For too long confined to writing and sending the monthly newsletter, the CRM manager has often been satisfied with the good maintenance of his opening and click rates to validate the reader-consumer’s interest in receiving new product and promotional highlights.
By Bertrand Destailleur and Magali Lisogorski, Equancy
And then… 4 revolutions happened. Simultaneously, in quick succession. Direct to Consumer Revolution First of all. With the growing share of e-commerce, and the major contribution of CRM in direct sales, the need to activate the customer directly, without the intermediation of the distributor, has grown. Regulatory revolution next. The end of third-party cookies, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the consecration of 1st Party data, have forced brands to expand their database of contacts and customers to continue to “track” purchasing behavior. Organizational revolution toowith the end of the Acquisition on one side and Loyalty on the other and the development of more transversal “customer organizations” to respond, seamlessly, to customer expectations at each stage of their journey. Gen AI revolution at last which accelerates content production (1), facilitates campaign variations (versioning, translation, localization) at lower costs (2) and transfigures the creation and personalization processes.
A valuable CRM
As a result, in less than 3 years, CRM has made a giant leap. With the increase in volume and value of the customer database (3), it has repositioned itself as a decisive contributor to the brand’s business and strategic priorities. With the industrialization of increasingly sophisticated data assets (predictive segmentation, contextualized recommendation engine, product liking scores, promotional sensitivity, 2nd purchase, etc.), the CRM has personalized its activation plans to move from a volume CRM to a value CRM.
With the development of relational platforms and the editorialization of its Tone of Voice, CRM has enabled brands to stand out through relationships (Asphalte, Tediber, Veuve Clicquot, Val Thorens, Decathlon, etc.). Finally, with the integration into marketing automation tools of the latest innovations making it possible to make an email or SMS interactive (AMP email or RCS SMS), the CRM has silenced the proponents of “email fatigue” to give back to its favorite channels all their attractiveness and modernity!
So in less than 3 years, “newsletter CRM” moved to “augmented CRM”. It has grown in 4 dimensions: strategic, data & AI, omnichannel, marketing & technological (CDP, campaign management tool, personalization solutions, Business Intelligence, etc.). These new CRM “capabilities” give brands the opportunity to (re)become master and owner of their relationship and to position customer relationship management as a wonderful lever of brand preference and commercial efficiency.
A CRM that contributes more to the brand’s business & strategic issues
Move the customer through the different product categories, reduce attrition, transform 1st Timers customers into Repeater customers, increase NPS, reduce attrition or acquisition costs, support the premiumization of the brand… each of These strategic issues are now fully and directly addressed by the CRM. Let’s look at the contribution of the customer portfolio to turnover. A brand that has reached maturity in its market usually operates on 2 thirds of customers and 1 third of prospects. Also, which controls its database and its customer relations, statistically controls 2/3 of its turnover. And often more, because the annual value of a customer is on average 20% higher than the annual value of a prospect.
Therefore, with the increase in volume but also in qualification of the customer database, there is now no longer any strategic company plan that does not use CRM to contribute to annual objectives. This is a boon for CRM departments which, being more contributory and more listened to, shape their omnichannel activation plan in the light of the brand’s strategic and commercial priorities, securing or even increasing their annual budget, thanks to a greater contribution. directly from CRM to turnover. Here is a plan to transform “High Potentials” into “Very Important Clients”. This involves mobilizing attractive segments to successfully launch the new product. Here it will be the acceleration on the personalization levers, the affirmation of a more singular “Tone of Voice” and better orchestration of commercial pressure to premiumize the relationship. Finally, more careful use of customer satisfaction scores to increase NPS and reduce churn.
A (finally) data-driven CRM
Data is the testosterone of augmented CRM. With it, CRM moves from a volume objective – with massive and undifferentiated campaigns according to segments – to a value objective, where each targeted, contextualized, personalized and tested activation maximizes the use of data to produce more of impact. Let’s take the example of Picard which, thanks to its new segmentation by type of products purchased, personalizes its emails according to the preferences of its customers. By adapting the visuals produced to the tastes of each segment in its commercial highlight campaigns, Picard records a demand for scripted products in its emails 2.5 times higher than that of emails without personalization. This result proves the commercial effectiveness of CRM and shows how the intelligent activation of segmentation by type of products consumed radically changes the dynamics and purpose of relational campaigns.
Another anabolic of CRM: AI Gen. She drastically reduces campaign costs and allows brands to reach more targets in more languages. Often, in fact, brands have stopped at the bedside of “small countries”, content to send the English version of their emails to markets considered too small to receive the email in the language of their country. Today, AI Gen solutions for translation-adaptation and automated layout make it possible – at minimal costs – to address each market in its native language and gain in relational impact. This feat is all the more attractive because in less than 3 months, the AI Gen solution can be developed in a secure environment and customized to the semantics of the brand.
In the field of customer experience and the advisor-client relationship, AI Gen solutions exploit the prediction of customer needs to provide personalized responses and allow the advisor to adapt their interactions with the customer live. Not only will the AI gen prioritize the recommendation of a particular service or product, but it will also generate the ideal script to advise them capable of contextualizing the reason for their call or follow-up to better serve or win back their customer.
A more accessible and consistent customer experience across all channels
The other major advance of augmented CRM is its ability to manage – regardless of the channel through which the customer interacts with the brand – a fluid and consistent experience. Between their interactions online, in store, on mobile or via messaging, customers now expect multi-channel accessibility and perfect relational continuity throughout their interactions. So much so that today, truly omnichannel brands have activated no less than 7 channels of interaction with their customers (4). Not only does augmented CRM enable more channels, it also enables new channel features. On this aspect, Picard again, which adopted RCS (Rich Communication Services) to replace traditional SMS in its marketing campaigns. This technology allows Picard to offer a more interactive experience, multiply its click rate by 3 and increase its engagement rate by 42% compared to traditional SMS (5).
Another relational channel that gives color to CRM: WhatsApp. With a message view rate of 90% and a conversion rate double that of email (Between 3% and 5%) (6), WhatsApp becomes the reference messaging service – complementary to email and popular with sales advisors. WhatsApp goes further in conversational commerce, converts store visitors into customers or site visitors into subscribers more quickly, and increases conversion rates on product restocking messages. In a context which sees content generation double by 2027 (7), and interactions with consumers constantly evolving, the use of new channels and their better orchestration, increases the reach capacity of brands tenfold and allows them to maintain the commitment of their targets.
A more efficient CRM thanks to new Martech solutions
What does a Customer data Platform (CDP) bring to customer relations in its CRM rebound scenarios on visited website pages? Adobe V8 features in running automated customer journeys? Marigold’s Loyalty module in activating a loyalty program? Coupling Sales Force Marketing Cloud with Data Cloud? Speed of execution in setting up personalized campaigns, an ability to orchestrate the different contact channels between them, the ability to detect the “customer moment” which will trigger the rebound strategy capable of maximizing exploitation in CRM of this customer moment.
All Martech solutions have tried to do in recent years is capture this moment – just before the customer makes a purchase – to better address it across different channels. Therefore, when a brand succeeds, thanks to its data and their processing by its Martech solutions, in IDENTIFYING THIS MOMENT, it increases its relational relevance and its commercial effectiveness. As proof, automated trigger campaigns based on a customer event experience opening rates 2 to 3 times higher than those of commercial animation plan campaigns (8). Here too, the Martech revolution is reshuffling the cards for augmented CRM. From now on, no more CRM advice without advice on the 14,000 Martech solutions on the market which will explode again in 2024 with 28% growth (9). Boosted with AI, faster and more ergonomic, these solutions put the management of “Customer Lifetime value” in the hands of CRM managers. They thus facilitate the cross-reading of the impacts of CRM on campaign performance (opening, click, conversion rate), on sales (average basket, up-sell, cross-sell) and on the customer portfolio (volume of base, customer value, activity rate). Thus offering the augmented CRM a whole new ability to wake up early! For a long time…
- (1) Goldman Sachs announced in April 2023 that the content creation market would double between 2023 and 2027 to reach $480 billion in 2027.
- (2) Development at Europcar by Equancy of an AI Gen solution capable of automatically translating, localizing and formatting an email master template in 7 languages.
- (3) Not a brand today that has not set itself an annual objective of increasing the volume and contactability of its customer database.
- (4) Source ESCDA Customer Service of the Year 2021 rankings
- (5) https://payservices.orange.com/fr/actualites/picard-surgeles-une-hausse-de-42-de-lengagement-grace-au-rcs.html
- (6) Source Webinar Insider & Equancy of April 6, 2023 “New dimensions and new channels of customer loyalty”
- (7) Goldman Sachs announced in April 2023 that the content creation market would double between 2023 and 2027 to reach $480 billion in 2027.
- (8) Source Clients Equancy
- (9) The Advertisement 05-15-2024 “Driven by AI, the famous MarteTech Map will explode in 2024”
Source: www.e-marketing.fr
