Consumers now expect a lot from brands and these expectations seem to change constantly. In response, many brands are desperately trying to learn how to optimize CRM to offer the best customer experiences possible. As more and more people demand customer experiences that are relevant, meaningful, consistent and personalized, brands are finding it increasingly challenging to cover all fronts by delivering such a comprehensive experience.
And yet, if customer engagement success is to be found going forward, this is a challenge that must be overcome. These questions and concerns reverberated throughout the sessions at PegaWORLD 2015, as numerous brands and marketers came together to discuss a host of customer engagement strategies.
During a session titled, “The Always on Customer Brain,” Dr. Rob Walker, Pegasystems Vice President of Decision Management and Analytics, talked about how an “evolved” CRM system can help brands learn, analyze, adapt, and manage a decision making processes that can maximize the effectiveness of customer interactions.
With no small degree of vigor, Walker broadly laid out his call to marketing action.
“What we need to do is know these customers,” he said. “And when we know them, we need to reach them. And if we know how to reach them, then it is time to delight them. From there, it is just a short walk to the great customer experience.
Walker broke this process down into steps beginning with how brands get to know customers, which most achieve through data. But Walker wants everyone to understand that this is not just about collecting data, or even analyzing the data. It is has so much more to do with what brands actually do with the data. If the data is not actionable then acquiring it simply becomes an expense, not an asset.
To do this effectively, Walker talked at length about the need to integrate an evolved CRM system that actually uses a “brain” to learn, adapt, and contextually mange the nuances of customer behaviors across large populations, segments, and data sets. It’s called the “Customer Decision Hub” and it optimizes customer experiences across multiple channels to add value to customer engagement efforts.
Once a brand deeply understands their customers, the next challenge, then, lies in actually reaching them. And here Walker differentiates between two classic channels, which are inbound, where the customer engages the company, and outbound, where the brand attempts to engage the customer.
“In most companies, those two classes of channels are siloed, and that is just silly,” Walker exclaimed. “Every aspect of the customer journey needs to be connected. Actually, it needs to be one single conversation. And yet these silos exist, and when they do, any aspect of a coherent, connected conversation is broken into pieces.”
Of course, Walker is talking about overcoming this problem of reaching customers by taking an omni-channel approach. Customer engagement should not matter whether the customer or the company first initiates the conversation; Walker stresses the absolute need for an overarching relationship, one that bridges channels and connects the conversation.
Crucially, this approach must also transcend a sales-only mentality. Brands that only focus on short-terms sales without effectively considering the entire lifecycle of the customer journey are setting themselves up for long-term failure.
“CRM is an ecosystem,” said Walker. “It must all be brought together.
About the Author: Mark Johnson
Mark is CEO & CMO of Loyalty360. He has significant experience in selling, designing and administering prepaid, loyalty/CRM programs, as well as data-driven marketing communication programs