VIP for everyone: how CRM is changing

Ask a CRM manager to describe their week a few years ago and the answer would have been familiar to anyone in the industry.

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Build the segments, brief the creative, schedule the campaigns. Then analyse and repeat.

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It worked well for many years, but the rhythm is quickly changing and the old techniques are no longer enough.

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The CRM manager's job is shifting from deciding which campaigns to send to which segments, towards setting the strategy for thousands of individual player relationships. It's a fundamental change in how teams work, and what they're ultimately responsible for. 

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Players expect to be known

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The only place to start is with the player. Over the last decade, we’ve all become accustomed to enjoying deeply personal digital experiences, whether that’s the music Spotify recommends us or the jobs LinkedIn tells us to apply for.

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I think it is fair to say that the iGaming industry hasn’t quite kept pace. With the expectation most of us have now developed for uncannily personalised recommendations, a generic reload bonus landing in your email doesn’t feel particularly personal.

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Old-fashioned segmentation goes some way to making sure the right promos land in front of the right players, but it is a fairly crude approach.

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The trouble is that segments usually only tell us a fraction of the story. Two players that are grouped in the same segment might claim an offer for entirely different reasons.

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Maybe one of them desperately needed the nudge and the bonus was money well spent, while the other was going to reactivate regardless. Most systems would put a tick next to both players in this case, but in reality you’ve hurt your bottom line by paying out a bonus that wasn’t needed.

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For CRM managers, this creates a bit of a balancing act. Doing nothing can be a hard decision to make, even if it might absolutely be the best course of action for a specific player.

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Bringing VIP treatment to everyone

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The industry has actually had a better model for a long time.

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A good VIP host knows their players individually. They have the data and personal relationship to make judgement calls on when, or when not, to offer a bonus.

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The only problem is that in the past, it simply wasn’t viable to offer this level of service to everyone.

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Axom Gaming was founded to change that.

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Axom is an AI-powered intelligence layer that sits on top of an operator's existing CRM. It analyses player behaviour and transactions to identify the most profitable action for every player.

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In effect, it brings the instincts of a VIP host to the entire player base. 

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For CRM managers, that means moving beyond managing segments altogether. Instead of working out which players belong in which campaign, they can focus on the broader objectives, while the technology determines the right treatment for each individual.

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The future of the CRM manager

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So where does this leave the CRM manager? Not out of a job, but in a different and arguably better one. 

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Axom doesn't replace the CRM platform or the people running it. Teams keep control of strategy, creative, budgets, player eligibility and responsible gaming policy. What changes is where their time goes.

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Less of it is spent building segments and second-guessing bonus levels. 

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More of it goes on setting broader commercial objectives, interpreting results and deciding what comes next.

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Perhaps most importantly, it also changes what a CRM team can achieve.

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One of our partners, Martin Nieri, founder and Chief Marketing Officer at 888AFRICA, puts it succinctly when he says the real excitement lies in being able to “manage a much larger customer base without needing to scale CRM headcount at the same rate.”

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The direction of travel is clear. 

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VIP treatment used to be a privilege reserved for the few, but with Axom, it no longer needs to be.