July 29, 2025 • 18 mins
Ben Jackson of Klaviyo explains why email still outperforms, how regional channel preferences are shifting (Germany loves WhatsApp, Nordics swear by SMS), and where AI genuinely moves the needle for retail CMOs drowning in data. Host Alex digs into practical roadblocks—from siloed martech stacks to missing content workflows—and how Klaviyo’s new Customer Hub and AI agent aim to solve them.
Timestamp
Chapter title
00:00
Intro & why email still matters
00:27
Conferences, Klaviyo booths & today’s agenda
00:58
Meet Ben Jackson
01:17
Myth‑busting: “Email is dead”
02:24
Multi‑channel done right
03:31
Tech vs. process bottlenecks
05:10
Regional channel preferences
06:24
Community as growth engine
07:33
Klaviyo’s AI approach
09:19
Unified data superiority
11:23
Too much first‑party data?
12:12
Common retailer mistakes
13:24
Coming CRM curve‑balls
14:07
Consumers’ value exchange
15:31
Introducing Customer Hub
16:16
What’s holding CMOs back
17:54
Final insights & outro
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And, you know, consumers are becoming much more data savvy,
you know, when they share their data, you know, and a lot of
these brands, you're you're asking for more and more data of
a consumer. And what's the value exchange?
Yeah, the consumer is expecting something in the term.
(00:27):
Hello and welcome to the Retail Podcast.
Now, as you know, I go to most of the conferences around the
world and I've seen the Clavio booth, probably most of the
conferences I've been around theworld, around the world.
And when I had an opportunity tospeak to Ben Jackson, the MD for
EMEA, I think what a great opportunity to unpack one of the
topical problematic, one of the issues that still in retail can
(00:51):
be divisive in marketing departments in how they address
and communicate with their customers.
And so, Ben, hello. How are you?
Yeah, really good. Thank.
Thanks, Alex, for inviting me on.
Really, it's an absolute. Pleasure where?
I presume you're in the UK? Where in the world are you?
I'm. Yeah.
I'm in, I'm in London at the moment.
OK, where? Whereabouts are the Clay Beer
(01:11):
offices? They are on Leadenhall St Very
close. All.
All gay, Yeah. So, yeah, very nice, nice part
of the city. So listen live.
I'm going to get straight into this, Ben, because I think
there's a lot of people who feelthat they've made their mind up,
minds up on e-mail and are stilltreating e-mail like it's 2015.
(01:31):
But you via your own channels, Clavio's own channels that
you've shown that they're just not alive, they're sort of
outperforming. And so there's this whole
perception versus reality. I think.
I, I mean, I'm not an expert in this.
I have the caveat, I am not an expert, but I'm just curious on
your thoughts on where the smartretailers are putting their
energy when it comes to customerconnections.
(01:53):
Yeah, I, you know, there's there's some people out there in
the market they're saying emailsdead as a channel.
I would disagree with that. What we're seeing with our
clients, if it's if it's done right, you know they're driving
a lot of revenue through the channel.
What are the things that is really important.
It's not the only channel, yeah.And So what we're seeing is that
(02:14):
the ones that are doing their communications well are actually
firstly, they're asking their consumers what channels they
prefer. So could it be, you know,
e-mail? Could it be SMS?
Could it be WhatsApp? Yeah.
And so there's a consumer preference out there that you
need to think about. And then using the data that
(02:35):
they're collecting to actually personalise.
And. And that's not a new thing.
Yeah, we've been talking about personalization and e-mail for
probably, you know, for the last10 years.
Yeah. And a lot of companies out there
are promising or a lot of technology companies are
promising that they can do thesethings.
But often you see organisations,you know, they bring on a new
piece of technology, the promisethat they can personalise and
(02:58):
get better ROI through an e-mailchannel.
Yeah, you look at what they're doing five years later and
they're still doing the same thing.
They're still doing the same welcome programmes, they're
still doing the same abandoned basket programmes and nothing's
changed. And that's why it's important.
And it's not that especially thetechnology that's holding them
back. Often it's the process, the
internal process, the internal users, the content that they
(03:21):
need to drive personalization. But if you give tools that are
easy to use for for the marketers or the CRM
departments, that's when they can actually change what they're
doing. Yeah.
If it doesn't take them long to do a new segmentation, if it
doesn't take them long to kind of bring in new content and they
can execute innovative campaignsquickly, it means they can
change the way they're using thechannel.
(03:42):
Yeah. I've.
Got you. So the the next question is
really curious. When I talk and when I speak to
my US counterparts, it sometimesfeels that there's a sort of a
different culture. So you can't really cut and
paste. The.
What's working in the US to Europe and in terms of life
cycle marketing? I'm just curious on your
personal opinion, maybe who do you see getting it right in
(04:05):
terms of the approaches that we have here in Europe or UK and
Europe and in the US? Yeah.
And I, I, I don't think you can even blanket Europe as the same
market. So yeah, very, I don't think you
can sit consider it as this is the way things are done in
Europe. This is the way things are done
in the US because what what we're finding is it, it, it
(04:29):
varies. And so Flavio, we work with very
small customers. So what we call entrepreneurs,
they're typically pure ecom brands that have great products
are growing fast, but are like 2to 10 people.
Yeah, within the organisation all the way up to some, you
know, really big organisations, you know, global kind of
(04:52):
enterprises. And the challenge that those
global enterprises face is that,you know, they're they're
they're marketing across many different countries within
Europe. Yeah.
And we we're seeing trends and again, it's we talked about
channel preference, yeah, e-mail, SMS answers, WhatsApp,
and that varies country by country, yeah.
So you know, you would look at Germany 1, you know it's harder
(05:14):
to collect data in somewhere. Like.
Germany you need double opt in and you know, the barrier to
kind of acquire data is, is is is much higher.
But they, they, they just don't use SMS as as a marketing
channel. Yeah, it's e-mail.
And then more recently WhatsApp is, is, is a popular channel in,
(05:34):
in, in Germany, whereas in the Scandinavian countries SMS is
actually driving a lot of revenue for for ecom brands.
So just the channel changes country by country, I would say.
Yeah, I mean, for me it's it's always like with the US when I
say let's send the WhatsApp and they're going, why do you want a
WhatsApp? Why can't we FaceTime or
something? And I'm like, yeah, OK, all
right, OK. I mean.
(05:57):
Yeah, take that, take that to Asia back as well and then you
can become, you know, you get a bunch of, you know, different
channels as well. Yeah.
Yeah. And I, and I think you make an
interesting point that in, in, in, in terms of going back to
the conversation, why e-mail isn't necessarily dead.
A lot of startups or young companies, young brands, the
reason why they excelled, the reason why they became so
(06:19):
brilliant is because of their communities.
It's the engagement of the communities.
And I think, you know, those channels to talk to your
community as you grow is, is incredible.
And so it's a, it's a minefield as you then decide to expand
across Europe or the world on which channel to use where.
So everyone's talking about AI right now and most brands just
(06:41):
using it to send some more, not necessarily send better,
although they would they would argue that they are, how are the
best sort of game making automation systems AI's, I don't
know, whatever, whatever the term is in building
relationships with with these communities and customers.
And where do you draw the line? Because again, depending on who
(07:04):
you talk to, some of the platform providers are saying,
you know, it's a scale thing. AI helps you with scale and it
probably again, does both or AI helps you to be unique, right,
in terms of sending that that relevant data point to to your
customers. So what do you, what do you
think? Where is where is the best place
(07:24):
to use AI or how are you guys using AI within Clavio?
Yeah. And some people come to me and
say, well, what's your AI product?
Yeah, there's no one, There's noone AI product.
Yeah, Clavio really sees it as an opportunity to enhance what
our customers are doing throughout the platform.
(07:44):
And so using, you know, there's,there's not an AI module within,
within Clavio. We're starting to implement AI
throughout the platform. So whether that be, you know, we
talked about channel, you know, preference or channel affinity,
it's choosing the right channel at the right time with the right
message to send to your, to yourcustomers.
It's within our data platform aswell.
(08:06):
So the models that we're building out for customers that
are automatically built out within the, the data platform,
the really interesting thing and, and, and one of our key
advantages is because we have such a strong data platform and
it's not especially AI, but AI is driven by the data you give
(08:29):
it. And Clavio was started as a data
company. Funnily enough, it wasn't
started as a, as, as an e-mail company back in 2012, right.
We built this really strong dataplatform and then we started to
build the channels on top of it.Yeah.
And one of the very early integrations was the Shopify
(08:49):
integration. So we're bringing in a lot of
the Shopify, a lot of the commerce data to it to the
platform, but another strength that it has is we have over 400
integrations with other applications.
So we're bringing all of that data into the, the, the one
platform. And so, you know, using all of
that data and having it all in one place really gives our
(09:12):
customers the advantage to, to, to kind of build intelligence
within every interaction that they have.
And then a lot of the customers that we come across or prospects
that we come across are using different technologies for each
one of the channels they use. But that means the data's
siloed. Yeah.
And typically those channel vendors, they will, they will
(09:35):
want to promote their channel. So it'll be like, well, you want
to send more SMS or you want to send more e-mail.
And that's not what we're tryingto do with our customers or
that's what not what consumers want.
Yeah. And so to have it all in one
place really allows you just to decide what is the best
communication frequency or channel to use.
(09:57):
And so it's not about sending more, it's about sending maybe
even less. Yeah, but more relevant and in
the way that consumers expect tohave it.
So. It's interesting.
Is the by? Is it by proxy, the fact that
I'm going through the Clavio system solution that my data
(10:17):
then becomes in, in a, in a shape that I can, you know,
extract data that's relevant to my campaigns?
Is is it, it's like the, I don'tknow the data model that you say
this is the data sources that weneed or are you referring
because obviously with the one complaint or the one thing I
hear a lot at conferences, we'reswimming in first party data.
(10:39):
We have so much data that probably they're not extracting
the the most from. So I, I guess 2 questions here.
Is it the fact that if I come toClavio that it's like I have to
tidy up my house before I turn up and give you my data to be
able to do the campaigns in someshape?
Or is it the fact that you make it easy?
(11:01):
I don't, I don't know, just talk, talk me through that.
If you don't mind, Yeah. And, and again, you know, I
mentioned the, the, you know, the, the size of companies we're
dealing with. And so at the, at the smaller
end, you know, the platform is very much out-of-the-box.
So let's say I'm a Shopify commerce user, I'm a smaller
(11:23):
company. It's literally, you know, a, a,
a very simple integration to getthat data over.
And it's quite structured because we we really understand
those platforms and we understand what data you need
for your CRM as well. But the advantage is, is we can
bring a lot of that data over. Yeah.
But the flexibility of the platform, let's say, you know,
(11:46):
we're dealing with a bigger organisation that actually has a
custom commerce store. Yeah, we can integrate that data
in there as well. Where are people getting it
wrong? Where do you feel, where do you
feel retailers are making or what are the mistakes you've
observed them making when it comes to their their data?
Yeah. I think it's, I think it's the
(12:07):
ability to act on it internally a lot of the time.
Yeah. A really good example was a
footwear manufacturer that we'redoing with, Unfortunately I
can't give you the name, but we've given them great tools,
We've got great data coming intothe platform.
(12:29):
But you need, if you won't really want to start
personalising your communications, you need other
aspects like content to actuallydrive that personalisation.
If you can't get the rest of theorganisation to be dynamic, it
becomes very hard to be able to do that.
Yeah, because you don't have, you don't have the relevant
(12:49):
content to ship out or, or to communicate to your customers.
So the the rest of the organisation has to come along
with it as well. Yeah.
I got you. If we zoom out now, obviously
time's flying by as I knew it would do.
I'm I'm ACMO of power. I'm I'm, I'm ACMO of, let's say
(13:13):
one of your typical type customers.
So not necessarily a small company, a mid size enterprise,
a healthy retailer. I'm ACMO of a healthy retailer.
What do you see or what are the signals that you're seeing?
Are the shifts that are coming in CRM that you think will catch
people off guard? Because obviously you do this
day in, day out, you must be seeing these sort of echoes of
(13:36):
trends coming in. What do you think are going to
catch most people out? Yeah, I think and and this isn't
a especially a today thing. It's been going on for for a
while now. It's the consumer expectation.
Yeah. And, you know, consumers
becoming much more data savvy, you know, when they share their
data, you know, and a lot of these brands, you're, you're
(13:59):
asking for more and more data ofa consumer.
And what's the value exchange? Yeah, the consumer is expecting
something in return. It could be a loyalty programme
or it could be that they just expect a, a better service, a
better personalization. Yeah.
And so if I'm a consumer and I've shared those preferences or
details about myself or details about what products I'm
(14:21):
interested in, and you're collecting that data, but then
you're not doing anything about it and you're not changing the
consumer experience, that reallyturns consumers off.
Yeah. So if you're collecting the data
and you're not using it, and that's across the board, Yeah.
It's not only on the site, but it's also the service element.
If I'm not getting the same experiences.
(14:43):
And if I'm, you know, it's like,you know, you call out the call
centre and you're asked for yourdetails.
But this happens with the bank often.
Yeah, you're asked for the details and then you say, well,
you're in the wrong department, let me put you through to
somebody else. You're asked for those details
again. Yeah, online experience, you
know, the online expectation is,is even even more extreme than
(15:04):
that. Yeah.
I'm not expecting to have to share my details more than once.
Yeah. But then if, you know, if I have
a problem and I, you know, go tothe service centre and, and my
ask for my details again and youknow, and then the next day I
get a promotion, you know, that consumer experience is really
bad. And that's because the, you
(15:25):
know, the, the CMO or the, the organisation is not joining up
the experiences. And that's one of the reasons
why Clavio very recently launched the service aspect.
So we launched a product called customer hub, which is like a
self-service application that our customers can layer on top
of their, their commerce experiences.
And then we just got into beta with an AI by agent that will
(15:48):
automate that for brands small and large.
Yeah. OK, I got you.
I know you said it's a final question, but I'm always curious
because I'm not an expert in this field.
Is there a question that I should have asked you and I
didn't? Or is there a question that
people normally ask and that I have just totally sort of not
asked? Yeah.
I think I, I think a, a, a question that we often ask
(16:11):
ourselves, You asked, you nearlyasked it I think is, is what is
holding? What, what, what, what, what?
What if I'm ACMO, What is holding me back from actually
delivering those experiences? OK.
Are you going to ask it? What is it?
Well, what's the thing? I'm like, you've got me.
(16:34):
I'm I'm, I'm stoked in what is that one thing?
Well, and I think, you know, everybody knows that consumers
expect this experience. Yeah.
And so, you know, you might ask yourself, well, why can't you
know, why can't, why can't everybrand that I'm dealing with
deliver the same experience? And, and I truly believe it's
(16:54):
actually the, the technology that's been available up until
recently just hasn't been able to offer that experience.
And, and there's a, there's a whole bunch of very large
marketing platforms out there. And what these large companies
tend to do is they build the, their customer experience
platforms through acquisition. And so they're not actually
(17:17):
solving the problem. They're, they're, they're,
they're, they're perpetuating the problem in a way.
They're creating data silos across the organisation and I
think that that's what's holdinga lot of these brands back.
And so, you know, if you can create that seamless experience
across the different channels, not only the CRM channels, but
(17:38):
the commerce channels, and get all of those systems talking
really well together, I think that that is the key that
unlocks the experience that people are expecting.
Fantastic note to finish on Ben.Thank you so much for giving up
your time. I really opened my eyes
obviously, and I almost got it right, so.
I'll take the. I don't know.
(17:59):
Four out of five stars, you'll leave us.
Feedback. On my questions, thank you very
much. Thank you so much.
Really enjoyed it, thank you.
And, you know, consumers are becoming much more data savvy,
you know, when they share their data, you know, and a lot of
these brands, you're you're asking for more and more data of
a consumer. And what's the value exchange?
Yeah, the consumer is expecting something in the term.
(00:27):
Hello and welcome to the Retail Podcast.
Now, as you know, I go to most of the conferences around the
world and I've seen the Clavio booth, probably most of the
conferences I've been around theworld, around the world.
And when I had an opportunity tospeak to Ben Jackson, the MD for
EMEA, I think what a great opportunity to unpack one of the
topical problematic, one of the issues that still in retail can
(00:51):
be divisive in marketing departments in how they address
and communicate with their customers.
And so, Ben, hello. How are you?
Yeah, really good. Thank.
Thanks, Alex, for inviting me on.
Really, it's an absolute. Pleasure where?
I presume you're in the UK? Where in the world are you?
I'm. Yeah.
I'm in, I'm in London at the moment.
OK, where? Whereabouts are the Clay Beer
(01:11):
offices? They are on Leadenhall St Very
close. All.
All gay, Yeah. So, yeah, very nice, nice part
of the city. So listen live.
I'm going to get straight into this, Ben, because I think
there's a lot of people who feelthat they've made their mind up,
minds up on e-mail and are stilltreating e-mail like it's 2015.
(01:31):
But you via your own channels, Clavio's own channels that
you've shown that they're just not alive, they're sort of
outperforming. And so there's this whole
perception versus reality. I think.
I, I mean, I'm not an expert in this.
I have the caveat, I am not an expert, but I'm just curious on
your thoughts on where the smartretailers are putting their
energy when it comes to customerconnections.
(01:53):
Yeah, I, you know, there's there's some people out there in
the market they're saying emailsdead as a channel.
I would disagree with that. What we're seeing with our
clients, if it's if it's done right, you know they're driving
a lot of revenue through the channel.
What are the things that is really important.
It's not the only channel, yeah.And So what we're seeing is that
(02:14):
the ones that are doing their communications well are actually
firstly, they're asking their consumers what channels they
prefer. So could it be, you know,
e-mail? Could it be SMS?
Could it be WhatsApp? Yeah.
And so there's a consumer preference out there that you
need to think about. And then using the data that
(02:35):
they're collecting to actually personalise.
And. And that's not a new thing.
Yeah, we've been talking about personalization and e-mail for
probably, you know, for the last10 years.
Yeah. And a lot of companies out there
are promising or a lot of technology companies are
promising that they can do thesethings.
But often you see organisations,you know, they bring on a new
piece of technology, the promisethat they can personalise and
(02:58):
get better ROI through an e-mailchannel.
Yeah, you look at what they're doing five years later and
they're still doing the same thing.
They're still doing the same welcome programmes, they're
still doing the same abandoned basket programmes and nothing's
changed. And that's why it's important.
And it's not that especially thetechnology that's holding them
back. Often it's the process, the
internal process, the internal users, the content that they
(03:21):
need to drive personalization. But if you give tools that are
easy to use for for the marketers or the CRM
departments, that's when they can actually change what they're
doing. Yeah.
If it doesn't take them long to do a new segmentation, if it
doesn't take them long to kind of bring in new content and they
can execute innovative campaignsquickly, it means they can
change the way they're using thechannel.
(03:42):
Yeah. I've.
Got you. So the the next question is
really curious. When I talk and when I speak to
my US counterparts, it sometimesfeels that there's a sort of a
different culture. So you can't really cut and
paste. The.
What's working in the US to Europe and in terms of life
cycle marketing? I'm just curious on your
personal opinion, maybe who do you see getting it right in
(04:05):
terms of the approaches that we have here in Europe or UK and
Europe and in the US? Yeah.
And I, I, I don't think you can even blanket Europe as the same
market. So yeah, very, I don't think you
can sit consider it as this is the way things are done in
Europe. This is the way things are done
in the US because what what we're finding is it, it, it
(04:29):
varies. And so Flavio, we work with very
small customers. So what we call entrepreneurs,
they're typically pure ecom brands that have great products
are growing fast, but are like 2to 10 people.
Yeah, within the organisation all the way up to some, you
know, really big organisations, you know, global kind of
(04:52):
enterprises. And the challenge that those
global enterprises face is that,you know, they're they're
they're marketing across many different countries within
Europe. Yeah.
And we we're seeing trends and again, it's we talked about
channel preference, yeah, e-mail, SMS answers, WhatsApp,
and that varies country by country, yeah.
So you know, you would look at Germany 1, you know it's harder
(05:14):
to collect data in somewhere. Like.
Germany you need double opt in and you know, the barrier to
kind of acquire data is, is is is much higher.
But they, they, they just don't use SMS as as a marketing
channel. Yeah, it's e-mail.
And then more recently WhatsApp is, is, is a popular channel in,
(05:34):
in, in Germany, whereas in the Scandinavian countries SMS is
actually driving a lot of revenue for for ecom brands.
So just the channel changes country by country, I would say.
Yeah, I mean, for me it's it's always like with the US when I
say let's send the WhatsApp and they're going, why do you want a
WhatsApp? Why can't we FaceTime or
something? And I'm like, yeah, OK, all
right, OK. I mean.
(05:57):
Yeah, take that, take that to Asia back as well and then you
can become, you know, you get a bunch of, you know, different
channels as well. Yeah.
Yeah. And I, and I think you make an
interesting point that in, in, in, in terms of going back to
the conversation, why e-mail isn't necessarily dead.
A lot of startups or young companies, young brands, the
reason why they excelled, the reason why they became so
(06:19):
brilliant is because of their communities.
It's the engagement of the communities.
And I think, you know, those channels to talk to your
community as you grow is, is incredible.
And so it's a, it's a minefield as you then decide to expand
across Europe or the world on which channel to use where.
So everyone's talking about AI right now and most brands just
(06:41):
using it to send some more, not necessarily send better,
although they would they would argue that they are, how are the
best sort of game making automation systems AI's, I don't
know, whatever, whatever the term is in building
relationships with with these communities and customers.
And where do you draw the line? Because again, depending on who
(07:04):
you talk to, some of the platform providers are saying,
you know, it's a scale thing. AI helps you with scale and it
probably again, does both or AI helps you to be unique, right,
in terms of sending that that relevant data point to to your
customers. So what do you, what do you
think? Where is where is the best place
(07:24):
to use AI or how are you guys using AI within Clavio?
Yeah. And some people come to me and
say, well, what's your AI product?
Yeah, there's no one, There's noone AI product.
Yeah, Clavio really sees it as an opportunity to enhance what
our customers are doing throughout the platform.
(07:44):
And so using, you know, there's,there's not an AI module within,
within Clavio. We're starting to implement AI
throughout the platform. So whether that be, you know, we
talked about channel, you know, preference or channel affinity,
it's choosing the right channel at the right time with the right
message to send to your, to yourcustomers.
It's within our data platform aswell.
(08:06):
So the models that we're building out for customers that
are automatically built out within the, the data platform,
the really interesting thing and, and, and one of our key
advantages is because we have such a strong data platform and
it's not especially AI, but AI is driven by the data you give
(08:29):
it. And Clavio was started as a data
company. Funnily enough, it wasn't
started as a, as, as an e-mail company back in 2012, right.
We built this really strong dataplatform and then we started to
build the channels on top of it.Yeah.
And one of the very early integrations was the Shopify
(08:49):
integration. So we're bringing in a lot of
the Shopify, a lot of the commerce data to it to the
platform, but another strength that it has is we have over 400
integrations with other applications.
So we're bringing all of that data into the, the, the one
platform. And so, you know, using all of
that data and having it all in one place really gives our
(09:12):
customers the advantage to, to, to kind of build intelligence
within every interaction that they have.
And then a lot of the customers that we come across or prospects
that we come across are using different technologies for each
one of the channels they use. But that means the data's
siloed. Yeah.
And typically those channel vendors, they will, they will
(09:35):
want to promote their channel. So it'll be like, well, you want
to send more SMS or you want to send more e-mail.
And that's not what we're tryingto do with our customers or
that's what not what consumers want.
Yeah. And so to have it all in one
place really allows you just to decide what is the best
communication frequency or channel to use.
(09:57):
And so it's not about sending more, it's about sending maybe
even less. Yeah, but more relevant and in
the way that consumers expect tohave it.
So. It's interesting.
Is the by? Is it by proxy, the fact that
I'm going through the Clavio system solution that my data
(10:17):
then becomes in, in a, in a shape that I can, you know,
extract data that's relevant to my campaigns?
Is is it, it's like the, I don'tknow the data model that you say
this is the data sources that weneed or are you referring
because obviously with the one complaint or the one thing I
hear a lot at conferences, we'reswimming in first party data.
(10:39):
We have so much data that probably they're not extracting
the the most from. So I, I guess 2 questions here.
Is it the fact that if I come toClavio that it's like I have to
tidy up my house before I turn up and give you my data to be
able to do the campaigns in someshape?
Or is it the fact that you make it easy?
(11:01):
I don't, I don't know, just talk, talk me through that.
If you don't mind, Yeah. And, and again, you know, I
mentioned the, the, you know, the, the size of companies we're
dealing with. And so at the, at the smaller
end, you know, the platform is very much out-of-the-box.
So let's say I'm a Shopify commerce user, I'm a smaller
(11:23):
company. It's literally, you know, a, a,
a very simple integration to getthat data over.
And it's quite structured because we we really understand
those platforms and we understand what data you need
for your CRM as well. But the advantage is, is we can
bring a lot of that data over. Yeah.
But the flexibility of the platform, let's say, you know,
(11:46):
we're dealing with a bigger organisation that actually has a
custom commerce store. Yeah, we can integrate that data
in there as well. Where are people getting it
wrong? Where do you feel, where do you
feel retailers are making or what are the mistakes you've
observed them making when it comes to their their data?
Yeah. I think it's, I think it's the
(12:07):
ability to act on it internally a lot of the time.
Yeah. A really good example was a
footwear manufacturer that we'redoing with, Unfortunately I
can't give you the name, but we've given them great tools,
We've got great data coming intothe platform.
(12:29):
But you need, if you won't really want to start
personalising your communications, you need other
aspects like content to actuallydrive that personalisation.
If you can't get the rest of theorganisation to be dynamic, it
becomes very hard to be able to do that.
Yeah, because you don't have, you don't have the relevant
(12:49):
content to ship out or, or to communicate to your customers.
So the the rest of the organisation has to come along
with it as well. Yeah.
I got you. If we zoom out now, obviously
time's flying by as I knew it would do.
I'm I'm ACMO of power. I'm I'm, I'm ACMO of, let's say
(13:13):
one of your typical type customers.
So not necessarily a small company, a mid size enterprise,
a healthy retailer. I'm ACMO of a healthy retailer.
What do you see or what are the signals that you're seeing?
Are the shifts that are coming in CRM that you think will catch
people off guard? Because obviously you do this
day in, day out, you must be seeing these sort of echoes of
(13:36):
trends coming in. What do you think are going to
catch most people out? Yeah, I think and and this isn't
a especially a today thing. It's been going on for for a
while now. It's the consumer expectation.
Yeah. And, you know, consumers
becoming much more data savvy, you know, when they share their
data, you know, and a lot of these brands, you're, you're
(13:59):
asking for more and more data ofa consumer.
And what's the value exchange? Yeah, the consumer is expecting
something in return. It could be a loyalty programme
or it could be that they just expect a, a better service, a
better personalization. Yeah.
And so if I'm a consumer and I've shared those preferences or
details about myself or details about what products I'm
(14:21):
interested in, and you're collecting that data, but then
you're not doing anything about it and you're not changing the
consumer experience, that reallyturns consumers off.
Yeah. So if you're collecting the data
and you're not using it, and that's across the board, Yeah.
It's not only on the site, but it's also the service element.
If I'm not getting the same experiences.
(14:43):
And if I'm, you know, it's like,you know, you call out the call
centre and you're asked for yourdetails.
But this happens with the bank often.
Yeah, you're asked for the details and then you say, well,
you're in the wrong department, let me put you through to
somebody else. You're asked for those details
again. Yeah, online experience, you
know, the online expectation is,is even even more extreme than
(15:04):
that. Yeah.
I'm not expecting to have to share my details more than once.
Yeah. But then if, you know, if I have
a problem and I, you know, go tothe service centre and, and my
ask for my details again and youknow, and then the next day I
get a promotion, you know, that consumer experience is really
bad. And that's because the, you
(15:25):
know, the, the CMO or the, the organisation is not joining up
the experiences. And that's one of the reasons
why Clavio very recently launched the service aspect.
So we launched a product called customer hub, which is like a
self-service application that our customers can layer on top
of their, their commerce experiences.
And then we just got into beta with an AI by agent that will
(15:48):
automate that for brands small and large.
Yeah. OK, I got you.
I know you said it's a final question, but I'm always curious
because I'm not an expert in this field.
Is there a question that I should have asked you and I
didn't? Or is there a question that
people normally ask and that I have just totally sort of not
asked? Yeah.
I think I, I think a, a, a question that we often ask
(16:11):
ourselves, You asked, you nearlyasked it I think is, is what is
holding? What, what, what, what, what?
What if I'm ACMO, What is holding me back from actually
delivering those experiences? OK.
Are you going to ask it? What is it?
Well, what's the thing? I'm like, you've got me.
(16:34):
I'm I'm, I'm stoked in what is that one thing?
Well, and I think, you know, everybody knows that consumers
expect this experience. Yeah.
And so, you know, you might ask yourself, well, why can't you
know, why can't, why can't everybrand that I'm dealing with
deliver the same experience? And, and I truly believe it's
(16:54):
actually the, the technology that's been available up until
recently just hasn't been able to offer that experience.
And, and there's a, there's a whole bunch of very large
marketing platforms out there. And what these large companies
tend to do is they build the, their customer experience
platforms through acquisition. And so they're not actually
(17:17):
solving the problem. They're, they're, they're,
they're, they're perpetuating the problem in a way.
They're creating data silos across the organisation and I
think that that's what's holdinga lot of these brands back.
And so, you know, if you can create that seamless experience
across the different channels, not only the CRM channels, but
(17:38):
the commerce channels, and get all of those systems talking
really well together, I think that that is the key that
unlocks the experience that people are expecting.
Fantastic note to finish on Ben.Thank you so much for giving up
your time. I really opened my eyes
obviously, and I almost got it right, so.
I'll take the. I don't know.
(17:59):
Four out of five stars, you'll leave us.
Feedback. On my questions, thank you very
much. Thank you so much.
Really enjoyed it, thank you.
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