Is your CRM program under-performing? 4 symptoms that may tell you why.

You’ve made the investment in a marketing automation technology to optimize your campaigns and boost your CRM programs. You’ve completed the integration. You’ve flipped the switch. But for all that, it still feels like your customer relationship management efforts are the same old batch ‘n’ blast campaigns you barfed out before you spent all that time and money on a new platform. What went wrong?

1. “We may have automated a process that was flawed to begin with.”
   In the haste to automate, we find that many marketers who could do it all over again, would have paid more attention to analyzing and evaluating their existing processes before choosing and deploying a campaign automation platform. Once your system is up & running and you have lived with it for a while, it may be time to take a critical look at your customer loyalty & campaign development processes – and expect to make some changes.
2. “Our data sets are still silo’ed. And we have dirty data.”
   Information about your contacts & their behaviors is what your platform draws upon to trigger and perform every action. So if your data is incomplete or unclean, your campaign performance will be suboptimal. Now may be the time to invest in data-mapping, migration and integration, and a thorough data cleansing to normalize & standardize fields where possible and keep your data clean over the long haul.
3. “We thought the technology was at the core of creating and delivering better customer experiences.”
   It should be. But always make an effort to step back and think about how you’ve leveraged it to shape your customer journeys. It’s important to use your tools to get a really good understanding of your customers: their motivations, needs, how they think, feel and act. Then use that information to create meaningful segments, and to design better communications that drive higher quality discussions and which help you identify your most loyal brand ambassadors. Once you’ve mastered this bit, you’re well on the way to the Holy Grail, true 1:1 conversations with your customers.
4. “We’ve automated our communications, and we’re sending out more than we ever did before. But we’re just not seeing the performance we thought we would.”
   Ask yourself the really tough question: is my content really compelling enough to drive engagement and conversation? These days, every company needs to think like a seasoned storyteller. Is your content timely? Relevant to the customer’s needs, interests, and recent activity?

And this: How well are you really segmenting your customer base? Take advantage of your ability to create highly targeted messages focused on smaller, but more motivated groups of contacts. Leverage your ability to dynamically change content based on what you already know about them. Think “narrowcast,” not “broadcast.” You have the ability to speak to individuals, but on a grand scale.

Katharine English is a Transformer-in-Chief with substantial experience ideating, creating, developing and deploying digital products and solutions designed to deliver better customer experiences and drive engagement, loyalty and revenue.

I’ve helped brands create winning strategies that have been consistently effective at converting prospects into buyers and brand loyalists. I can show you how to win customers in The Cyclone.

Follow me: @KEnglish