Remodista RetailSource Paper - Sophisticated CRM Strategies

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Sophisticated CRM Strategies Creating a strategy of brand engagement with the customer at its core

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Shaking Up the CRM Concept

Customer relationship management—the

name should speak for itself. Right? Well,

companies all too often take this critical

piece in the retail puzzle for granted,

equating it to the technical components that

support it and reducing it to a database of

point-of-sale information. However, CRM is

no longer just a back-office repository for

client information; it’s assuming its place at

the very center of the sales picture as

consumer expectations evolve. It’s the key

to a comprehensive strategy of brand

engagement, with the customer at its core.

Technology and mobile devices have

precipitated a fundamental role reversal

between marketers and customers. It’s no

longer enough for advertisers to produce a

shiny, polished message, send it out

through the omni-channel, and wait for

sales to trickle down the funnel.

Consumers are now empowered to engage

with brands

whenever, wherever, and however they

choose, from countless different points of

entry; they’re the ones driving interactions

and seeking responsiveness. The

merchants that rise to the challenge don’t

push them in a direction so much as draw

them in by fostering relevant, personalized

experiences.

In the age of big data, companies have all

kinds of tools at their fingertips, but how

can they ensure they’re collecting the right

information to develop a truly sophisticated,

dynamic understanding of their customer

base? What’s the right strategic

conversation for marketers to have before

implementing technology? How might their

CRM synergize with community and

gamification to drive their brand?

In sum, how can retailers

transform CRM into an

insight engine?


CRM has to evolve from

a mere tool to correlate

or store information—to

really prove its worth as

a business tool, it has to

create insights

“

” Scott Webb President, Avionos


What is customer relationship management (CRM)? Some claim that CRM is a data warehouse. Others consider it a marketing tool. Broadly

conceived, CRM is where all your customer

data is combined to give you a complete view

of the customer.

However people choose to define it, its potential role is fast evolving beyond a

glorified digital Rolodex. Retailers can elect to attach all kinds of information to customers’

profiles, including their behaviors online,

offline, in the brand, and outside of the brand

as well.

CRM by itself doesn't deliver a return, though it does facilitate return in other areas that are

facing the customer. Still, this explains why

marketers easily overlook its strategic significance—often to the frustration of

customers and the detriment to the company’s

bottom line.

Chicken or egg? Strategy or technology?

Organizations as a whole suffer when siloes of

information exist. Similarly, CRM implementation efforts have often not fulfilled

their potential due to fragmentation of

technology investments within companies.

From the customer’s point of view, potential frictions abound. Not only do merchants lose

out on numerous opportunities to build loyalty;

they also frustrate repeat customers when they don’t realize or recognize who has come

in their store, or when sales staff invite them to

become members if they already are. The

same applies to mobile and online

interactions. Nowadays, the consumer journey meanders through in-person and virtual

encounters, yet the consumer perceives it as

one experience (seamless or not so much).

Robust CRM would help smooth out this path,

but it hinges on the retailer developing a cohesive strategy that weaves through all

aspects of its business.

Marketers must begin with the customer experience, with all the pitfalls and possible

delights, and then consider the technologies

that would enable sales staff to recognize the

brand’s most loyal fans upon arrival (via mobile interaction, say) and deliver as tailored

an experience in person as online. Cloud

technology offers excellent options for CRM

platforms or modules to plug into legacy

systems, but they can only be as effective as the underlying CRM strategy, which

determines the data collected—the behaviors

that will yield actionable insights.


It’s too risky to cut corners on major technical solutions.

Engagement turns lemons into

lemonade

In developing a CRM strategy, marketers

should view engagement as their end goal,

rather than sales. Point-of-sale data provides

only a limited understanding of customers, and

consumer expectations go well beyond rosy

sales experiences. What happens when they

want to return items?

Not only should returns and exchanges not

feel like punishment; they could also build

good will between customers and the brand.

Sale or no sale, consumers still expect

responsiveness.


Integrating the Commerce Experience

Moving beyond the point of sale, retailers need

to be able to look at the full commerce history

within the context of the broader customer

relationship. A collaborative internal technical

ecosystem is the first step in the process for

creating this experience.

How do you interpret data to better engage with

customers’ needs and anticipate where and

how they will transact? To understand the

customer experience, assess your current

technology platforms, then consider what

technologies can be integrated into the mix.

Retailers need to think about how to make their

CRM strategies more proactive (versus

reactive) and develop ways to provide seamless

transactions across all channels.

Shifting technology into the cloud and selecting

the right channel partnerships to manage this

technology is an integral part of the strategy. It

puts the burden of testing, recalibrating, and

updating the solutions on the vendor instead of

the retailer.

Key Takeaways

• Retailers must work towards organizational

alignment through a collaborative ecosystem.

The CEO, CIO and CMO all need to be engaged

in open communications to create a seamless

customer service model.

• Legacy systems and outdated technologies will

give way to the cloud and outsourced, flexible

solutions. This allows allowing retailers to shift

from an infrastructure management to a

customer service model.

• The customer digital experience is moving

beyond mobile applications. Internet-based

technologies are leveraging in-store and online to

create enhanced levels of engagement.


Gamification and Community

The more insights a CRM strategy brings on

how and why customers are engaging with a

brand (or not), the more retailers can use

them to build loyalty and community. For

example, Sephora uses club loyalty

information to drive event and marketing

activities, as well as product awareness and

product discovery. They engineer true loyalty

by providing a rich and relevant experience

that advances the conversation. A loyalty

programs can use ranks, badges, and

reputation to reward the brand’s biggest fans

and encourage behaviors surrounding the

brand, such as answering questions on

forums or writing reviews, that also

encourage community.

Community doesn’t even need to center

around a company’s products, either, but

around shared interests. HSN, for example,

has built a community hub with an emphasis

on fun, offering free games to play. Even

though players aren’t obligated to sign up,

most eventually do to start earning and using

points.

COMMUNITY + COMMERCE

Referrals from social media sites increased nearly

200%

from 2014 to 2015

(Business2Community.com)


The reverse intuition of

CRM is that you need to

have your strategic

conversations before you

ever do a single technical

integration.

“

” Charlie Cole Chief Digital Officer, TUMI

www.remodista.com


Pieces of a CRM strategy (1 of 3)

STRATEGIC THINKING

Before you even think about investing in technology, gain an understanding of the behaviors that lead

to success of the company as a whole. What data will you need to grasp how customers are

engaging with your brand? Ensure that your CRM setup benefits all aspects of your business.

TAKE ACTION

•  Think outside the silo: Break down internal divisions and create a CRM strategy based on freely

flowing information between all areas of your company.

•  Communicate: Any CRM decision will affect the messaging for numerous stakeholders, so loop

them in. Patiently push your point about sharing information and making all the customers’

contacts with your brand equally relevant and personal.

•  Translate: Make sure all stakeholders up and down the chain understand the importance of their

role in the overall strategy and success of the company, from the timely data entry that ensures

the quality of your information on up to managers. Lose the jargon; convey the impact.

CRM’s customer insights will help you puzzle out the big picture.

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TECHNOLOGY

Once you know what data you want to collect, go ahead and implement flexible systems in the

knowledge that technology usage will evolve constantly—and unpredictably.

TAKE ACTION

•  Picking the technology based on your strategy: Ensure that the technical integrations that you

select can provide timely, accurate information to all stakeholders.

•  Cherish the email address: All kinds of information about customers can change over time, but

email addresses tend to remain remarkably, blissfully permanent, and customers use them to

self-identify. Email is a hook to hang your hat on when setting up your CRM.

•  Embrace a smartphone strategy (but be ready to pivot): You’re probably safe to create your

infrastructure with smartphones in mind, since they’ll probably remain the quintessential

mobile device for the foreseeable future. Still, you’ll also want to build some flexibility into your

system in case of inevitable changes in technology habits.


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Engagement

Put the customer at the heart of your customer relationship management! Gone are the days of

pushing out messages; now it’s all about pulling your customers in.

TAKE ACTION

•  Consideration: When customers willingly share their information with a brand, respect that trust.

If you’ve set up your CRM properly, you’ll have no trouble identifying what’s relevant to them,

and you’ll understand how they want to engage with you (including their limits).

•  Gamification: Games and leaderboards used to belong to the sales team, to spur their

competitive spirit (a bit of a downer for those at the bottom of the board). The current thinking?

Badges and acknowledgements to incentivize teamwork and helpfulness work far better, for

both employees and loyal customers.

•  Community: Use CRM to understand who your customers are, and foster engagement through

community, whether they’re animated by shared outside interests or by product-centered

information exchanges. Bringing them back again and again to your hub builds incredible

loyalty.


Summary As technology adoption disrupts traditional

retail, retailers are coming to demand much

more of customer relationship management

than ever before. Empowered, mobile, tech-

savvy consumers challenge brands to become

increasingly responsive and address them

with ever more targeted and relevant

messages.

They lead the push rather than the marketers, who depend more than ever on CRM to

provide an accurate picture of their customers.

However, a well-thought-out CRM strategy

that’s built to serve physical stores as well as

any number of virtual experiences can not only

delight customers, but also form the basis of a

community hub and gamified reward systems.

Gaining insights into your company’s biggest

fans will help you cement customer loyalty and

build brand ambassadors.

VISIT THE REMODISTA SANDBOX: http://bit.ly/1GdjulZ

Are you ready to improve your customer experience?

CONTACT:

[email protected]

“ “ The future of CRM is creating a hub for a brand or business that allows a customer to engage. If you understand how your customer is engaging, you’ll create a relevant loyalty experience. Kelly Stickel Founder and CEO, Remodista

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


REMODISTA FOCUS AREA Retail CRM

Remodista COLLABORATE. RESEARCH. ANALYZE.

www.remodista.com

Remodista is a social think tank examining disruption in global retail. Our mission is to provide insight, education and innovation to global brands through collaborative research and analysis.

www.avionos.com

Avionos

Avionos is a digital consultancy company focused on the connected customer and companies that engage with them in the constantly evolving tech environment. The company helps brands deliver seamless, cross-channel customer experiences. Avionos is an industry leader that provides adaptive, innovative cloud technology solutions and data-driven insights.

The CRM may conjure up visions of sales people making calls and typing information into a database, but the CRM is a key component on tracking and improving the customer journey. As these services are able to better capture, track and measure data, we’re given some incredible insight into how to best keep the customer engaged.

Date post:	23-Jan-2017
Category:	Retail
Upload:	remodista
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