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"I think a CRM is not a tool, it's a discipline, it's a system minimization of how we manage relationships across time channels and teams." - Karla Vince
In this episode of Making Sense of Martech, we host our first-ever debate to define what a CRM is and if the definition is changing as the line between B2B and B2C blurs. We're joined by Karla Vince, who leads marketing automation at Topcon Healthcare, and James Fang, Director of Product Marketing at Klaviyo. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the history of CRM, its modern definition, and where it's headed.
Highlights
*Understand the historical origins of CRM, from ancient Rome to the modern cloud-based solutions.
*Hear a lively debate on whether CRM is a B2B-only discipline or if a B2C CRM is a valid concept.
*Discover how the term CRM has expanded to include marketing, service, and analytics, and if the term is becoming overextended.
*Learn how the industry's perception of CRM is evolving and the potential for new definitions.
*Get insights into how AI is poised to reinvent the CRM, making it more proactive and predictive.
Episode Breakdown
06:57 - The surprising history of CRM, from ancient Rome to Salesforce.
09:28 - Defining CRM: Is it a discipline or a technology?
11:01 - The "C" in CRM: Who is the customer?.
12:38 - Where is the line? At what point is the term "CRM" overextended?.
15:17 - How do different business models and industry toolsets shape the definition of CRM?.
26:39 - Do B2B and B2C CRMs have parallels?.
31:12 - Did Salesforce's popularization of CRM elevate or dilute the term?.
35:11 - The future of CRM: The vision of a true 360-degree customer view.
42:12 - How AI will reinvent CRM and the role of personalization.
Key Takeaways
*CRM is both a discipline and a technology. While it has historical roots as a system for managing relationships, it has evolved into software that enables the management and analysis of customer interactions throughout the entire lifecycle.
*The definition of "customer" is contextual. In a B2B context, a customer can be a lead, a contact, an account, or a partner. In a B2C context, it can be a first-time visitor, a subscriber, or a repeat purchaser.
*The future of CRM is proactive. Instead of just being a record-keeping tool, future CRMs will use AI to offer predictive triggers, smarter workflows, and conversational intelligence.
*Competition is pushing innovation. New players and changing business models are putting pressure on traditional CRM giants to evolve, leading to new developments and improvements in their core products.
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Creators and Guests
What is Making Sense of Martech?
Unfiltered takes on the biggest shifts in marketing technology. We spotlight what matters, who's leading (or lagging), and what's next. In Martech, clarity is power — and we're here to deliver it.
00;00;06;15 - 00;00;28;12
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Making Sense of MarTech podcast, where we interview leaders and put them in the hot seat. I'm Jacqueline Friedman, founder of Monarch and global head of advisory for MarTech Weekly. Let's dove in and meet our two guests for our very first debate episode. So first off, we have Carla Vance. She leads marketing automation at Topcon Healthcare with a B2B background spanning Grammarly and role in DGA.
00;00;28;21 - 00;00;52;26
Speaker 1
She brings a sharp lens to lifecycle strategy and scalable human centered systems. She's also a Salesforce marketing champion and is on the Community Group Leaders Advisory Board. Now on to James James Fang. He is the director of product marketing at Klaviyo, where he's defining what a B2C CRM can be. He built his career at the intersection of data, identity and modern customer engagement, and he also has previously added particle.
00;00;52;26 - 00;01;19;16
Speaker 1
So the point of today's episode is really to define what CRM is and is it B2C? Is it B2B? Is it converging? Is it merging? Is it evolving? It's going to be a lively discussion. So before we fully get into the weeds, we're going to warm things up with a couple of questions, rapid fire questions. All right, Carla, first, what is the first MarTech tool you've ever use in your career?
00;01;19;22 - 00;01;23;25
Speaker 2
Funny you mention that. So Eloqua was actually my first my.
00;01;23;25 - 00;01;24;14
Speaker 1
Personal.
00;01;24;24 - 00;01;35;03
Speaker 2
I know, but it really did teach me the power of marketing automation as well as the pain points of it. So that was a good learning for sure.
00;01;35;03 - 00;01;35;17
Speaker 1
What about yourself?
00;01;35;18 - 00;01;59;21
Speaker 3
James Yeah, so as a product marketer, I was never, you know, directly creating campaigns. But Marketo was my first tool. I guess I was never parcel owner. Yeah, but at a, you know, our lifecycle marketing team had to build three trial nurture sequences for developer signups. But I would say the first martech tool I knew like end to end like intensity was obviously in particle because.
00;01;59;22 - 00;02;00;08
Speaker 1
It makes sense.
00;02;00;08 - 00;02;01;00
Speaker 3
By definition.
00;02;01;07 - 00;02;04;29
Speaker 1
All right. This one might be a little spicy. Salesforce innovator or oversold.
00;02;05;05 - 00;02;25;21
Speaker 2
I would have to say innovator. But layered with complexity, there's a lot of things, really, that I think Salesforce is leading the way when it comes to the CRM joining CRM as one of them. So I'm excited to see all of their new product releases. However, you know, there's stiff competition right now.
00;02;25;22 - 00;02;26;25
Speaker 1
Competition's a good thing.
00;02;26;29 - 00;02;30;27
Speaker 2
Yeah, which is a good thing. So I still put them in the innovator category.
00;02;31;03 - 00;02;50;06
Speaker 3
Yeah, I got to say a little bit of both. I would say they were innovative in the beginning, but it wasn't CRM. That was their innovation. It was the business model SAS. And you can't deny they invented SAS, right? Even their first product, like their UX wasn't anything special. It was always clunky and they've acquired a bunch of products over time, right.
00;02;50;08 - 00;03;00;22
Speaker 3
And bundled it all together, the suite. And so now I wouldn't say they're, I wouldn't define them as innovative. I would say they're more I hate to use the word, but a little bit of legacy, even not modern.
00;03;00;26 - 00;03;11;14
Speaker 1
Yeah, I have to tend to agree with both of you because I think it's both accurate for sure. Okay. Now what is both of your favorite CRM is? This is maybe where the debate almost begins.
00;03;12;11 - 00;03;21;18
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, I, I have to kind of play my brand here and say it's Klaviyo, but we'll dove that into a bit. Probably a traditional CRM, I would say HubSpot.
00;03;21;24 - 00;03;55;01
Speaker 2
Interesting. I've used different either B CRM systems and right now I think Salesforce is my favorite one from its scalability. However, I hate to say this, but HubSpot is pretty simple. So, you know, I'm not going to plug in HubSpot because it still lacks a lot of the integrations when it comes to like integrating with Salesforce. And from a B2B standpoint, however, like they are really making some innovative decisions to really compete with Salesforce.
00;03;55;01 - 00;03;57;02
Speaker 2
So I'm excited to see that.
00;03;57;05 - 00;04;03;27
Speaker 1
Okay. Does the term B to me trigger either one of you? I know it triggers me.
00;04;04;09 - 00;04;35;15
Speaker 2
It's a little triggering because while I understand the intention behind the hyper personalization be to me often overlooks the reality of B2B. We're not selling to isolated individuals. We're selling into buying committees, teams, accounts. The relationship isn't just with me, it's with the ecosystem. Beat of me really risks reducing that nuance of account based engagement into a consumer lens that doesn't always fit.
00;04;35;15 - 00;04;37;29
Speaker 2
So that's kind of like why it irks me.
00;04;38;08 - 00;04;38;29
Speaker 1
And what you did.
00;04;39;10 - 00;04;42;09
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's absolutely triggering because why would they add another term?
00;04;42;09 - 00;04;45;27
Speaker 1
Right, right. We have enough of an alphabet soup already.
00;04;46;09 - 00;04;56;21
Speaker 3
Yeah. And it's also not descriptive, at least B2B and B2C. It's very self-destructive. So if they really mean just 1 to 1 personalization, then just say that it's more of an accurate term.
00;04;56;21 - 00;05;02;06
Speaker 1
I agree. All right. To get a little techie, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask what CRM does your team use, starting with you?
00;05;02;06 - 00;05;13;22
Speaker 3
James Yeah, so we actually do use Salesforce for traditional opportunity sales, automation and management, but we use Klaviyo for lifecycle marketing. We drink our own champagne.
00;05;14;17 - 00;05;23;23
Speaker 2
At top on health care, we use Salesforce CRM, and we also use marketing, iCloud account engagement for the B2B marketing automation side of things.
00;05;24;14 - 00;05;26;06
Speaker 1
Pardot. Yes.
00;05;26;06 - 00;05;37;06
Speaker 2
Pardot, yes. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe I didn't mention Pardot. But yes, it's getting on me with marketing cloud account engagement or account engagement. But Pardot will always have a soft spot.
00;05;37;14 - 00;05;46;11
Speaker 1
Lives on forever. All right. Last of our rapid fire questions. Who is someone you admire professionally or personally? Either one. James, let you go first?
00;05;46;26 - 00;05;59;15
Speaker 3
Yeah, I'm going to have to say my spouse, because she's my better half and she just recently just planned a vacation. We just got back from Southeast Asia. And so she keeps me grounded. She keeps me looking forward to what really matters in life. So so.
00;05;59;26 - 00;06;00;12
Speaker 1
That's awesome.
00;06;00;19 - 00;06;27;00
Speaker 2
Yeah, I would say Steve Jobs it's kind of like a cliche for say but like he was one of those people with really a vision and such a great marketer. Now from a personality standpoint, I don't know if I would want to be friends with him. However, he was a very bright and understanding of what the consumer market and how people reacted to things and creating that excitement.
00;06;27;08 - 00;06;39;13
Speaker 2
So I'm always about understanding user behaviors and really doing responsible marketing. And so I love to see how Steve Jobs really created that excitement.
00;06;39;22 - 00;06;57;09
Speaker 1
Makes sense. All right. This is a section where I'm probably going to mess up a few times because I rarely have so much of of preps. But when I personally was diving into the history of the CRM, it was fascinating. And I tried to condense it as much as possible. But there's some interesting points that are worth at least highlighting already.
00;06;57;09 - 00;07;16;26
Speaker 1
So we have you both here on the podcast to debate the often used word meets acronym Sierra, which is also just a customer relationship management tool for sure. But before we dove in, I'd like to actually walk us through a very, very brief history of its origins, because we can't learn where we are today without knowing where it came from.
00;07;17;08 - 00;07;47;12
Speaker 1
And it goes back much further than I anticipated. Truthfully. Also, a comprehensive, unabridged version will be sent out alongside the MarTech Weekly's newsletter. If you're interested for the longer form, more historic component. So the very earliest version of a CRM dates back to ancient Rome, which is not what I was anticipating. Around 600 BCE wealthy Romans employed nomadic leaders, a.k.a, unfortunately, slaves who whispered names and details of people their masters encountered.
00;07;47;21 - 00;08;15;13
Speaker 1
It was the original unpaid CRM copilot with personalization, power, light memory. There's still some components that are very interesting. And so let's fast forward to 2500 years later into the 1930s when James Farley, FDR campaign manager, used index cards to track everything about the people Roosevelt met from spouses, kids, hobbies. The Farley file was a political CRM before software even existed.
00;08;15;14 - 00;08;39;22
Speaker 1
And so then we're going to skip 50 years and get to the 1980s and database marketing and early digital tools such as ACT and Goldmine had emerged. And then by the nineties, Siebel introduced CRM into the enterprise with on premise solutions. So we went from not only just writing it on paper to on premise, it was stored. So think of it as almost an excel file that kept.
00;08;40;00 - 00;09;07;04
Speaker 1
But then we get to the late nineties and Salesforce enters the picture and 1999 launching the cloud based CRM and pioneering the SAS model scaling while others stumbled during the dot.com bust. Meanwhile, they just kept going. And so that's the real race began for the term CRM and for a competition. And Oracle acquired Siebel. Eventually, Microsoft launched Dynamics 2004 Salesforce IPO with the ticker CRM symbol.
00;09;07;04 - 00;09;28;15
Speaker 1
And since then, newer players such as Pipedrive in 2010, HubSpot in 2014 have joined the market to help reshape the ecosystem in the landscape. Which leads us today's conversation. What in the actual heck is a CRM? And I've seen the term used differently based on business model, but what is your ultimate definition of CRM starting with CALA?
00;09;28;26 - 00;09;54;21
Speaker 2
Okay, let's it's going to be interesting. I think a CRM is not a tool, it's a discipline, it's a system minimization of how we manage relationships across time channels and teams. Topcon It's our anchor for coordinating sales, marketing and service touch point. So it's all encompassing in one. And I really do see the CRM system as we use it coined for B2B usage.
00;09;55;04 - 00;09;59;09
Speaker 1
Okay. The spicing is has begun. James, you're up. Yeah.
00;09;59;11 - 00;10;23;01
Speaker 3
I'm going to give a little bit longer answer, if that's all right. I do think actually in the modern day, despite, you know, Rolodexes and index cards, that today CRM is defined as technology, typically software that enables brands to manage and analyze customer interactions throughout the entire lifecycle. And you're absolutely right, there is a difference between a B2B CRM and the B2C CRM.
00;10;23;01 - 00;10;50;18
Speaker 3
But at the core, the intention is still the same, right? You're tracking customers through their lifecycle journey and what you need for that is at a bare minimum unified customer database, you need to record things about them relevant to your business models. If you're B2B brand, you need to record not just individual contacts but, you know, accounts, opportunities, but your B2C brands you care about, you know, first time visitors, lapsed customers, right?
00;10;50;22 - 00;11;01;05
Speaker 3
People who purchased before foundation. The fundamental thinking behind what a CRM is the same, but the required components that define a BDC in B2B CRM are different.
00;11;01;08 - 00;11;18;04
Speaker 1
Hey, so I heard the main differentiation in what you stated in terms of what we see SBC and CRM, which is the customer. And so I'm curious, starting with yourself, can this include a lead contact only a paying customer like what is customer and zero?
00;11;18;18 - 00;11;39;15
Speaker 3
Yeah, it includes all of that. But again, in the B2B context, it's a lead to contact, it's a paying customer to churn accounts in the BDC landscape. As I was saying before, it's a first time visitor, it's a list subscriber, it's someone who is part of your list but has opted out. It's a customer who's made at least one purchase.
00;11;39;16 - 00;11;46;04
Speaker 3
It's a repeat purchaser, it's a brand advocate, it's a churn labs customer. So it's all of those. And your system of record needs to record all of that.
00;11;46;04 - 00;12;09;05
Speaker 2
For me, I'm looking at it from a B2B standpoint. So absolutely the C and CRM is contextual, so you can have lead contact account partners kind of like into there. It can definitely at least in the Salesforce ecosystem, there's a robust way that you can you know, categorize them. But essentially there's three different ways that you can do it.
00;12;09;05 - 00;12;38;06
Speaker 2
So it's either a lead contact or an account. It also determines how we treat them. So how we treat an account like how we communicate to people in that certain account versus how we communicate to a lead versus a contact. So the system really does flex and hold all of those. And that's kind of why I'm gravitating more for the B2B use case, because it isn't a single contact, it's more about managing the relationships of those accounts.
00;12;38;19 - 00;13;04;28
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think you're right in terms of contextual really makes a difference. And so adding more context of the terms era, it was synonymous with literal human sales forces and automating and it was logging data, managing pipelines. And today it's some time stretches to include marketing, service, customer support and analytics. At what point is this term overextended? Where is the line in the sand?
00;13;04;28 - 00;13;07;00
Speaker 1
Do we need a new definition? Go for it.
00;13;07;02 - 00;13;36;04
Speaker 3
Yeah, actually. Can I respond to her previous comments? That's a yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was I was just curious though, Karla, like in response to your thoughts on what exclusive the B2B, you know, before we had full marketing automation in the BBC world, now people were still calling individual customers for B2C use cases following up on whether they'd buy products probably more obviously the more higher premium, the offering, you know, they're more likely to scale that way, even in that sense.
00;13;36;07 - 00;13;44;04
Speaker 3
Isn't that still a CRM like or are you just saying because we've achieved automation, we can no longer call it a CRM?
00;13;44;04 - 00;14;11;08
Speaker 2
It's kind of interesting because it kind of dives into what Jacqueline was asking about, like, if the CRM is really too stretched right now, and I think it's evolving right? So when CRM starts to mean marketing, automation, ticketing, buy and everything else, we really lose clarity. I draw the line at orchestration versus execution, so the CRM should unify, not replace specialized tools.
00;14;11;17 - 00;14;12;17
Speaker 2
That's how I see it.
00;14;12;20 - 00;14;24;27
Speaker 1
So almost as if there's still a back end with everything. And it's just the interface with which certain aspects of a team or organization navigate and leverage. Is that fair to say?
00;14;25;06 - 00;14;27;09
Speaker 2
Mm, that's a fair statement. Thank you.
00;14;27;14 - 00;14;47;25
Speaker 3
Yeah, I would disagree, of course, but and I would again point back to history like Siebel even when they launched their platform, what really made them successful was, yes, they introduced Salesforce automation. That's always one on one, but they actually built a comprehensive suite that did include sales, marketing and customer service and even the salesforce that we know today.
00;14;48;01 - 00;15;10;18
Speaker 3
Service cloud is just as big a sales cloud as is marketing cloud. I would argue the issue of why it's not used in the B2C context is there is not a single brand that you can think of that truly encompasses an all in one system on the B2C side. So no brand is able to claim that, nor do customers have a perception that there is anyone out there to offer that.
00;15;10;18 - 00;15;17;24
Speaker 3
So if there truly is something out there, then I think that is a game changer that they have the right to call themselves a B2C CRM.
00;15;17;26 - 00;15;46;26
Speaker 1
Okay, now we've got some numbers to back, some interesting perspectives that we can dove into. So I have a LinkedIn group, community of brand side marketers as well as consultants only, no vendors allowed. And I asked this very question and 75% of the community viewed Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive as examples is truth your serums meanwhile 21% selected other to explain.
00;15;46;26 - 00;16;18;25
Speaker 1
While no single tool fully embodies a CRM, it's still owned by those previous players. So that ultimately is 96% aligned. While only 4% saw Klaviyo raise interval marketing cloud as EMS. Personally I would group those and to see EPS, customer engagement platforms, maps, marketing automation platforms or ISP's email service providers are all synonymous in my opinion, which is a whole other ball of acronyms, soups and or as Teyana Taylor at the Magic Weekly has coined for magnetics.
00;16;18;27 - 00;16;37;22
Speaker 1
Have you observed how this definition is evolving in your workspace and responses to maybe the changes in business model industry toolset? I know clearly you have experience doing B2B to C and B to C to B, and I'm curious kind of how this all interplays and the James after.
00;16;37;25 - 00;16;58;19
Speaker 2
It is interesting. I have worked in the beta B market space like right now at Topcon Healthcare. It is more B2B. However, at Roland-Garros it was a channel marketing as well, so it was B2B to be an anagram really. It was B2B to C, right? So it's like.
00;16;58;27 - 00;16;59;29
Speaker 1
I think it was B2C to.
00;16;59;29 - 00;17;21;28
Speaker 2
B Yeah. B2C C to all these acronyms. But what was interesting is that like at GRAMMARLY, kind of similar to what James was mentioning, we have two different platforms, right? We had the marketing cloud account engagement side to manage the relationships between the B2B side and then for lifecycle, we had marketing cloud, the ExactTarget side of.
00;17;21;28 - 00;17;25;13
Speaker 1
Things and then eventually Iterable also in replacement.
00;17;25;13 - 00;17;54;10
Speaker 2
Eventually iterable that we moved into. But we always had, you know, like high touch and databricks. So like the databricks portion of things was like our information hub where all the data was stored between the B2B and B2C portion of things. But we separated Salesforce for the CRM portion for true customer relationship management systems. So managing account relationships, managing those opportunities and campaigns influence all of that.
00;17;54;16 - 00;18;19;14
Speaker 2
So I almost feel like, you know, it's still held to the core of what a beta be CRM system does because even when we had this, you know, direct to consumer side of the House, we didn't necessarily integrate it into our our Salesforce system. We had it in our databricks to pull some of that data, pull it back for like our gtlm, you know, approach.
00;18;19;16 - 00;18;27;14
Speaker 2
But product light duty approach. So it's still kind of true what I think James is trying to say with Klaviyo and I think you're right.
00;18;27;29 - 00;18;28;06
Speaker 1
Yeah.
00;18;28;20 - 00;18;51;28
Speaker 2
With Klaviyo. I have to be honest, I have not used it, so I'm always open to using new tech and learning new tack. But it does seem like what is described at least from what I hear from James, it's almost like a marketing automation tool of communication relations, which is kind of like what we're doing with marketing cloud ExactTarget for the consumer side of the house.
00;18;51;28 - 00;19;15;22
Speaker 2
You know, I almost feel like do you have to coin it as a CRM because maybe there is a space for those like, you know, product offering that is more targeted to the consumer side of the house, but it doesn't necessarily have to fit into the CRM, which is really something that is coined for the B2B use case in my opinion.
00;19;16;00 - 00;19;18;08
Speaker 2
But yeah, I'd like to hear from James.
00;19;18;28 - 00;19;48;08
Speaker 3
Yeah, of course. Yeah. So so first of all, Jacki, I'm going to respond to your your pull to your readers. And I would say it absolutely matches what I said earlier, which is, you're right, the industry's perception is there is no such B2C, CRM. And the key difference, I would argue, between like I gave you and some of those other vendors you listed, Braze Iterable, you know, the C EPS maps is they don't have a service offering and they never claimed they had a service offering.
00;19;48;21 - 00;20;11;29
Speaker 3
But Klaviyo when they announced B2C, CRM, it wasn't just, oh yeah, we're the only B2C CRM. Here's Klaviyo service. You can create tickets in them, you can assign them to SKUs and agents, you know, and there's a website again, it's service contextualized, the B2C, we're not talking integration to call centers and you know consumers, as you know, don't want to talk to a live person.
00;20;12;06 - 00;20;38;09
Speaker 3
They want self-service. Right. But it is a full stack CRM for B2C. And those other players don't have that. Right. So that's where the claim comes. We are not just the CPG anymore. You have to elevate us to something that's different. And traditionally in the BDC world, that's a messy tech stack and you would integrate those data points together because you want to know some customer just came off an irate ticket, they gave you one star rating.
00;20;38;15 - 00;21;09;00
Speaker 3
I'm not going to send them, you know, buy my premium item, I'm going to send them. Here's a 10% discount. Please stay with me. Right. So and there's power when all those tools are not just integrated together, stitched together, but when it's all unified one interface, you know, no data thinking required. And the other point I wanted to make is I totally get there are, you know, brands out there like Grammarly and even in the BBC world, I think of brands like, you know, like a maybe a Wells Fargo or a Nike.
00;21;09;12 - 00;21;37;25
Speaker 3
Right. And they're going to have very sophisticated data engineering teams. They're Databricks or they're Snowflake is going to be super clean. They're going to have, you know, whatever ETL tool and everything piped in. But Klaviyo has 167,000 brands and a lot of those brands, right for them there are a single team, maybe even one person for both lifecycle marketing and in some cases even even support or maybe two bodies.
00;21;37;25 - 00;22;04;19
Speaker 3
Right. And they cannot afford, again, this complicated, you know, construction of a machine of multiple components to build what they need to deliver, which is a unified end to end experience. So I do see a bifurcation of the market that's very clear that we're the ones only, I would say, towards the top that have that luxury of that technical resource can build very sophisticated stack.
00;22;05;04 - 00;22;06;25
Speaker 3
Is everyone else looking for something simplified.
00;22;06;29 - 00;22;30;13
Speaker 1
Something I kept hearing from the both of you is of course we're talking about the end user, whether that is a paying customer or potentially that could be a paying customer. I kept hearing words that work, usually customer, and oftentimes in B2C, I hear paying user or just users because I mean, I may use w a use that is a very common B2C term.
00;22;30;20 - 00;22;41;06
Speaker 1
And so I'm curious if maybe we're seeing customer as a different term altogether and is that maybe the the line in the sand that we needed to properly discuss? Yeah.
00;22;41;06 - 00;23;04;19
Speaker 3
And I want to actually combine my answer with actually I didn't address your previous question is what about different business models? And I would say even within B2C, there's nuance. Yes, you have your traditional commerce and that's fairly straightforward. To your point, it's your customer. They've purchased something, they have purchased something. But then you also have service oriented businesses and they operate by appointments, bookings, subscriptions.
00;23;05;06 - 00;23;29;12
Speaker 3
Right. And then they may even care about household. To them, that is an entity, right? Because you don't buy Netflix subscriptions as an individual, you're you could typically you share them among your household. So even within B2C, CRM, you're starting to see there's complex data structures that need to be formed, which is why I go back to I don't think that, you know, it's just B2B that needs a CRM.
00;23;29;12 - 00;23;54;26
Speaker 3
You need a sophisticated system if you truly want to service a business that is able to handle that. The other point I would say is I've also seen in the BDC world like Vertical Eyes serums, sometimes they'll call themselves verticals point of sale or vertically seeps, use something else besides CRM. But you know, especially for example in the restaurant business or you know, you think of something like a toast or like an Olo, right?
00;23;54;26 - 00;24;15;04
Speaker 3
Or in the hospitality business, right? So there is going to be folks who want to say, I'm very dedicated to that. And not only will I offer a CRM, but I'm going to also offer, you know, reservation functionality or, you know, table management, whatever it is, right? So we're seeing different approaches, but the need is still there. They need to manage customers at the end of the day.
00;24;15;16 - 00;24;17;10
Speaker 1
Said, All right, Carlos, you're up.
00;24;17;18 - 00;24;44;16
Speaker 2
Yeah, it is interesting because like, even though like the CRM has a customer in it, the actual fields are not customer, right? So leads is not necessarily a customer, it's more of a prospect, right? But we're still building that relationship between those leads or prospects, contacts. Once they have converted and accounts when they have an opportunity, associate it to it.
00;24;44;16 - 00;25;12;22
Speaker 2
So I do think that, you know, it's something to do with pipeline management is what it really comes down to from a B2B perspective, because all of them are touchpoints to become an either a customer like a prospect that has identified that there is a need or there is something we could sell to or an account that we are going to then expand our relationship with.
00;25;13;05 - 00;25;45;01
Speaker 2
Either we upsell or we continue those relationships, things like that. But the whole like the holistically looking at it, I think it's just coined with customer relationship management because it's still very to the core, right? Once it becomes of contact, once it becomes there's an opportunity. Close one, you are continuing that relationship. When it's a prospect, you're still prospecting and continuing that relationship or not prospecting side of things.
00;25;45;01 - 00;26;00;04
Speaker 2
So it is interesting because even in CRM, customer feel doesn't necessarily exist in in Salesforce. So it's account lead and contact. So but it's all kind of tied into how we interact.
00;26;00;11 - 00;26;24;14
Speaker 3
Yeah, I would say though that surprisingly there are a lot of parallels. So for example, when you talk about committed air, right, which is a to account in the BBC world, that's just customer lifetime value, right? You know, when you talk about upside, that's predictive customer lifetime value, right? So just like clarity, I can tell you how much you can get out of, you know, your remaining accounts.
00;26;24;21 - 00;26;38;11
Speaker 3
Proper B2C, CRM should be able to tell you these are the folks that are most likely for you to spend your time on and get the most upside from it. So there are I would argue there are a lot of parallels, which is why I justify the use of CRM across both categories.
00;26;39;01 - 00;27;04;15
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think that traditionally with CRM really it is to do with a salesforce. So like I'm curious from the B2C side of things, do we have a salesforce that's managing the IS relationships between the customers and upselling and then, you know, having that like opportunity creation with commission, things like that? Or is it more really, truly direct model?
00;27;04;15 - 00;27;25;14
Speaker 3
Yeah, absolutely. And it's a matter of scale, right? When you're talking about thousands of accounts versus millions of customers, there is no way you're touching millions of customers. So you to see has moved towards automation, which is why yes, like it is about setting up pre-built rules and triggers, but maybe even in the future it is even autonomously driven.
00;27;25;29 - 00;27;28;23
Speaker 3
That is the future of I would say would be the CRMs.
00;27;28;24 - 00;27;54;20
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I don't think the B2B side of the CRM will ever be autonomous because it's just going to, you know, have that sales team. So and I think that's really the reason why I'm trying to understand why, you know, a tool like Klaviyo is trying to coin CRM when I think there is a unique market for the use case of the B2C use case.
00;27;54;28 - 00;28;31;02
Speaker 2
However, it doesn't necessarily have to be a CRM. I think it's it's its own unique thing and it's you could almost separate it out and that may actually drive people more to understand that tool. I think there might be friction currently because there is such a strong identity with B2B being coined for CRM that it may almost benefit, I think Klaviyo to have its own but not try to take on your CRM giant, if that's what I'm saying.
00;28;31;12 - 00;29;02;12
Speaker 3
Yeah. And I definitely hear you. And we've got, we've definitely spoken to customers who've said why would you pick that? You know, it's confusing as heck. We've all had to say, no, we're not launching a new product. It is our re categorization of our category to new product. We launched this Klaviyo service. That's what you actually get. But and I know this frustrates you, Jacqueline, but there are people with a titles CRM manager in the BDC world and when they traditionally speak of what we've learned, it is to your point earlier, it is the system ization of that customer relationship management in their world.
00;29;02;20 - 00;29;20;27
Speaker 3
And typically what they mean is they own, you know, a collection of tools, the CDP and usually the marketing automation platform or the collection of all the channels that operate that. And then they pointed under that umbrella and we're just saying, well, all that. And if you that's what you call yourself, that will be the single tool that owns that space for you.
00;29;21;01 - 00;29;52;03
Speaker 1
That's fair, especially if you think through originally where marketers were doing segmentation was the term database marketing. So I understand the natural evolution of grasping on to the term. It does make sense, but at the same time doesn't describe what your job is that a lifecycle doesn't I would argue lifecycle. I personally think lifecycle is top to bottom the entire customer journey regardless of B to B or B to C.
00;29;52;03 - 00;30;17;10
Speaker 1
I don't believe in separating things out from dimension to lifecycle, but that's maybe just my own personal viewpoint, and I know that's not what many others think, but I'd be curious if maybe it is like we are the lifecycle database. We are the lifecycle automation platform almost. Would you recommend these marketers actually just call themselves lifecycle marketers instead of CRM or head of CRM?
00;30;17;22 - 00;30;19;04
Speaker 1
CRM marketer, you name it.
00;30;19;17 - 00;30;31;23
Speaker 3
Yeah, I don't think I have a good answer for you because I think ultimately, you know, there is already a lot of confusion and then to throw it even out there again, I came from a CDP vendor and now that's a dirty word to it.
00;30;31;23 - 00;30;32;15
Speaker 1
Should it be.
00;30;32;26 - 00;30;52;17
Speaker 3
No one wants to call themselves a CDP anymore? So to your point, I think it's left a void and people don't know what to call it because it is the database plus the execution. It's not just the execution by itself. And to your point, maybe there are very skilled lifecycle marketers who know their data very well.
00;30;52;17 - 00;30;55;09
Speaker 1
They better. Otherwise they can create it.
00;30;55;09 - 00;31;08;03
Speaker 3
They can transform it, they can do all the things that a super technical data marketer can do. Absolutely. Then maybe they're deserving of, you know, an elevated title or maybe not. Right. And how do they separate themselves from those who are just.
00;31;08;18 - 00;31;10;08
Speaker 1
You know. But is it actually elevated?
00;31;10;08 - 00;31;11;28
Speaker 3
Yeah, I don't know.
00;31;12;25 - 00;31;37;13
Speaker 1
It's over. So to kind of take a step back from definitions, I think we've been having a lot of fun, you know, kind of playfully navigating it together. I'm curious, with Salesforce having really popularized the term. Yes. Dates back a very long time as we kind of talked through. But in the past 25, 30 years, it's really the defining workforce of this term.
00;31;37;22 - 00;31;47;15
Speaker 1
And so do we see them as having elevated what a CRM is or actually the deluded and confused things for all of us navigating this landscape?
00;31;47;22 - 00;32;16;16
Speaker 2
I feel like they've expanded it. It's not either elevated or diluted, but I feel like they have expanded it and I think that's both powerful and problematic at the same time. It's almost like a swift Swiss army knife now. So, you know, but sometimes you just need a scalpel with Salesforce products. It's it is very interesting, right, because they've acquired a lot of different organizations and then try to incorporate them into their CRM.
00;32;16;16 - 00;32;44;03
Speaker 2
And I think the scalability is there. It's just that sometimes, as you know, with Salesforce, they always have a message that they show before every single presentation about that. This is not you know, it's just like a foreshadowing of what's to come, but it's not really definite. So it's they have a vision, but it's sometimes very fluid and it's sometimes very hard to predict.
00;32;44;12 - 00;33;12;29
Speaker 2
And I feel almost really bad because I love Salesforce and everything. But once they do a product release, I typically wait two years because they're still flushing things out. The integration is still funky sometimes. So in order for me to really invest in the product, unless they're making allowing us to be beta testers, I usually wait a little bit of time so that they can get ready for their readiness.
00;33;12;29 - 00;33;17;22
Speaker 2
Right. I hope that I kind of answered the question, but I do think that they have really expanded.
00;33;18;12 - 00;33;43;19
Speaker 3
Yeah, I would say absolutely. They did expand it and they did a lot of things right. AppExchange, for example, allowing people to build on top of their ecosystem like that, anchors in down even more. But I think where they are right now is they've grown so big and put their arms into so many things like their whole big agent force thing and then, you know, them also trying to get into Commerce Cloud and all the verticals like.
00;33;43;27 - 00;34;04;04
Speaker 3
And then you know, B and C, they're frankly losing to a lot of these specialized B2C players. And so they have to pick what is our core business like? Do we want to attempt to win in all of these or say we're doubling down on these areas? And to your point, Kayla, they might lose their core if they're not careful.
00;34;04;04 - 00;34;05;01
Speaker 3
So, oh.
00;34;05;02 - 00;34;34;08
Speaker 2
I definitely agree with you as a person who's been and, you know, Salesforce for over ten years, I see that they should be probably sweating with new CRM coming up, but I think that's good pressure. I think that is finally going to give them more, you know, post it, call like push to the metal like gas to the metal incentive to really work on their core products and improve them because they still have the majority share.
00;34;34;08 - 00;34;47;15
Speaker 2
It comes to the CRM systems, but they can't be comfortable and only then can they really be more innovative, right? Once they start feeling that pressure. So as a user, I'm excited for that and I welcome competition.
00;34;48;13 - 00;35;11;10
Speaker 1
I'm personally very excited that HubSpot has been increasing their abilities to deliver it. And to your point, Karla, maybe we wait two months instead of two years on which truthfully you you don't want to be. It's just like getting a new car model. You want to wait a few years into that specific car model to ensure you're not getting any recalls.
00;35;11;23 - 00;35;47;12
Speaker 1
They need to learn from the bugs that they didn't anticipate the corner cases. Their customers push tools to the edge because that's one of my favorite things is stress test tools and see how far I can limit them and really help them scale further. I've got a question and a suggestion, so I have a big vision personally of what CRM should be, and I see it as a centralized data warehouse that feeds into an interface acting like companies, entire brain flowing from every source, powering a true 360 degree customer view.
00;35;47;12 - 00;36;10;13
Speaker 1
Which who's ever done that? I don't know if that is driving strategy, decision making, experimentation. And this is not a unique vision concept. This is not my own, but it's also snake oil. We've been sold it for literally, what, ten, 15 years that certain companies can do this. So how do you both foresee this ever becoming a possibility?
00;36;10;13 - 00;36;13;18
Speaker 1
And do you see this even being a CRM or is it something altogether different?
00;36;14;02 - 00;36;43;10
Speaker 3
I think that is where a lot of companies, frankly, are already building towards today. The difference, I would say, though, again, is for some companies, that data warehouse is a separate thing. It's not embedded into the CRM itself. So almost like it's a headless system, the backend is that database and then they have a separate UX front end to drive all the action on top of that and that front end could be a collection of tools, maybe one for each channel, right?
00;36;43;14 - 00;37;02;26
Speaker 3
Again, very common, I would say, especially if you are more of a legacy enterprise that have stitched together all these things over time. It's very hard to unwind all that. But I do see a future where more modern companies, maybe they build from a very unified platform. An example that we see Commerce Common is in the commerce use case.
00;37;03;00 - 00;37;31;28
Speaker 3
Shopify is growing very fast and Commerce brands will latch on to Shopify as, Hey, this is going to be our one platform for merchandizing, for localization, for, you know, all of that. And then we want one single platform to do the rest, to do all of our customer engagement. And so, yes, for these more modern and younger brands, I see that reality happening in a more again, simplified architecture.
00;37;31;29 - 00;37;55;09
Speaker 2
I somewhat agree with what you're saying, James. I really think like what's holding the CRM back right now is the interoperability and trust layer in the data layer. So I think the clean architecture is really important and we have to be able to have shared definitions because I feel like that's the missing link to a true three six view.
00;37;55;21 - 00;38;26;13
Speaker 2
So right now with, Salesforce, they are introducing data cloud, right? That's kind of trying to do this again, just like I give two years, right? So they're still, you know, defining what that is, the pricing models, all of that, at least to say the least. Right. So they are trying to get there, although Customer 360 has been, I think promoted by Salesforce, like among others.
00;38;26;13 - 00;38;28;07
Speaker 1
Yeah, looks like they are.
00;38;28;14 - 00;38;53;23
Speaker 2
For a while now. Right. So it's, that's why I'm thinking like it's just a name change. It's from CDP to data cloud, you know. So I don't know, I feel like they need more definition, right? Like for that, what does the architecture look like? But internally to any CRM itself needs a defined architecture needs like the definitions in order to really utilize the data anyway.
00;38;54;05 - 00;39;18;05
Speaker 2
So that's kind of where at like I think that that's holding back the CRM a little bit. You know, when we're looking at a B2B standpoint, some organizations want to separate their data, right? So keep their B2B data in Salesforce, maybe like the B2C data in, you know, databricks like like what? Grammarly because of the number of records, right?
00;39;18;12 - 00;39;27;09
Speaker 2
Like Grammarly as crazy, crazy amount of records. So if we were to push that all into a CRM, it can be very, very expensive.
00;39;27;18 - 00;39;34;00
Speaker 1
So also potentially slow down a platform no matter is when you're doing in the hundreds of hundreds of millions.
00;39;34;11 - 00;39;54;10
Speaker 2
Oh, yes. We were notorious for breaking the systems. Right. So that's the fun part. That's the fun part. But I think like a lot of the CRM providers have this goal right to do the 360 of you. Now, who's going to get there first, right, and successfully really launch it. So that's what I'm kind of taking a look at.
00;39;54;10 - 00;40;26;13
Speaker 2
I am tech agnostic, so I like to, you know, dove my hands into everything just right now with Salesforce, it's just it's ingrained with a lot of enterprise use cases, which is definitely still, I think the number one CRM provider with from a B2B standpoint. But that doesn't mean that I'm not interested in learning more about other CRM providers, and I've actually utilized different CRM providers from HubSpot to Microsoft Dynamics.
00;40;26;13 - 00;40;30;00
Speaker 1
And as she wears her trailblazer. SWEATSHIRT Oh.
00;40;30;00 - 00;40;35;03
Speaker 2
Yeah, right. Yeah. And and even homegrown ones which.
00;40;35;03 - 00;40;36;00
Speaker 1
Are that's a nightmare.
00;40;36;07 - 00;40;55;10
Speaker 2
Not recommended whatsoever. But yeah, there's like I love being challenged and I love learning about the different use cases. So, you know, I want to keep Salesforce under pressure, right? So that they can improve because there is a lot of good with Salesforce. But I would love to see more innovation.
00;40;55;17 - 00;40;55;27
Speaker 3
Yeah.
00;40;56;02 - 00;40;56;25
Speaker 2
From their side.
00;40;57;01 - 00;41;19;15
Speaker 3
Yeah. The only thing I would add is I think a lot of brands, including Salesforce, can achieve quote unquote 360 degree customer. But I think you need to go beyond just saying we have three tools that give you that. The hard work is saying, I don't need to create a segment in both cloud and data cloud. Your one company can you do the hard work of replatforming?
00;41;19;15 - 00;41;43;28
Speaker 3
So that one data object is the underlying foundation that can, you know, move between your own products. And that's where, you know, someone more modern. Again, I'm making my Klaviyo pitch where we didn't have to integrate and stitch together. 20 acquisitions can say that's exactly how we built it from the ground up. So you have the inherent, you know, unified data layer from the get go.
00;41;44;10 - 00;42;12;03
Speaker 1
I'll challenge you slightly in terms of if we're working with the company that are working at a company that has API or has too many regulations, think there's certain and that's technically both B2B and B2C, the actual patients. And so yeah, when there are ethical and regulatory aspects, all in one is not always the right solution. And of course we should have options no matter what industry you're in to choose from.
00;42;12;10 - 00;42;38;18
Speaker 1
All right, I've got one last question. So we've been to your point, Carla, looking at some forward looking thoughts and statements and so continuing to look ahead. Do you both see the CRM becoming obsolete, reinvented, especially with AI? MCP is coming into play. Where does personalization come into this? And managing relationship? I almost believe that the real answer is the interface.
00;42;38;18 - 00;42;47;00
Speaker 1
Who is going to win the front end? It's everything in the back end just has to plug in. And so I'm curious what you guys think's going to happen next.
00;42;47;05 - 00;43;16;25
Speaker 2
I think it's going to be reinvented. So right now, the races with AI, I think and I think it's going to become more proactive. I don't think it's just going to be a record keeper. There is going to be more predictive triggers, smarter workflows and more conversational intelligence is what I kind of see happening with the CRM in the future, like Salesforce is plugging in those features already.
00;43;17;04 - 00;43;39;03
Speaker 2
But again, it's that caveat, right? It's not fully fleshed out yet. So but I could see how like that is the right direction to go into. I'm also, you know, not just with the CRM, but, you know, from the Web perspective to like how people come in and how we're going to engage with them. Now we're seeing a lot more agents, things like that.
00;43;39;03 - 00;43;44;06
Speaker 2
So I do think that, you know, it's only a matter of time that it's going to be reinvented.
00;43;44;23 - 00;44;09;09
Speaker 1
A great analysis where HubSpot currently has the advantage. They're the first to launch and KPIs with opening AI in a direct partnership, and that's already light years ahead of where Salesforce is. Granted, time will tell, but it's definitely an intriguing concept of what if we're having our agents speak to our customers? Does that mean we're no longer managing our customers because there's fewer people involved?
00;44;09;09 - 00;44;09;21
Speaker 1
I don't know.
00;44;10;06 - 00;44;49;24
Speaker 2
Just to answer like right now, we're we're our team is working on incorporating agents, but it's because we are a company that has area sales managers. But we don't have a BTR team. So essentially agents is going to work as a team to help our ground force area sales managers. So we still have the people component because I am a huge believer that I should not replace people, that we should work together and it should help alleviate some of the work but still require people to manage and oversight things.
00;44;49;24 - 00;45;09;13
Speaker 3
So yeah, I was just going to add totally agree that the next frontier in this space is, is definitely A.I. but what we've seen is I think there is also, again, a bifurcation in market. I think when you go down market again, when you resource constraints, when you don't know how to, you know, to embed them into their platform and almost make decisions for them.
00;45;09;18 - 00;45;35;29
Speaker 3
Can you just give me an agent that autonomously picks my campaigns, picks my audience, is fine, tunes optimizes as you move up market, then you'll have more and more of, hey, I don't want to just operate blindly. I want to know which decisions you're making and I want to be able to influence them. And when you go all the way upmarket, then you're like, No, have our own open API key, know you're plugging into us, we're calling your APIs, we need an MCP server.
00;45;35;29 - 00;45;41;02
Speaker 3
So again, that's the frontier. But it's interesting to see you know, when it's just building.
00;45;41;06 - 00;46;14;07
Speaker 1
So to your point, James, it really sounds in a lot of capacities that the maturity of an organization, the scale of the organization and the complexity of the organization is actually maybe the real defining aspect of Sierra more than anything else. It's it's kind of like you've got all these different scale up, scaled down, that impact exactly what you need because to your point, some companies be plug and play versus others want to architected and maybe ultimately and this is a complete guess that's what a CRM is.
00;46;14;08 - 00;46;25;13
Speaker 1
It just depends on where in the maturity aspect your target company is. Whether you're up market, down market, maybe that's the answer. And we solved all the world's problems. I don't know. Or created some new ones.
00;46;26;05 - 00;46;36;23
Speaker 3
Yeah, I would, I would say that. And still all the business models and still be to be able to see it's all of that combined. People want something tailored for them you know how you know people buy so yeah.
00;46;37;05 - 00;46;51;04
Speaker 1
So awesome. Well thank you both Carla and James for one such a lively debate and also polite debate because it could have gotten heated. But thankfully, it's pretty cool for the hot seat. Where can folks find you?
00;46;51;06 - 00;47;11;23
Speaker 2
Follow me on LinkedIn so you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm also a B2B marketers community group leader, so if you had to be in a more closed setting space, feel free to join my group and we have discussions about MarTech and just where it's going with the different use cases for B2B marketing. So excited to see that.
00;47;11;23 - 00;47;15;16
Speaker 2
But you can find me on LinkedIn. Happy to connect with everyone.
00;47;15;23 - 00;47;22;00
Speaker 3
Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn as well too. I'm not as popular as Kalen. I didn't million groups but I'll be here and you follow.
00;47;22;10 - 00;47;26;08
Speaker 1
Well thank you both really appreciate it.