I’ve created the Brand and CRM X platform to foster a more consumer centric business view. Branding, CX and CRM are my passion. The idea is to share related content, to inspire, to influence, to support, to help. This is kind of my way towards unlocking long-term professional fulfilment, or self-actualisation in Maslow’s terms, if you like that better.
I also wish to be out there with a customer centric voice, and if someone else is also looking for the same passion and love, let’s exchange and share! Among the fact that unfortunately there is no Tinder yet for experienced and strategic CRM professionals and for consumer centric businesses, yet there is a constant need for a match from both sides.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am no-one to say, that the below approach is the ultimate description of CRM and Customer Experience Management in 2022 and going forward. Yet I hope I bring valuable thoughts and inspire and support everyone working, operating, teaching, studying in this area.
What CRM means for me
My chances for that professional Tinder match might just will sink to level zero, but: I believe that businesses could be much better managed from and with a customer centric aspect.
Last week I was watching a round table discussion with three CRM professionals about the value of customer insights, and one explained that his client, a CEO of global major electronic devices company – but really, think big – so this, so far mainly product and innovation driven CEO did not fully believe in CX and CRM until looking at the first measures and CRM results.
Also, when starting to write about CRM, I’ve visited several websites of key CRM system providers, and many of their definitions for CRM were purely technical like ‘CRM is a system to manage interactions…’. Or the definitions were maximum being raised to interaction management level like ‘CRM is a strategy and platform to manage interactions and relationships…’. Just google ‘what is CRM’, and you will see.
And then I wonder: really, customer relationship management equals to a system, which will manage these interactions with your customers, and things will eventually evolve to relationship level? And the CRM strategy is only about how you manage these interactions and relationships? So, if I understand correctly: let’s just ‘manage’ these relationships, they are already granted anyway.
Recently I also had a discussion with someone relevant in the digital marketing field, and I suggested visiting CRM more from a digital marketing angle in a certain content. And the answer was: great thought, yet marketing automation is already there to visit the digital CRM angle. Hmm. CRM = marketing automation.
I am keen on taking words seriously by their meaning. For me, a relationship includes emotions and feelings. And therefore, customer relationship includes the feelings of the customers.
Which we can manage with a CRM system, and they only manifest in interactions?! And these emotions are also ‘manageable’ with a strategy?! Easy-peasy. Let’s just automate and grow the business with targeted offers.
Obviously, I am exaggerating, but do you get my point?
[There are other examples for taking words and phrases seriously by their meaning. It seems to be my pattern. For example, why do you need pure logistic background for a Customer Service position at certain companies? Is logistic and order fulfillment the only service we provide to customers? And if so, why don’t you call the position Order Specialist or Supply Chain Front Line employee, just to manage both the customers’ and the employees’ expectations?
Not talking about the fact, that from HR aspect I am only a resource. Well, at least I am recognized as a human. We should be grateful in life! But seriously. A resource. At least an enabler?! I mean, nobody puts baby in the corner! Especially so, when the ‘resource’ fully represents your brand and influences its perception, thinking of front line employees for example.
Oops, I started to receive notifications from my imaginary professional Tinder App, that I am close to violating community rules. I’ll behave!]
Anyone else out there blessed with high level of customerism?
Continuing the exaggeration, for me a business means the following:
We have products and services, which target to satisfy needs of customers. In highly sophisticated cases, we even create our own demand (what else?) Our business is fully customer centric, as we know that all our income is coming from sales, hence from customers, which is also paying our salaries at the end.
Our organization is aware at all levels, that every workflow and job is supporting a customer centric business model. Finance and accounting are dealing with incomes from customers, and with costs of producing goods and delivering services. Quality is ensuring customer health and safety. Audit is ensuring that our assets are truly used for the benefit of business growth driven by customer demand and supply. Marketing and sales…HE (ex HR) is taking care of employees and human enablers (former resources) together with the line manager, so that they evolve towards their full potential.
Especially in the CRM area, where they and their work represent our brand and influence customer emotions Shareholder value is indirect: the more we sell, the better and stronger brand we build, the greater our shareholder value is. Very abstract, but: we as a business have a purpose of making people’s lives better with our products and services, and adding value is our goal. And of course, this will translate into business and financial success, but we approach this success as the results of our purpose
I believe that within the above customer centric frame, CX and CRM has a vital role in every organisation, because they translate this vision, this added value into tangible experience, and therefore they build and strengthen our brand.
The brand
Let’s just visit the definition for a second of what is a brand. Reading a lot of articles, I’ve picked three main characteristics:
Brand is the way a product/company/person is perceived and therefore it is shaped by people’s perception and opinion, hence it is not directly controllable. This is very key. Brands help consumers to distinguish between different market offers. A brand is intangible yet represents a higher perceived value and influences the decision and choice over other products and services. A stronger brand increases competitive advantage. A brand can create trust and credibility for customers; therefore, it triggers loyalty.
[To imagine this branding concepts, think about why you prefer a car manufacturer, a pair of jeans, or a make-up brand versus another one. Is it only the product what your preferred company offers to you or is it also a mix of feelings or experiences related to the brand, which is shaped by the image what it represents, the people who use it, the company’s mission and vision behind it, the level of sustainability, the service and the after sales, and so on?]
Of course, marketing colleagues do everything to influence this perception. From a CRM aspect:
- controlling touch points (channels where your customers are in contact with you)
- platforms (the systems your customers are using)
- interactions (the exchange customers have with you),
- and processes (the steps customers go through when being in touch with you for a certain reason)
are the areas which influence this brand perception through building seamless, consistent, and memorable experience and relationships.
And consumer insight is an essential tool to segment and to always keep the finger on the pulse and to be conscious, what exactly this brand perception is, for which customer groups.
At the end consistent and satisfying brand perception increases the value customers willing to pay through their consuming lifetime for their product and brand experience. This is the translation of that certain added brand value, and I believe it directly represents the customer reaction to your purpose.
Cultural imprinting and CRM
In terms of branding and customer experience, I would like to carry forward the concept of ‘cultural imprinting’, which I’ve recently read about during my studies in a great article written by Kevin Simler, with the title of ‘Ads Don’t Work That Way’, posted on Melting Asphalt.
/https://meltingasphalt.com/ads-dont-work-that-way/
Kevin described cultural imprinting as follows:
“…an ad campaign seeds everyone with a basic image or message. Then it simply steps back and waits — not for its emotional message to take root and grow within your brain, but rather for your social instincts to take over, and for you to decide to use the product (or not) based on whether you’re comfortable with the kind of cultural signals its brand image allows you to send.”
Kevin Simler: Ads Don’t Work That Way, Melting Asphalt
I would like to carry the ‘cultural imprinting’ concept further, as I believe it is also relevant for customer experience and for CRM. Not just we as customers decide to shop a brand and use its products – to represent our social context – based on the promised image or message received through advertisement, but we also decide based on the perceived experience with the brand. And this experience is also shaped by efficient, effortless, and personalised processes, contacts, platforms, touchpoint, as defined earlier, above the product.
Moreover, with the connected world, these experiences are shared by customers, and are much more available for the broader public, than before. Just think about reviews, community discussions, social posts about your brand. This public information all shape our brand perception, and therefore I believe that CRM has a much bigger role, then just targeting people with conversion and loyalty offers enabled by segmentation and marketing automation.
CRM will be especially very effective, when in each of its element it is aligned with the brand promise, and this seamlessly manifests into brand experience.
Can CRM be fully automated?
My challenge with the purely tech-based CRM definition is that despite all the power of technology and artificial intelligence, products and services are all still consumed by humans. With the desire from consumers for ever-increasing digital self-care (which I am going to write about at a later stage in another article), the power and effect of human interaction is tremendous, and will be an evergreen I believe. Relationships and interactions with your consumers and customers cannot be initiated by and fully depend on technology.
In fact, it all starts with a human decision, what you as a business leader or business owner wish to target as a customer and brand experience, and how this strategy translates into customer relationship management in each interaction, at each touchpoint.
[Just think about the experience when you’re contacting a call centre, and you can only reach an automated AI-supported customer service representative ‘Wanda’, asking for your problem, your customer number, your desired solution…but she is not understanding your accent, the fact that the technician was already there at your place, or not allowing you to contact a live support, because simply your problem is not fitting Wanda’s offered contact reason categories. This generates additional contacts, higher cost and customer effort, and dissatisfaction if not loss of loyalty. Now of course artificial intelligence and machine learning will advance but I’m afraid with the more and more complex digital environment and products the human interactions will not be fully replaceable. And this was just an example].
Buying a CRM software can have a tactical impact for sure, but also putting a CX and CRM strategy behind will be a tremendous catalyst for your business.
Let’s balance automation and human impact
Reaching higher profit with less investment is key goal of every business, and under this umbrella marketing and sales has developed several methods, technics, and tricks to reach greater sales and increase efficiency. Marketing automation and digitalisation is a great supporter of this direction and have a pivotal role at each stage of the purchase funnel the consumer goes through the lifecycle. Here are some great automation and digital marketing elements which first come to my mind:
I believe there must be a balance between marketing automation and digitalisation and traditional marketing methods and still have the possibility of personal contacts, because of three main reasons:
- Branding (cultural imprinting if you like)
- Customer experience
- Authenticity
Even if you manage to reach a high level of branding in your marketing automation and deliver experience, I guess there is no need to discuss why a personal or physical contact with a brand is more authentic versus an AI driven chat bot or a digitalized self-care option, or an automated e-mail.
Personas, context, and intent
Withing the automation topic, we also must visit the complexity of the persona, context, and intent triangle of consumer behaviour, which we could try to answer with AI driven digital technologies, yet I am not sure if we’ll ever fully succeed.
A product or a brand can speak to different personas at the same time (different customer types), who can have different intent depending on their actual stage within the purchase funnel. Even if we could control and manage all these aspects, people and their purchase behaviours are hugely influenced by the context. Context like the weather, their mood, their actual social situation, and many other dimensions.
So, when a platform provider or anyone from your organisation is urging to invest in an amazing and promising new technology or system and suggesting defining the ‘minimum viable digital CRM solution’ to solve the chosen business challenge or to advance with technology, I would first to take a step back and answer a few questions.
I suggest defining first your true ‘minimal viable digital products’, meaning automations aim to serve your customers, and answer their true minimum requirements towards your brand. My priority would be to investigate the balance of consumer behaviour and MVP. What are the masses of consumer processes within their lifecycle, which represent a low value or importance (no moment of truth, hence no major effect on brand perception)? I would start automatising these.
But my conversion targets Daniel?!
From my point of view Kevin’s article approached ‘cultural imprinting’ from the top of the funnel, so from awareness aspect. Another great article I’ve recently read also during my studies was more focusing on the lower funnel (conversion) over-investment and re-emphasizing the importance of brand perception based on this learning, hence re-investing into branding activities.
I just simply find it fascinating, that a global brand started to measure what really drives sales, and found out, that 65% of purchases are driven by branding.
/https://www.marketingweek.com/adidas-marketing-effectiveness/
Do you really want to chase re-targeted and promotion driven conversions all the time? On the long run, you not just ruin your brand perception, but you also generate an endless loop where sales can only be reached through promotions, which is also killing your bottom line. Less-and-less organic demand with decreasing full-price sell through hence decreasing profit, not fun, believe me, I was there too.
I only have a directional offer, unfortunately I have no magic formula to step out from this loop. If we believe that a stronger brand has higher competitive advantage and represents added value in customers’ lives, then we also believe that customers will accept the higher price for this added value. Of course, we cannot make a 180 degree turn in our marketing activities and risk our yearly targets, but we can step-by-step turn the ship towards a longer-terms thinking.
You must have a very strong organization to turn the ship around. People, employees must understand the concept and reason, they must align with it. Moreover they must be engaged so that they can translate the concept into their own actions.
This takes time, a lot of effort, and lot of discussions, touching many sensitive areas like legacy, fear of change, organisation, egos (including mine), measurement, targets, bonuses, and so on, which I will discuss in an other article with the title ‘How to build a customer centric organisation’.
Target CLV
Yet, the ship could also target CLV.
Your goal is to increase CLV, so the customer lifetime value. You wish customers to stay with you longer, and to consume more at higher profit through their lifecycle. A well-established CX vision translated into a proper CRM strategy could lead you to increased customer spend both from a purchase value and from the lifecycle length point of view aspects and could drive cost effectiveness through process and business optimization.
You might argue, that by definition, if we manage to drive higher conversion rates with perceived beneficial offers (though automation), that is also driving a higher CLV. I agree, it does, but the question is for how long, and could we drive an even higher CLV?
Based on my knowledge and experience, and on my gut feeling: somehow the customer must sense something in relation to your brand, when the communication is mainly automated and offer focused? And this sensation builds into the cultural imprinting or into the perceived brand image I believe, even if on an unconscious level at first. Especially when this communication is targeted. And therefore, I would turn that ship towards a more balanced view in term of CLV, which mainly focuses on branded long-term CLV activities, and has some unpredictable surprise offer elements.
Buying a CRM software and driving automation can have a tactical impact for sure, but also putting a CX and CRM strategy behind it will be a tremendous catalyst for your business. And these strategic elements include:
- Being conscious, what really drive your sales (brand perception and experience)
- How your consumers behave (with what intent, in which point within their purchase funnel, which persona, in which context)
- Having a roadmap what and how can be digitised and automatised
Takeaways
Technology is a tremendous enabler, and often it can drive innovative ways to foster relationships with your customers. Yet I believe the experience what your customers have related to your brand should rather be a business and brand decision.
I am also quite convinced, that our marketing and CRM focus should have a much healthier weight on brand and experience building among performance marketing. And to also have the target of strong perception, which is then translated into increased CLV.
If you are interested how, please visit my other articles about building a CRM strategy.
My final and own definition-suggestion for CRM would sound like this:
CRM is the manifestation of a brand and customer experience strategy, and it also includes the data and customer insight driven management of efficient, effortless, and personalised processes, contacts, platforms, touchpoint, and digital technologies, targeting higher customer lifetime value.
Daniel Toth
I would like to highlight the sequence of the proposed definition: first brand and targeted customer experience, then customer insight driven processes, personalised contact management, and then platforms and technologies.
CRM = CXM
I’ve thought that we already have a take-away, but then I had a new one. If I really want to be consistent with naming and definitions, and I do, then CRM should be renamed to CXM.
Because relationship for me is kind of a result of previous interactions, and maybe this misleading name is the reason why we unconsciously believe that CRM is only there to manage these interactions. But if we say that CRM is CXM, so customer experience management, this definition implies that we also have a strategic design job to do, to deliver that seamless, memorable, and consistent brand experience.
Alright, let’s start that CXM revolution!!!
Well, I’ve thought this through again. I’ve also discussed this with my key stakeholders, with my business owners, and with my employees, so with my organisation (aka myself). They all agree with the CXM direction, yet this evolution would mean a re-branding from BrandAndCrmX, adjusting targets (I really want to go live asap), and aligning those 50 pages of content already written around CRM. Revolution, transformation, and change is complex.
Let’s just foster a CRM evolution for now. It might be revolutionary enough at this stage.
Thank you for reading!
