CareCloud CDP Tips & Tricks

At Retail in Detail 2025, I presented on the shortcomings of customer experience (CX) in Czech retention marketing and explored strategies to overcome them. We discussed personalization, AI, online marketing, and why traditional newsletters are no longer sufficient.

THE SITUATION IN CZECH RETAIL 

Approximately 95% of marketing emails get deleted by customers because they are constantly bombarded with irrelevant offers.

The usual mindset is that once you obtain a customer’s email address and consent, you can send them emails or push notifications at minimal cost. This tempts us to overwhelm customers with generic offers.

But retention marketing is about quality, not quantity.

Customer Experience is already a topic in the Czech marketing, but it only applies to acquisition and purchase. CX in retention is completely overlooked. In practice, I regularly encounter three mistakes:

1. Brands do not target retention marketing. They prefer to send general newsletters to their entire customer database.
2. The frequency of marketing messages often translates to a “the more, the better” attitude, while customers are drowning in a sea of irrelevant messages.
3. The offers themselves are the same for everyone; top products are sent at a discount or as new releases. Few brands send personalized product recommendations.

BUT IT WORKS, RIGHT?

A common defense is the claim that such marketing yields results, including higher sales and decent turnover.

Unfortunately, this is just a misinterpretation of reports and statistics. Let’s take a look at three metrics that are often misunderstood.

• Generated turnover: Retention marketing targets loyal customers who would buy even if they didn’t receive a general newsletter. Therefore, the turnover of the target group in the conversion window does not reflect the benefit of the campaign.
  You can calculate the actual benefit using a control group (usually 5-10% of the target audience), which you set aside and do not address.
  Then, observe the difference in purchasing behavior between the targeted and untargeted segments. Multiply the difference in average spending by the number of customers in the target group to obtain the uplift, i.e., the actual benefit of the campaign.
• Unsubscribe rate: Customers have neither the time nor the energy to go through dozens of marketing emails daily, scroll down to the unsubscribe button, and then confirm their unsubscription on the unsubscribe page. They usually just mark marketing emails as read or delete them outright.
  The unsubscribe rate does not accurately reflect the frequency at which customers should receive content or how interesting they consider it.
• Performance of promoted products: Newsletters typically feature top products that are currently on sale. These will always sell well, regardless of marketing. Try putting a below-average product without a discount in a general newsletter, and the sales won’t move an inch.

The good thing is that brands have both the necessary data and the tools to personalize communication for every customer. Let’s see how proper customer experience affects retention marketing.

OPTIMIZE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

So how do we interact with a customer so our brand won’t be just another seller for them? I have prepared six best practices that will help you strengthen customer relationships:

1. Minimize general newsletters: The fewer, the better. Nevertheless, you must not lose contact with your customers. Proportionally increase targeted and personalized campaigns.

2. Create accurate audiences: Data tells you when the customer last made a purchase, how much they have already spent, what was in their shopping cart, and what they buy repeatedly. Additionally, you often possess demographic data, such as gender, place of residence, and age. Inform customers about promotions at the store they frequent. Proactively send alternatives when you discontinue a regularly purchased product. Inform customers in the area about a new branch.
   When you master targeted campaigns, your customers feel understood, as they only receive products that interest them.

3. Offer relevant products: There is no longer any reason to send the same products to all customers in an email template. Algorithms and AI systems for product recommendations are evolving. For example, in CareCloud, the marketer only selects a set of available products, and the AI Abigail chooses the best ones for each customer.
   You will significantly enhance the relevance of your offers. Moreover, you can combine manually chosen products with those generated by AI.

4. Optimize your send time: Every customer responds differently. Some are on their phone on the way to work, some scroll through their feed every night before bed, and some browse the internet at work.
   There is no universally optimal time to send a campaign. Therefore, you tailor the delivery time to each customer. Abigail can do this automatically; all you need to do is check the box when creating a campaign. When your email sits at the top of the inbox, you dramatically increase your open rate.
   
5. Optimize mailing frequency: Just as there is no single ideal send time, there is no universal frequency for mailing. Thankfully, we have found that the preferred intensity of communication closely corresponds to RFM — that is, the time since the last purchase, the number of purchases, and the total amount spent.
   The more a customer buys, the more frequent the communication they prefer. Use RFM segmentation and adjust the frequency of communication accordingly. An easy example: Send marketing communications to the top RFM segments three times a week, but only once a month to the lowest ones.
   
6. Scale incentives: Consider the type of customer and their behavior when assigning rewards, vouchers, points, and even apologies. Whether it’s a birthday greeting, a response to a poor NPS rating, or an abandoned shopping cart, consider how much the customer has spent with you in the past and their level of activity.
   Approach your customers with gratitude for their loyalty and the money they have spent.

REGULAR CUSTOMERS GENERATE PROFIT

In our experience, 87% of Czech brands do not optimize CX in retention marketing. Yet it is returning customers who make the majority of turnover in retail, gastronomy, hospitality and e-commerce. They are the ones you need to take care of the most.

So if you invest effort and money into Customer Experience, you will stay ahead of the competition, and customers will reward you with their wallets.

Build stronger customer relationships with us. We are not just platform providers; we also have the know-how to work with customers effectively.

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