CRM

"So,  what is CRM then Al?".    This is a question I've been asked throughout my career. 

Typically you start with walking through the acronym.  "Well it's customer.. relationship Management.   "Ah, ok... so you are a customer relationship management..manager?". 

At this point I agree the job title is flawed and was the main benefit for moving up to a Head of CRM,  if anything but to provide clarity.

My previous job titles included data or direct marketing and even though we became CRM managers in around 2005,  the  basics of what I learned on my IDM course 20 years ago remain and are also prevalent in all digital targeting strategies and now the latest buzz word, 'personalisation'.

Ultimately,  the goal of CRM is to turn one time buyers into long term advocates of your brand.  At a simple level, you can achieve this by finding a friend in IT and  getting access to your customer data.  It all starts there. 

And from there, you gain insight to who your customers are, when do they engage with you, how often and how much. 

Even having the most basic information will mean you can start treating your customers differently through messaging and service.   

We, as consumers now expect a level of personalisation, to be remembered and to be treated individually.

It's powerful stuff and the beauty of it is you can measure it's success by showing return on investment,  proving impacts on advocacy and forecasting a customers value overtime.

All this is the reason CRM should form part of your business strategy.

"We want to start CRM, but unsure where to start?"...

CRM can mean so many things from having carefully curated customer persona's to full management of customer journeys across all channels.  Or technically it could mean a fully integrated CRM system that joins all touchpoints into one single customer view.

All of this is great and every business will have different priorities and their own vision of CRM.

But.  Getting the basics right from my experience is where you should start.   You also need a strategy or plan at best.

Start with the data.  Understand your data. 

How can you you use this data to improve or start dialogue with your customers.

What systems will you need.  What people.  How much will it cost and what will be the return.

All of this might sound daunting, especially with customer data being so sensitive under GDPR.

My experience has meant I've seen many different situations.  None are the same and all aren't perfect. 

I can help through conversation to bring it all together and start you on the right path.  I'm also hands on and enjoy getting stuck in!.

"We don’t feel we are getting the most out of  our current setup?"...

This happens more often than not when legacy systems are put in place with all good intentions.  But over time through changes in personnel or different priorities, they have become unloved or now just don't make sense.

This could be an email system, a marketing database or maybe personalisation software for your website.

What typically happens in this situation is the focus is put elsewhere as confidence is lost in what it can achieve.   

However, this is usually a good opportunity for some quick wins because there will be insight from past campaigns and stuff to learn.

In my experience,  you should always review your systems and strategy every couple of years.  This also means reviewing any agency setup or external resource.  What was right then, may not fit now.  

Customer journeys will evolve and business priorities will adapt. 

I have hands on experience with email systems and databases and have led many RFP process to find a new solution and/or agency recruitment.

It could be a few tweaks through to a fresh strategy.  Regardless, it's always a good opportunity for a review.

"How Do I know if our CRM activity is working?"...

I’m a big believer in there is no point in doing CRM if you can’t measure the ROI.  

Some clients I’ve worked with want to know how well the latest campaign worked.

Others want to understand the bigger picture...

How many customers are returning?

How many new customers have they acquired?

How many of their gold customers don't buy anymore and why.

etc.

The most important part is doing something with the information. 

I have built  dashboards for many companies designed to show the right KPI's that will give the most interesting insight and my advice on what actions to take.

"How do we grow our database within GDPR?"...

Having a data collection strategy is really important.   If you don't have data then you can't do CRM.  Simple.

Maybe you have stores and their data collection rate is low.   

Maybe you aren't getting the signup rate you would have hoped on your website.

Maybe you don't know what is the right data to collect.

Maybe you are concerned about GDPR.

It's important to follow the right data permission guidelines and at the same time understand what are those 'golden questions'. 

Collecting more data is important, but having a data strategy is crucial.

For example some companies knowing which customers have children or just moved house would mean a triggered comm showcasing their offering.

My experience of working in retail, travel and agency within marketing, retail and web teams means I have a full understanding of how to improve data collection.