Inc.

Direct to consumer organizations are structured and organized in a number of ways across different enterprises. At Sonos, our global direct to consumer organization includes the ecommerce business, that is all of our global sonos.com properties, as well as the CRM business, which is in charge of our CRM strategy and all of our owned channel communications with customers, such as email and in-app messaging. I also manage our global sales and marketing technology teams that are tasked with managing the pre-sales service and enhance experience for customers. So on a typical day, I spend my time thinking about the global strategy and execution of tasks across these teams.

OPTIMAL CRM STRATEGIES FOR THE DIGITAL ERA

You can't deny we have seen the massive acceleration in digitization, since the pandemic. This is where I fit in our organization, I oversee digital experiences for our brand. There has been a ton of changes on the consumer front that companies specifically those in the CRM space, have had to adapt to. CRM did not emerge with the pandemic; database marketing and complicated management software became popular in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Sonos was definitely not on the pioneering end of that when it comes to CRM adoption and investment. Up until five years ago, we lacked an enterprise wide platform, and our overall CRM strategy was still very nascent. Fast forward to today, CRM is really central to our go to market strategy and our enterprise architecture, and like many other companies, we are really doubling down on that investment.

In terms of trends, we would say big data is really a consistent theme. When it comes to CRM platforms, however, most mature enterprise organizations are still wrestling with how to obtain the data collection, ingestion, and activation. You can really see that with the proliferation of technologies like CVP, DMP’S, MDM, all of these solutions that are really oriented around the universal pursuit of this high definition view of customers. We've also seen a daily usage of technology solutions focused around AI and machine learning to develop a really sophisticated predictive modeling methodologies that help businesses better understand and anticipate customer needs, and be able to service them at scale. And because I sit in a global organization, we are really looking for the technological solutions that allow us to deliver those experiences at scale. So automation is really the other side of that point.

"FAST FORWARD TO TODAY, CRM IS REALLY CENTRAL TO OUR GO TO MARKET STRATEGY AND OUR ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE, AND LIKE MANY OTHER COMPANIES, WE ARE REALLY DOUBLING DOWN ON THAT INVESTMENT"

Over the last two years, with the acceleration to digital, we have also seen a lot of companies invest deeply into the idea of automation, customer journeys and trigger digital experiences that are very personalized to our customers. And based on unique events and customer activities to supplement a more traditional sort of batch and blast campaign approach. We have definitely seen it in our own data, it yields really positive customer results and business outcomes.

We have also seen big shifts in organizational approach, companies adjusting their entire organization structures to really accommodate this new age of sales and marketing. For example, two years ago, I had one technical resource on my team and now in direct to consumer. We have two fully staffed technical production teams, a suite of automation and development engineers. So the technology and the sales and marketing experiences have become so intrinsically connected, that you require people in your go to market organization that have a fundamental understanding of that technology and how it relates to that business strategy.

PUTTING THE CUSTOMER FIRST

Along the same lines as some of the challenges and big opportunities, with the new privacy regulations and practices, it's more critical than ever that brands leverage their own first-party data to provide relevant enriching experiences for customers. And data can only be used if it exists, is accurate, and is accessible to you.

On that note, we have a couple a number of big projects that we're in the midst of. We are currently in the evaluative stages of an enterprise wide data enablement project. With IoT devices, there's just a very deep rich amount of user data that when interpreted and activated upon correctly, can yield really incredible improvements and enhancements for our users. And that is going to be a big focus for us this year is how do we really harness that data and make it work for our customers and the user experience. We are also in the middle of a complete Salesforce marketing cloud reach platform. CRM is very topical, for us internally, this was a relatively large undertaking. But it will unlock a lot of new capabilities for us in the areas of automation and predictive intelligence that we just haven't had access to prior to being on our legacy platforms. So older technology in this space has really made it very difficult to keep pace with customers, and how quickly you have to enhance the digital experience to stay ahead of the curve. We are also looking forward to our platform and what that will mean in terms of advancements for the customer experience.

There is also some very exciting work we are doing on the voice of the customer front, exploring tech and voice analytics tools to take the abundance of customer feedback that is obtained from our service calls, live chats and web interactions, and transform that customer feedback into actionable data. This enables us to assess overall customer sentiment and enhance our service to all of our clients while also adapting to the rapidly evolving customer landscape.

A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE OF CRM

There has been a lot of activity in the data privacy and regulation space, and we are certain that it will be a big part of the future.

With the new iOS regulations and some of the GDPR advancements. So the impact on businesses and the way we interpret data will really force companies to adapt, as we are already seeing today. For example, with email and open rates, that empirical metric doesn't hold the same significance that it did previously, because of what we have access to. So that is one that will continue to shape this space, and how companies innovate and get ahead here.

The rise of mobile and particularly app engagement is also a really interesting trend to watch when we are thinking about the CRM landscape in the coming years. I saw statistic recently that indicated that on average, consumers spend about 4.2 hours per day on an app, which continues to increase each passing year. So time spent on mobile is predominantly in apps and not browsers. And I think for brands to win their customers attention in this space, they will need to lean into the content engagement strategies in app. In terms of CRM technologies, they are just not for customer facing teams anymore. Historically, it's been all about those call centers, in those customer service teams, but now you will start to see organizations adopting really sophisticated platforms, with internal users spanning all teams, because of the value it creates with these really connected customer experiences and journeys. It ultimately benefits our customers by allowing the entire organization to do a better job serving customers’ needs across each and every interaction.

A MESSAGE TO ASPIRANTS

My advice would just probably be around sort of this deep conflation that we have seen or connection between the strategy and the technology. Nowadays, this is a big departure from where businesses were maybe five or ten years ago, the strategy and technology go hand in hand. It's incredibly important that your enterprise, IT teams and technology teams are really set up to support the businesses, and that those teams are working closely and that is where we started to see these hybrid IT marketing fusion teams pop-up. I believe we will continue to see some really interesting things happen there and I would encourage folks that are starting in the CRM space to really think about the technology and being familiar with how that makes the strategy really come to life.

Another piece of advice I would give is probably just to know your customer. I've had a really unconventional career path here at Sonos. I'm the vice president but I started at the company 17 years ago as a telesales representative. I talked to thousands of prospective customers and current owners about their challenges. I still credit the success I've had in my long tenure here at Sonos back to my roots in customer experience. So, thou shalt know thy customers, and you will likely be successful.