2.05. What can I expect from a CRM?

In the world of data management, Customer Relationship Management software (CRMs) play a key role. Yet many of us confuse the roles and functionalities specific to CRMs and ticketing systems. These two tools are fundamentally different: they serve different purposes, generate and process different types of data, and operate at different levels within your marketing strategy.

So, what exactly is a CRM, and what can you realistically expect from it?  

The CRM centralizes data related to an organization's clients (in this case, a visitor, spectator, or user). It is used to study the relationship - in other words, the journey - of individuals in connection with your cultural venue.

This is the key distinction from ticketing software: ticketing systems are not designed to aggregate external data¹, but rather to operate and record booking and payment transactions efficiently. That's why a CRM and a ticketing system should not be confused: a tool that does not aggregate data from different sources is not a CRM.

The client database within ticketing software, though sometimes detailed, does not illuminate user journeys in the way a CRM does. Beyond the descriptive or consumption data recorded by a ticketing system (which shows what shows someone booked, at what price, for which date, and when), the CRM also leverages data about how the transaction occurred (when and how people buy, how regularly, etc.). This allows the CRM to identify behavioral groups, and it can further incorporate broader information about what may have triggered the purchase - such as an email campaign, a text message, a call from a group, participation in an outreach activity, or concurrent exposure to signage or digital marketing.

This enables one to identify and characterize a spectator's level of loyalty and understand how consumption evolves within a venue. The CRM's ability to cross-reference this variety of data types is what defines it and gives it purpose: to map purchase or booking journeys and analyze behaviors for deeper insight. A CRM can reveal so-called conversion funnels - the path an online visitor took to make a reservation (e.g., did they come via a web search, a digital ad, a newsletter, etc.). A dedicated sheet explores these different conversion funnels (see link).  

Beyond its crucial role in activating data for marketing actions, the CRM also serves as a database and acts as a support tool for audience engagement and "customer service" operations.

The practical guide "Implementing Contact Relationship Management (CRM) Projects in Cultural Institutions", published by the French Ministry of Culture in 2020, identifies six main categories of functionalities  

According to the practical guide from the Ministry of Culture, a CRM can and should assist a cultural organization in achieving the following objectives:

• Provide better knowledge of audiences by aggregating numerous data from different sources (emailing solution, SMS sending, surveys, quality monitoring, loyalty program, direct contact actions...)
• Better tailor the service offer surrounding the organization's cultural programming to more accurately meet the needs and desires of the audience.
• Improve the "conversion rate" of contacts by making communication and marketing actions more efficient, sometimes through automation (marketing automation).
• At the same time, enhance the institution's communication and the audience's experience through its ability to deliver "the right message, to the right person, at the right time, and on the right communication channel." In the same vein, it allows prioritizing communication actions and preventing over-solicitation.

From the perspective of the teams, it must:

• Provide increased efficiency by automating or simplifying time-consuming tasks.
• Support the autonomy and upskilling of teams, provided that the evolution of practices required by CRM integration is genuine and supported.
• Enable greater cross-functionality, as it requires the sharing of data and collaboration between departments for its implementation, as well as for its ongoing maintenance and updates (among ticketing, communication, audience relations, group management teams, but also sponsorship, administration, production, management, etc.)
• Ensure better compliance with data protection regulations, namely the GDPR (link to the relevant sheet). Through better tracking of communication actions towards audiences, the CRM allows, for example, the monitoring of unsubscribe actions, ensuring the legitimate interest behind your mailings, and preventing the over-solicitation of individuals.  

• (FR) Déploiement de projets de Gestion de la Relation Contacts (GRC) au sein des institutions culturelles (external link), Département de l’innovation numérique du ministère de la Culture, TMNlab, 2020
• (EN) 5 ways a CRM can boost your biz and build your audience (external link), Helen Dunnett Consulting, AMAculturehive, 2021