Since the advent of retailing, the mantra has always been “know your customer.” Recent times have brought on an onslaught of technologies and techniques that allow retailers to collect scads of information about their customers. With this information, they promise customer relationship management (CRM).
CRM is hailed as a way to personalize the shopping and buying experience uniquely for every shopper. Often times, executing on this requires the collection of personal information (like email addresses or cell phone numbers) so the retailer can deliver things like offers and e-receipts.
I read an opinion piece in PaymentSource this morning titled Contactless payments will falter if they require too much of consumers, in which the author explains that contactless payments, either by card or mobile device, need to be integrated into CRM systems in order to get maximum efficiency from the CRM system. The author goes on to say:
Retailers must also have access to all POS transaction-related data to enhance returns and loyalty programs even with a contactless approach. This means returns should be automated securely through custom rules configurations that validate e-receipts and authorize transactions back to the original card with limited interaction.
A centralized portal to manage all programs — from loyalty to serialized coupons to in-house gift cards — gives retailers real-time enterprise-level tracking of all customer interactions, including those on mobile devices and other touchless platforms.
While I found little connection between the title of the article and the actual article itself, it did get me to start thinking about how much people want these CRM programs to know everything about them in order to save $0.15 on a box of Ho-Hos.
One of the things I struggle with when I talk to people about their version of CRM is the amount of data they want to collect on consumers versus how much information people are willing to surrender. My experience in studying consumers is very clear; when it comes to giving PII, people fit somewhere on a scale of “fully open” to “fully closed.” Several factors determine where they fit on this scale including security concerns, trust, value received for the information surrendered, and so on. It is not an easy choice.
Some combination of these factors go into the decision to provide personal information and how much of a “relationship” customers want to have with a brand/retailer. Brands have to understand that not all customers want to have a relationship with them and that, in order for true CRM to work, customers need to see the value in what you are delivering.
Personal information is now a currency and many consumers realize that. Furthermore, for some consumers, it’s not you, it’s them. They’re just not ready for a relationship now.
Overview by Peter Reville, Director, Primary Research Services at Mercator Advisory Group
