CRM Talks #11 with Maxime CAL

Maxime CAL, Consultant in CRM, Email Marketing & Rétention, speaks about CRM as the most effective tool to grow in a competitive market, lack of data reconciliation, and the coming era of personalization.

In our new CRM talks episode, we're speaking with Maxime CAL, Consultant in CRM, Email Marketing & Retention, former Head of CRM & Retention at Asphalte, and eight years of experience in CRM in startups.

Maxime speaks about CRM as the most effective tool to grow in a competitive market, lack of data reconciliation, and the coming era of personalization.

Could you provide your definition of CRM?

I think CRM is all the channels we have as a brand to reach and communicate with a contact base that wants to hear from us. It is the perfect tool in the orchestration of an optimized customer journey.

It is also all the technology and knowledge needed to create a conversation between a brand and a human being. And on the brand side, it's probably the most effective tool to grow in a competitive market.

Why is it necessary for companies to implement CRM?

It's certainly the most effective communication channel for brands today. Emailing, mobile pushes, and other channels are the most used channels by people throughout the world.

CRM is the best way to make profitable all the leads acquisition spends. Furthermore, it enables the creation of personalized dialogues with customers through the available technology, resembling one-to-one conversations.

Which CRM key metrics do you use?

The traditional metrics, such as the opening rate and the click rate, are obviously the two main KPIs in the CRM.

Then it depends on the objective of the campaign; it can be a conversion to purchase, filling in a form, or whatever, depending on your action's objective.

Then I also look at the delivery rate and the unsubscribe rate; the former assures me that we are keeping our channel healthy and the latter that all the investments made to collect leads will pay off.

What are common mistakes made when working with CRM?

Unfortunately, there are many.

Underestimating the importance of good email deliverability through good practices, not taking care of a contact list, not being data-driven, and thinking you don't need to do A/B testing to find the perfect campaigns.

But the mistake I see most often is the lack of data reconciliation. Many companies have a lot of data fragmented in many forms and on many platforms. The goal is to reconcile and harmonize the data to exploit it through campaigns and automation.

How do you envision the future of CRM?

I think we will enter a deeper era of personalization. Not only a personalization of the content but also a personalization of a moment and channels.

Also, I'm sure that CRM managers and others will have to take the wave of AI that will enter CRM at many levels, including automatization, personalization, and creation.

Author: Anna Ambrozevich