What allows these non-intrusive contacts with them? Our customer database. At BMW, this little jewel of ours is at the center of all attention... Mr Gwenaël Marchadour, the goldsmith of this unparalleled relationship marketing, explains his vision and details how WDM France contributed to this success.
INTERVIEW
"Maintaining a clean database ensures that we stay in touch with our clients and improve customer satisfaction"
Your first collaboration with the WDM France Group dates back to 2002. What was your objective at the time?
We were just starting our CRM policy and therefore we were looking for a solution that would improve as well as geo-code our data.
What was the first step?
We moved forward step by step… First, our addresses were restructured and normalized. The moved addresses were also updated. Then we had the telephone numbers worked on, which enabled us to further decrease the volume of our non-delivered mail. We then put in place a process to have both BtoB and BtoC addresses treated. Finally, we focused our efforts in improving the Line 1 of our addresses. This will have to be dealt with for quite a long time still.
Why, you mean line 1 is always wrong?
The line 1 of an address is really important as it touches intimately the person who receives the letter, when his/her name is wrong, misspelled or truncated.
What have you learned with this first step?
Focusing on address quality was very instructive to us. Until then, we only received some fifty postcards per year from La Poste which indicated the movers. This was not satisfactory. We have therefore made the decision to systematize the update of our client database. We use our database in order to send the BMW Magazine 4 times per year to the customers of a new vehicle.
The magazine is an essential element of our customer loyalty building policy as our subscribers eagerly await it. To have a clean and updated database ensures us we keep in touch with our clients and improve customer satisfaction.
In 2006 you launched a large invitation to tender, won by WDM France. What motivated your approach?
2006 was the starting point of a new strategy at BMW based on relationship marketing, which would give more autonomy to car dealers. The main objective was to facilitate the dealership activities of relationship marketing. The dealerships are highly professionalized but also with very operational structures. This strategy is also called “enabling”.
What has changed with this new strategy?
We have to admit that until then CRM was rather suffered by a dealer network which was paradoxically very attentive to customer loyalty building and obviously sensitive to prospecting new clients. They had adequate communication tools, but could feel a little frustrated when dealing with the creation of direct marketing campaigns that would be efficient and at the same time complying with the brand codes. By providing an easy to use and economically competitive toolbox, we have started to reconcile both manufacturer and distributor points of view. Our dealers are indeed more active and they now launch better targeted campaigns.
In 2007 you decided that WDM France should interact not only with the Marketing Department, but also with each dealership directly. A year later, what have you learned from this decentralized process?
It is important to combine the automotive network sensibility and the expertise in nominative data. We made the choice to start with the expertise in all aspects of personal data and to acquire the knowledge needed to support the premium automobile distribution.
What do you mean by "network sensibility”?
In the automotive industry, it means being attentive to the various concerns of structures which are different in size and which vary greatly in terms of maturity in the direct marketing activity. In other words, it means delivering to the network the exact same things that the customers are expecting from the network: high availability and a permanent sense of service.
What was WDM France’s contribution to that effect?
When you want to be listened by an automotive network, you have to be credible. Knowing the subtleties of the premium car market is a prerequisite. Being familiar with all the other tools available to the network, the product launches and the future campaigns is essential. This means very regular briefings between BMW and WDM France.
At the same time, you provided the dealers with an innovative Web to Print solution. What does it implies in terms of tactics and organization?
To be easy to use, such a solution requires the support of all the actors involved. This implies that they find it interesting: arguments like a total compliance with the visual identity plan, lower costs or increased business activity were used in order to make everyone accept the necessary compromises.
In France, do you refer to the Best Practices developed successfully in the Group? Yes, we have access to a platform where Best Practices are shared.
The car manufacturer websites usually offer fairly sophisticated features: custom configuration of one’s car, appointments with one’s dealer… From your perspective what place the various “printed” channels (Welcome Pack, mailings, magazine…) will have in the future in a multi-channel environment?
Not so long ago the printed channel was given up for dead. Yet it is not. In my business its place is rather changing fundamentally.
To be further convinced you just need to put yourself in the shoes of a future car buyer.
You can now set the desired car realistically, save it in a virtual garage, consult an electronic catalogue, simulate funding. But all the leathers do not feel the same and with the web you cannot experience the pleasure of driving: assess seat adjustment, passenger cell soundproof walls, car’s road holding...
Who, after having surfed on the net for some time, has not felt a little frustrated with this lack of concrete elements?
This is when the printed materials come into play. You can order a catalog for example.
The printed channels will have to bring real additional elements, and not just only be some cardboard with some air… Either by playing with the materials and the forms, or by playing with the added value provided by the content: an entry card being the central element of a more or less complex but most of all well-thought of Customer Relationship Management…
How do you see your magazine grow?
The BMW Magazine is yet another example of the print use. Its resolutely lifestyle-oriented editorial line has made it essential to customers. In it you will find articles about our products and services of course, but also about travel, architecture, personalities and projects. And to that purpose the overall quality has been here again greatly examined: the paper quality, the use of blister, but also the address of course!