3 years have been enough to transform CRM into ‘Augmented CRM’.

In the space of 3 years, CRM has taken a giant leap forward. With the growth in the volume of customer databases, it has repositioned itself as a decisive contributor to the brand's strategic priorities. With the industrialisation of increasingly sophisticated data assets (predictive segmentation, contextualised recommendation engine, multiple scores: product appetence, promotional sensitivity, 2nd purchase, etc.), CRM has personalised its activation plans, moving from a volume CRM to a value CRM. With the editorialization of the Tone of Voice, CRM has enabled brands to stand out through their relationships (Asphalte, Tediber, Veuve Clicquot, Val Thorens, Decathlon, Cowboy...). Finally, with the integration into marketing automation tools of the latest innovations enabling an email or SMS to be made interactive (email AMP or SMS RCS), CRM has silenced the proponents of ‘email fatigue’ to give back to its preferred channels all their attractiveness and modernity!

In the space of 3 years, the ‘newsletter CRM’ has become ‘augmented CRM’. It has been augmented on 4 dimensions: strategic, AI, omnichannel and technological.

STRATEGY: a CRM that contributes to the brand's business challenges

Reducing attrition, transforming 1st Timers into Repeaters, increasing NPS, reducing attrition or acquisition costs, supporting the premiumisation of a brand... each of these strategic challenges is now directly addressed by CRM. A brand that has reached maturity in its market usually operates on the basis of 2/3 customers and 1/3 prospects. So if you control your database, statistically you control 2/3 of your sales. As a result, there is now no company strategic plan that does not call on CRM to contribute to annual objectives. This is a godsend for CRM departments, which are more involved and more attentive, shaping their omnichannel activation plan in line with the brand's strategic priorities and increasing their budget thanks to this direct contribution from CRM to sales.

IA: Data-driven CRM

Data is the testosterone of augmented CRM. With it, CRM is moving from a volume objective - with massive campaigns that are often undifferentiated according to segment - to a value objective, where each activation (targeted, contextualised, personalised) maximises the use of data to produce greater impact.

By adapting the visuals of its products to the tastes of each segment in its sales-intensive campaigns, Picard recorded a demand for the products featured in its emails that was 2.5 times higher than for emails without personalisation. This result proves the commercial effectiveness of CRM and shows how the intelligent activation of segmentation by type of product consumed, radically changes the dynamics and purpose of relational campaigns.

Another CRM anabolic: Gen AI. It reduces campaign costs and enables brands to reach more targets in more languages. Often, CRM departments stop at the bedside of ‘small countries’, to send the English version of their emails to markets deemed too small to receive the email in the local language. Today, AI Gen's translation-adaptation and automated page layout solutions make it possible - at derisory costs - to address each market in its native language and gain in commercial impact. This feat is made all the more attractive by the fact that, in less than 2 months, the Gen AI solution can be developed in a secure environment and customised to the brand's semantics.

In the field of advisor-customer relations, Gen AI solutions exploit the prediction of customer needs to provide personalised responses and enable advisors to adapt their interactions with customers on the fly. Not only will predictive AI prioritise the recommendation of a particular service or product, but Gen AI will also generate a script for the advisor to contextualise the reason for the call or follow-up.

OMNICANALITY: a consistent experience (at last) across all channels

The other major advance in augmented CRM is its ability to manage a fluid, consistent experience, whatever the channel through which the customer interacts with the brand. Between their online, in-store, mobile or email interactions, customers expect perfect relational continuity. So much so that today, truly omnichannel brands have activated no fewer than 7 channels of interaction with their customers. Not only does augmented CRM activate more channels, it also activates new channel functionalities.

WhatsApp is another relationship channel that is giving CRM a new lease of life. With a message view rate of 90% and a conversion rate double that of email (between 3% and 5%), WhatsApp is becoming the messaging of choice, complementing email and winning over sales advisers.

In a context where content generation is set to double between now and 2027, the use of new channels and their improved orchestration will increase brands' reach tenfold and enable them to keep their targets engaged.

Technology: faster, more efficient CRM thanks to new Martech solutions

What does a Customer Data Platform (CDP) bring to customer relations in terms of CRM bounce scenarios based on website pages visited? Adobe V8 functionality for automated customer journeys? Marigold's Loyalty module for activating a loyalty programme? Linking Sales Force Marketing Cloud to Data Cloud? 3 things. Speed of execution in setting up personalised campaigns, the ability to orchestrate contact channels and the ability to detect the ‘customer moment’ that will trigger the CRM rebound action to seize that customer moment. All Martech solutions have tried to do in recent years is to capture that moment - just before the customer makes a purchase - so that they can better address it across different channels. When a brand uses its data to IDENTIFY THIS MOMENT, it increases the relevance of its relationships and its commercial effectiveness. As proof of this, automated ‘trigger’ campaigns triggered by a customer event have open rates that are 2 to 3 times higher than those of sales promotion campaigns. Here too, the Martech revolution is reshuffling the cards of enhanced CRM. 

From now on, there will be no more CRM advice without advice on the 14,000 Martech solutions on the market, which exploded again in 2024 with 28% growth6. Boosted by AI, faster and more ergonomic, these solutions put the management of Customer Lifetime Value in the hands of CRM managers. They make it easier to cross-reference campaign performance (open rate, click rate, conversion rate), sales performance (average basket, up-sell, cross-sell) and customer portfolio performance (database volume, customer value, activity rate).

These new CRM ‘capabilities’ give brands the chance to (re)become masters and owners of their relationship, and to finally position customer relationship management as a major lever for brand preference and commercial effectiveness.