Understanding CRM: The journey of LOVE analogy (Part 1)

Raj saw Simran and fell in love at first sight! Her mindblowing charm and beauty... her eyes... her voice... He suddenly loves everything about her! And now, he really wants her in his life and wants her to love him back.

Sounds like your story? I am sure you have been through this sometime in your life, when the wind started to blow and violins started playing in the background. And then? You invested all your time in creating the how-to-woo-her strategies.

Being 4 years into the field, this is the nearest analogy I could get to while thinking about CRM. On a completely unrelated note, I was also named as "Love Guru" by my friends in relatively younger years... So yeah!

Well getting back to the topic! Before we continue, let me explain what CRM means. CRM is an acronym for Customer Relationship Management. As a function, CRM might have different meanings across industries and businesses, while this is simply a measure to strategize and execute the customer interaction with the company. Though ideally, it should include the inbound as well as outbound communication, in order to make sure that the customer experience is consistent, but most of the companies end up focussing on outbound communication as a part of the CRM portfolio.

Consider our dear customer as someone we just fell in love with. What do we do next?

Following is a step-by-step approach to CRM, keeping the journey of Love in mind. Though the first 3 points do not exactly come in CRM purview, but are a must to get the context straight.

Identify Her:

Raj meets people day in day out. But the moment of truth when he realizes that she is the one is where the journey starts. What he doesn't want to do here is to invest his time and energy on someone who would never love him back (doesn't need him/ is out of his league).

And thus, you need to have a customer profile in mind. When falling in love, this process is intuitive and effortless, but for identifying your customer, the process is a bit tricky. You need to keep in mind both the aspects: You should need her and she should need you back. Hence, create a profile of prospective customer for whom your product/ solution/ service is valuable and at the same time, they are valuable to you too. For instance, it doesn't make sense to market a Porché to someone who can't afford it. At the same time, investing your efforts to market your low priced car to a millionaire won't also bear much fruit.

Data collection and channels identification:

Now, Raj knows she is the one and hence, he wants her to notice him and in the right way. So, Raj would start collecting information about her. Where does she stay? What does she do? Who are her friends? What are her hobbies?

Similarly, after identifying your prospective customer, you would like to understand your customer better. Where do you find them (Social Media, TV, Radio, Hoardings)? What do they do? What are their affinities? Depending upon this data, one needs to identify the best ways and channels to reach out to the customer. For instance, in the case of our hopeful romantic lover, if the girl stays in a girls hostel, has no friends in common, studies in the same class and loves to jog in the evenings, he might want to be proactive in the class (responding to teacher's questions promptly) to impress her with his intelligence. Also, he, simultaneously, might want to jog in the ground near her hostel and hope to have a few eye contacts, pass a few smiles before he goes ahead and talks to her. Similarly, as marketers, we need to be present on the social media channels the prospect generally visits or on hoardings on the route the prospect generally passes by. Also, we might want to get banner space/ explore native advertising possibilities on the sites of interest to the prospect.

The First Interaction (Get it right):

After trying for many days, Raj has now got a chance to talk to Simran and has got her attention. What do you think he will do now? Obviously, put his best foot forward and make sure it doesn't go wrong. Surely, Raj didn't know about this in advance, so he couldn't get her a bouquet or a gift but he hopes to get her number, so that he can continue the conversation later on and if it's his lucky day, he might get a chance to fix his first formal date with her.

Now, back to our matketing analogy... The marketer has been able to do just the right mix of things to create the right first impression in the prospect's mind and is now ready for the first interaction. This first interaction opportunity could be anything - the customers visit to the showroom/ the first install of app/ first visit to the website. Just like our hero, we need to get the first experience right and get the prospect's further information, in order to make sure that the conversation can be continued later on. Since, such interactions are not planned, we need to be ready with the best first experience always. If the interaction ends too soon, we need to make sure that the prospect leaves there contact with us (e.g.: exit intent popups) through subscriptions, offer hooks, so that, the communication can continue later on. This works only if it's your lucky day.

Now, we stand on a fork with 2 possibilities -

Raj might just get her number, so that, he can continue the conversation further OR it could be his lucky day and he might get a chance to take her on a formal date. We'll consider these 2 possibilities separately below:

There is another possibility, that Simran doesn't show any interest in him and simply walks off. But we are not considering that possibility as it will take us back to square one and we might need to change our heroine.

Continue the conversation:

Alas! It was not his lucky day but he could get her number during their first interaction. What Raj simply needs to do now is to continue the conversation, while making sure not to overdo his intent and risk losing Simran's interest.

If the prospect doesn't convert into a customer during the first interaction, we should try to get access to his/ her mode of communication, so that, the conversation can continue further. Similar to our intelligent and cautious hero, Raj, we might also not want to overdo it and lose the prospect's interest. A 360 degree reach out would be better here than a single channel communication. For example, instead of a continous series of emails, it would be better to send an email, SMS, Push Notifications alternately, keeping in mind the communication doesn't sound pushy and spam-ish. Other channels like TV, Radio, Social Media (Custom audiences) can prove really handy to make sure that the prospect doesn't get bugged by direct messages. Ever got bugged by the charging Taxi drivers outside any Indian railway station/ airport??? Exactly!!! That's not what you want to do. After strategizing your communication with the prospect, you simply need to keep a track of them and wait for the perfect moment!

The D-day:

Finally, Raj gets a chance to fix a date with Simran and is going out with her tonight. Like a good lover, he has prepared himself for the D-day. Dressed well... Carried a gift (Chocolate/ Bouquet would melt any heart)... Not only does he make sure to put his best foot forward, but he also makes sure that it all is genuine... Just like his love for her!

In order to make sure that your prospect has the best first experience with your brand, you need to make sure you genuinely love them. Not only this means that you show the best face of your product/ service, but you also need to make sure that the best face is true and you can stand by what you promise. The biggest issue that marketers have here is to promise something that they can't deliver in the long run. I call this the "hook-positioning mismatch". Since, at this point the marketers' first target is to convert the prospect into a customer, the hook used is generally an extreme. Using an extreme hook is fine, but not if it is not what your ultimate positioning is.

Let me explain this with an example. Suppose, a brand provides the first conversion hook as a 50% discount on his services, while his positioning is around premium quality of service delivered. In such a case, the first hook is lucrative, but not for someone who is really looking for premium quality service. The hook would work for those who are looking for the service at a discount. Here, even if you have identified your prospect well, you would end up spoiling them by giving them something that is really intuitive, but not aligned to your expected positioning. Though, in certain cases, this becomes a necessity in a madly competitive market as the competition takes over co-optition and spoils the market as a whole. (Ref.: Food tech wars in the Indian market). But in steady state, the brand should try to create a hook which promises the fulfilment of brand's ultimate positioning, which in it's turn should be a representation of a response to a gap identified in the customer's demand and the market's supply.

In our love story, love itself is the gap that Raj would fulfil with his endeavours. The hook in this case could be his smart looks, his decency, his dedication, his genuineness, his chivalry or something as materialistic as his salary, but he needs to make sure, whatever it is, he has to stand by it.

Now, we again stand on a fork with 2 possibilities:

The sparks begin to fly in the very first meeting and the relationship commenceth OR it might take Raj a while and some effort to get Simran convinced about their compatibility. In the first case, Raj is sorted, while in the second case, he would need to spend sometime to understand why it didn't work in the first meeting. He also needs to try different things in the next meetings if the result of the first meeting was not at all aligned to what he had expected. If the first meeting was positive, but couldn't result into a relationship, he might just need to be patient and keep doing what he did before.

To be continued...