I started my career in the mid '80's in database marketing. In the mid '90's CRM emerged as a new (but old) business philosophy, discipline and strategic practice. I embraced CRM with a passion and as they say, "the rest is history".
For the next ten years, I worked for large corporate organizations in communications and telecom, building their respective CRM strategic business plans and enabling technology road maps.
In 2005, an opportunity with a large retailer was presented to me, so looking for another industry in which to ply my craft and in need of a new challenge, I ventured into the wacky world of retail. I thought retail would be a logical match for CRM, given that CRM’s roots are in the old, local neighborhood shop keeper who knew all his customers by name and as well as their needs and wants. He would even anticipate his customers' needs in advance by having their usual order in stock and practically ready for their next trip to the store. Well, it's been almost 3 years since my foray into retail and my hypothesis about it's co-existance with CRM has been disproved thus far.
It would appear that retailers are not as customer-centric as they say (or think) when it comes to embracing the virtues of CRM. Let's face it, the marketing department in a large retailer is mandated and structured to communicate with the mass consumer, rifling the market with weekly flyers, newspaper ads, and a smattering of broadcast and other media intended to build awareness and drive store traffic. Sure, these media help generate top line sales, but retailers don’t have any sophisticated means by which to effectively measure which media is driving the sales or ROMI. Direct mail and e-mail also exist as direct channels of customer communication; however, from what I’ve seen, they are no more than extensions of mass media since they tend not to be highly targeted and generally contain offers that also exist in mass. The other interesting observation is that the merchant and marketing groups tend to pay more attention to external market statistics like market share, market growth or decline in a commodity, as well as syndicated research reports than the wealth of information they have on their existing customers generated by CRM.
So, my question is, “Can retail and CRM co-exist?”. Based on what I’ve witnessed, I have my doubts, but I’m open to others’ points of view as well as any tips on how to overcome retailers’ traditional product-centric and mass marketing mentality.