrating—especially in high-stress situations like canceled flights.

Agents often have to manually gather information from multiple systems, leading to longer handle times and lower satisfaction. Worse, the customer often feels like they’re starting from scratch every time they contact your business, eroding trust and loyalty.

How identity resolution solves this problem

At the core of Segment is identity resolution, a process that consolidates customer data from different sources and touchpoints into a unified profile. It takes data like anonymous browsing activity, app interactions, email engagement, and CRM records and ties them back to a single customer identity, no matter where that data originated.

Traditionally, businesses relied on siloed systems to manage customer information. Marketing teams worked from email lists and website analytics, sales teams focused on CRM data, and support teams used ticketing systems. These tools, while effective in isolation, rarely communicate with each other. As a result, many businesses have fragmented views of their customers. When customers interact with different departments or channels, their experience feels disconnected.

Other tools in the market attempt to solve this issue by stitching together data after the fact, relying on batch processing or static lists that quickly become outdated. These approaches are reactive and often fail to provide the real-time insights businesses need to deliver seamless, personalized experiences.

For example, if a customer makes a purchase online but later calls support with a question, many systems fail to recognize them as the same individual. This leaves agents scrambling to collect information or asking the customer to repeat details, creating a frustrating experience.

How Segment’s unified profiles power Twilio Flex

Segment takes a different approach. 

By collecting and resolving identities across channels in real time, Segment ensures that every interaction contributes to a dynamic, unified profile. Twilio builds on this foundation, using Segment’s real-time data to power smarter interactions. 

With Segment feeding unified customer profiles into Twilio Flex, our cloud-based contact center, your agents have the full context they need to handle inquiries quickly and accurately. This real-time data means agents can respond to customers with the right information at their fingertips, rather than piecing together insights from different systems.

Let’s say a customer contacts support with a question about an order. With Segment and Twilio, your agent has access to customer’s recent purchases, the products they’ve browsed, and any previous support tickets. You can resolve the issue more efficiently because you have a complete, up-to-date view of the customer’s history.

Case study: Kuepa’s experience with Twilio Flex and Segment

Kuepa, an education/technology provider, faced challenges common to many businesses with fragmented data. Their agents didn’t have a complete view of student performance or history, resulting in longer handle times and inconsistent support. By integrating Segment’s unified profiles into Twilio Flex, Kuepa was able to transform its customer interactions.

With all of their data sources connected through Segment, Kuepa’s agents gained real-time access to student records—grades, attendance, and previous inquiries—without switching between systems. This led to a 30% reduction in average handle time. But, more importantly, Kuepa’s customer satisfaction score improved to an impressive 94%, thanks to the faster, more personalized service agents were able to deliver.

The role of AI in enhancing customer interactions

Segment also powers Twilio AI tools like Agent Copilot which uses AI to assist agents in real time by suggesting the next best action or by automatically generating wrap-up summaries after a call. This reduces the time agents spend on administrative tasks and allows them to handle more inquiries.

For instance, if a customer has abandoned their cart after browsing your website, Segment can track this activity and feed it into Twilio Flex. When the customer reaches out for support, the AI can prompt the agent to offer a personalized discount or help complete the purchase. These types of proactive, data-driven interactions not only improve customer satisfaction but also drive conversions and increase revenue.

Unified profiles drive the future of customer service

Real-time, unified profiles give your agents the tools they need to personalize every interaction. This is especially important as customer expectations rise. Customers today expect brands to remember their preferences, anticipate their needs, and offer relevant solutions at the right time. Without unified data, this level of personalization is next to impossible.

The combination of Segment and Twilio also makes it easier to scale personalized service as your business grows. As digital customer interactions exponentially increase across channels, Segment ensures that each touchpoint is captured and fed into Twilio in real time. This allows your team to keep pace with rising demand while continuing to deliver personalized, consistent experiences.

Power your customer interactions with unified profiles

Fragmented data slows down service, frustrates your customers, and limits your ability to provide personalized support. But with Segment’s unified profiles, you can bring together all your customer data into a single, real-time profile. This allows Twilio Flex to deliver faster, more personalized service—whether through AI-driven interactions or smarter agent support.