Check The Rhyme: CRM

Check it!

“Isn't this great? Your flight leaves at eight

Her flight lands at nine, my game just rewinds”

The lyric comes from the late, great Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls / Frank White / Biggie). I love this line from his song “One More Chance” because it's rich with applicable marketing implications, particularly with regards to the notion of customer relationship management (CRM).

Let's provide a little foundation here.

CRM is the activities that marketers take on to fortify relationships with consumers, typically before and after the transaction. This consists of customer service, loyalty programs, and satisfaction surveys. All of this is done to strengthen our relations with customers so that we can retain their business.

These relationships are driven by emotional connections, primarily due to the fact that the part of the brain associated with all the gooey stuff like love, trust, and loyalty are also associated with behavior and decision-making. The part of the brain is called the limbic system. The processes associated with the limbic system are intuitively referred to as “gut instinct.” We experience a gut feeling and decide on a course of action. But in reality, you experienced it in the limbic system and, subsequently, take on a particular action.

For companies that want to catalyze people to move, this means we have to activate the limbic system and connect on an emotional level if we are to get people to act in a (somewhat) predictable fashion. There's research that suggests emotional connections matters more than product satisfaction itself, which says a lot about the true value of our offerings. As the research implies, the value propositions of our products aren't enough. We have to connect with people on an emotional level. And this is exactly what Biggie is getting at with this line:

“Isn't this great? Your flight leaves at eight

Her flight lands at nine, my game just rewinds”

Through the lens of business, Biggie's words speak directly to the core of CRM: consistently satisfying customers on an emotional level. This should be gospel for marketers. Our CRM practices should be like clockwork. Every experience we have with a consumer should be consistent and meaningful so that we might be able to fortify lasting relationships with them. As a result, not only do they continue to consume but they may also go on to tell someone else who otherwise wouldn't engage.

Thank you Biggie Smalls... Professor Biggie Smalls.