Marisa S.A.

Maike Minzoni

It would be pretentious to answer how will be the long-term Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy, however, the goal here is to share my understanding of how a well-designed CRM strategy might help companies to unleash their full business potential by leveraging data-driven insights, prioritizing customer-centricity, and fostering long-term meaningful relationships.

CRM has proven its value as a powerful tool for businesses looking to improve their customer relationships, drive growth and build long-term customer loyalty. Companies are still navigating through vast volumes of customer data and leveraging analytics to identify new insights and opportunities even in an evolving scenario where customer expectations are constantly changing, privacy concerns and data protection regulations became majors topics, personalized experiences across multiple channels and segmentations provide a consistent and tailored customer journey, all of that to offer the best customer experience.

Leveraging the latest technologies in a context of a post-pandemic period, CRM potentialized businesses to gain a competitive edge in this fast-paced environment (on and offline). Several drivers have been discussed, such as Digital Transformation - the shift to digital channels has significantly changed processes, interactions, communications, tools, customer engagements, and operations. Mobile CRM - the number of mobile devices has been increasing significantly and fundamentally impacting marketing campaigns anytime /anywhere. Social Media analytics - this channel became key to understanding customer behavior, and customer engagement better. The data integration between CRM and Social Media releases many benefits to enhance customer insights, such as customer engagement, personalized marketing campaigns, social listening, brand monitoring, influencer identification and collaboration, and customer sentiment monitoring, to name a few. Data management and analysis - a robust CRM strategy must rely on data and assertive information. Collecting, organizing, and analyzing data from different sources and moments enables the CRM department to provide the best service to the company. Integration across departments - CRM is not an isolated department, rather should be seen as a cultural mindset. The whole company has the duty of thinking about customer engagement over the years. Technology enablement - technology plays an essential role in the CRM department, especially by enabling data management, automating processes, and providing analytics and insights to support business and communication strategy which will create the right way and moment to talk to the customer, delivering the customer experience accordingly. Intelligent marketing automation - repetitive tasks and routine processes automatized improve efficiency and productivity besides the fact of giving faster responses to consumers. Focusing on lifetime value - companies who prioritize long-term customers rather than short-term transactions will be better placed to create a sustainable competitive advantage because those companies will better understand customer behavior and customer satisfaction. The topics mentioned earlier are, on some level, established in the companies according to the size, maturity, industry, and regions in the world, however, two technologies have all the “ingredients” to potentially reshape and revolutionize the dynamics of the CRM strategy and the level of information companies have from customers, namely: AI (Artificial Intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things).

AI-powered analytics provide deeper customer behavior insights due to the volume of data processed and analyzed from various sources. It is essential to highlight how important will be machine learning algorithms to uncover hidden patterns in consumer behavior, preferences, and latent needs. From the commercial perspective, personalization, segmentation, and product recommendations will evolve dramatically becoming more sophisticated. The level of hyper-personalized experiences across channels, devices, and moments in the customer journey will enhance (or at least should enhance) customer satisfaction and strengthen brand loyalty. As a result, companies will expect to increase customer retention and LTV (Lifetime value).

"It is essential to highlight how important will be machine learning algorithms to uncover hidden patterns in consumer behavior, preferences, and latent needs"

The combination of AI and IoT will develop a range of services based on real-time monitoring, customer behavior, product usage, preferences of communication channels, and product and service recommendations allowing companies to anticipate business opportunities, new products, new markets, etc. All these improvements are possible because IoT devices can collect many kinds of information from the consumer. There are infinite use cases for the combination of AI and IoT, and the starting point will be the level of segmentation which will enhance the effectiveness of marketing communication to provide the appropriate experience for each consumer.

Emerging technologies unlocked new opportunities to optimize customer relationships and will keep doing so over the years in a much more profound way. Embracing a customer-centric approach, leveraging data-driven insights, using artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms, integrating the Internet of Things, and hyper-personalization will indeed drive business growth positioning the company ahead of competitors, however, it is critical to mention that the essence of CRM is to build and nurture outstanding relationships with customers