#2 Elsa Dez | CRM Evolution | Cross-Functional Team Synergy | Customer-Centric Strategies

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Hey there and welcome to Inside CRM. I'm your host Jessica Jansen and I'm so excited to have you join us today on this podcast. We dive into the world of CRM with experts from all kinds of companies, from fresh face startups to billion dollar unicorns and solid established corporations. Our goal to share practical insights and strategies that you can actually use. Each episode is a quick 20 minute chat packed with tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your CRM. So grab a cup of coffee, get comfy and let's get started.

As a background to all of you, how I got to know Eiza is a couple of months ago we actually went on a dinner together and we had a nice evening together. When we thought of in general starting this meetup, I immediately knew I would like to talk to Elsa because I enjoyed it very much and thought it would be nice to hear from your CRM experience. That's why she's here today. And I think it would be great if you can start with a little introduction of yourself before we go into question.

Sure. First of all, it's really my pleasure to be here tonight and I'm really looking forward to the discussion. So let's make sure it stays interactive and we can just chit chat. So I am Elva. As you can hear I'm French but I've been here for 15 something like this years and since I arrived here in Germany I've been always doing CRM. So this is really something which is question for me and the fun fact this is someone we asked it actually on the LinkedIn didn't post to promote the event. Hey, why did you like it? And when I was studying back in Paris, I had the head of CRM from Renaud so the car manufacturer as adult tent. I was just like oh my gosh, I want this job. It sounds so nice. When I realized it actually I just wrote him and added him on LinkedIn to say okay, I wanted your job. I think mine is actually pretty cool as well. So yeah, so that's what I. Oh, what is my job? Actually yeah, I'm the team lead CRM for Klein and Saigon. So some of you might know Kleinant Saga. We are. I see a few nodding heads. If you want to buy something to sell something, you want to make it on a sustainable way, then you can try to find it out in Klein on Tiger. This is what everybody does know about Kleinantzaga, but that's a part of what we are doing. So Klein and Saga is also not only fee, not only C2C but also B2B because we do have a pro product. We do have a product for real estate agents which is actually pretty big. So in the real estate market we are like the number two in the market which is actually pretty nice. So it depends on the month, sometimes two, sometimes three, but still actually pretty cool. And of course also a big player in term of advertising. So those are actually like the big area from client and tire and you can imagine going from there. It does mean that for the CRM team. So CRM is supporting every of those aspects of the business as well. Private users, as professional users. And we are starting so just starting now to support the advertising area. It's just not boring actually. Yeah.

Also based on that complexity that you're describing, where does CRM actually sit within your organization?

Yeah, this is something. We are actually in a phase of change at the moment. CRM use to see it in the marketing area and now we are making a move to the product side. So depending on whom you speak to, it's either going to the backflow part of the force or maybe getting in power. Who knows, maybe the dark side is also the more powerful. So it does have all the pro and minus I would say from the pro side is that in my point of view, CRM is at the crossroad from everything. And especially when you get a product such as Klein on Tiger, it's not just being aligned with the other marketing channels but also making sure you are aligned with your sales team, with your product. That your needs are embedded within the product actually from the scratch. So from this perspective it does definitely make sense for us to now have an holistic view of CRM and making CRM really a part of our product. And that's what we are moving to. We are also increasing the complexity of our communication. So not that it was not complicated before, but we are putting one level on it which is pretty exciting because has been talking about automation earlier and that's exactly what we are doing. Adding at least additional layer such as the more support teams that also becomes part of the process and not just limiting to the marketing part in comparison to what we've been doing before.

So you mentioning it's going towards product and you were mentioning also some highlights of that there any points where you still say we need to figure that out on our journey?

Yes, definitely. It's not just perfect, of course not what I am convinced of. But where the. It's more kind of my. I think that the com that the Communications that will bring value to the user is the ones that is going to be the most impactful and that just shooting all marketing channels in parallel will have less weight and it would be at the end a waste of money but also annoying to the user. So that you're targeted on every platform and you just see the same ad everywhere. You just get enough of it. And what we started doing as being part of the marketing team was to have a full alignment also between performance, between on site, between CRM using the same channels, the same segments, so that we were able to significantly reduce also the cost for performance, but also increase the retention for CRM. So this had really great benefits to foster this alignment that on one side and on the other side I think that a strong brand is something that, that has no price actually because this is the stage where it becomes a bit of emotional single a lot of you. There's no Klein on Saga and everybody got a kind of story with it. Hey, I sold something or oh, I got my dog on Klein on Saiga or whatever. So this is a brand that needs to be consequent and needs to be to be streamlined across all channels. And eye for brand is something that is also way more represented. I think on the marketing side that we have on the product side when we are more task driven. So to say, how can you foster.

A streamlined communication across all channels?

I think to foster it you need to have a base of tool actually. So this is if you don't have the same tool, if you don't have the same way of measuring success, if you don't have the same way of naming the things, it's just impossible to have a real streamlined communication. So that's something we've been trying to do without having this tooling alignment before when we had let's say a certain 10 segment definition made for CRM and then you had performance saving definitions slightly different. Okay, user is churning, is individualized, then you get the sales teams that are different naming. So it made no sense. And so actually it was not streamlined but we started using the same segmentation tool so that we just say this is based on whatever criteria at the end we don't care, but this is the segment that is the trending one today or whatever you want to do so that you really are sure you can have one single view hopefully of what the customer lifecycle is supposed to be and when which user is supposed to be targeted at what point I.

Also would like to know like how big is the marketing team at Kleinance.

Saga the marketing team is 40 people I think now. So we grow pretty big actually over the last year. Just to give you an idea, when I started at Klein and Saga we were like 80 people for full client and Saga. Today we are like 350. So 40 out of it is actually not that bad because of course the biggest part of Klein and Saga are devs. So p and he is actually the core of what we do. And out of those 40, the CRM team is seven people.

You said that you're moving from marketing towards product. I wonder like how did you manage that shift? It was that you who was pushing for it or was that more like a top down decision that you were.

Happily take a bit of all I would say and this is definitely not something that has been happening from one day to the other saying, okay, is that something that is staying by itself also within the marketing team is that, does it belong to digital marketing? Is that something else? Is that something that should be kind of middleman between product and marketing? Does it really should be indeed within product? So I think everybody or every company most likely does face the same questioning. But I would assume that there is not one fit all. And what did make sense also five years from now at Kleine and Saige when we were so small is not what does make sense today. So today Klein and Saga is an adventure board company. So it means we are not just Klein and Saige, we are also in France, we are Subito in Italy, we are Millenuccio and so on and so on. So we are talking about creating not only alignment and synergies across client and Saga, but also above and what can we do out of it?

My question was going to be your product. You mentioned several different ones obviously, but the common theme is they're in a way temporary, right? They're predominantly auction based or people applying to get that thing, to buy that thing, to rent that house, etc. How does that change the way that you do your messaging and your approach in comparison to a standard E commerce company when you have T shirts or you're buying a static product?

No, I would say because of course you buy this thing, you sell this thing. But I think we are one of the companies that can have the longest relationship to the user because from the 18 years old you sell your first stuff to get your first money, then to move to a flat, you buy your first car, you sell this car, you're getting baby clothes, your big, you know what kind of thing, you can really follow the user all along the journey and for each of the vertical or of the category the user will have visited, we can start a discussion. We can start saying okay, what kind of car do you need? Or maybe after a while also follow up on this. Maybe you have having this car for a year. Here are some tips and tricks about how to sell it. Maybe you want to check out for by our cousins for mobility or whatever. So we have plenty of occasion to have this discussion and at the end that's all data that can be collected in a certain way and make sure we continue having the discussion with those users.

You mentioned also that you don't believe that much in core spamming customers with too many channels, too many messages. At the same time I think probably a lot of us are facing the similar issue and pressure maybe from top down to send more and more thinking that will increase results. Did you actually find a solution on how do you prove that spamming or sending more and more isn't always beneficial? Like at which point do you say this is enough?

First of all, I think there is not one fits all. It's also really highly dependent of the area we are talking about. For example on the B2B side that's something which is a real no go because you get smaller volume and once you get someone opted out, you never get them in. It's not as if we would have a pool of professional users that could grow like up to the sky. So we are way more conscious on this side. And I think when there is a top down pressure on this aspect, this is also really well understood. So what you are mentioning sounds to me more is like the kind of pretty traditional V2C experience when you are like we need some sale, we need to send okay, last offer last time and last and last. And there is two things we look at. So on one side of course we got some health measure to see. Okay, all the answer break are but also how many people are really installing our app or which would be really for us the worst case scenario. So what we definitely do not want to have. But also we are really test centered for everything we do work lately. So we are measuring does it really make sense to have one reminder to have two reminder? When we got those kind of campaigns, you might be aware that Kaline and Saigo for a year introduced online payment method so that now you can we also have the toy to play with. And of course when we started going more near to the e commerce experience, one of the first things was to say okay, let's do the same. Let's Say hey, just today, just this weekend, two days left, one day left, last hour with email, with push and so on. And then at a certain point you realize, okay, the three last contact points are bringing nothing in comparison. So by having so what did work for us was to have a clear baseline to be able to show what the incremental impact was so that you can really measure. And that's what I think makes the most sense at the end because we all have a gut feeling. But when you can prove, okay, the effort that has been added to this last email, that your time of work, that's how many money you've been sending on it actually isn't worth then for us. It was always really helpful in the discussion.

Great questions. I would like to finish it up with do you have any recommendation for the crowd that you say that's something you should listen to, that's something you should read or whatever that you find inspiring yourself?

Yeah, more in the direction actually of growth mindset than of the typical CRM. I've been So I had on my night table one of those book you get for Christmas and you never read. And this was from one of my previous chefs and no, I didn't read it. No, I read it and actually it was a good present so I should write to say thank you. And this was some Adam Grant think again. So maybe some of you did read it actually. But it also helps you to deconstruct how you think and you can really apply it to a lot of things. And also looking at the way all we work and all we are sometimes sure that it has to be that way. It really helped to put the things into another perspective for me. Give it a try.

Thank you so much for being here and share your knowledge. Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Alright, that brings us to the end of today's episode of Inside CRM. I hope you enjoyed our chat and picked up some useful gems to take back to your own CRM toolbox. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you liked what you heard, do me a favor and subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And hey, if you've got a quick sec, check out our website for more great content and updates. Until next time, I'm Jessica Jansen and you've been listening to Inside CRM. Take care.