From Locked to Lifted: How to Develop Your Customer Engagement

Three Common Starting Points – and How to Take the Next Step in Customer Engagement

Every company wants to create relevant and personalized communication with their customers. However, the path to achieving this varies depending on the starting point. Many have been stuck on old platforms for a long time. More and more find themselves trapped in not fully utilizing modern technology. And a growing group has already come far – but wants to take the next step towards hyper-personalization and AI.

This article describes three common situations – why companies often end up there, and how you can take the next step.

Maturity model. NN transformation in the maturity model.

Situation 1: Old Martech Holding You Back

Why does this happen?

This has long been the most common situation for many companies. The martech stack was built 10-15 years ago and grew in silos: a CRM here, an email platform there, and a loyalty program on its own system. As the need for personalization and real-time communication grows, the platforms can't deliver.

Typical Barriers:

• Systems are not integrated: each channel has its own system, causing fragmented customer data. The company lacks a complete overview and cannot connect behaviors across channels.

• Hard or impossible to work with real-time data: old systems are often batch-based. Insights come too late – the customer has moved on by the time the company reacts.

• Personalization options are limited: older platforms often support only basic segmentation. Communication becomes generic and quickly perceived as irrelevant by customers.

• The team gets stuck in manual calendar campaigns: there's no way to automate significantly. Each new campaign requires a lot of manual work, long planning, and results in only short-term effects. As soon as the campaign is over, the team has to start from scratch.

The Way Forward:

1. Conduct a current state analysis: map out what systems you have, where data is, and what you can actually do today.

2. Identify bottlenecks: often, not all systems need replacing, just a few key components.

3. Set up a modern data foundation: a CDP often becomes central here, to collect data, unify profiles, and enable real-time activation.

4. Prioritize “quick wins”: start with 2-3 use cases where you can quickly demonstrate value (e.g., welcome flows, reactivating inactive customers, or basic email personalization).

Situation 2: Good Platforms – But Not Fully Used

Why does this happen?

Unfortunately, more and more are falling into this trap. Companies have invested in modern platforms – perhaps a CDP, marketing automation, and a new CRM – but the results are lacking. Often because the organization doesn’t know how to use the technology or it’s not implemented correctly.

Typical Barriers:

• Faulty installation and architecture: new platforms, often CDPs, are set up incorrectly. The underlying IT architecture is not updated, and upstream issues can't be resolved with martech. The lack of a holistic approach means platforms aren’t fully utilized.

• Lack of cross-functional collaboration: marketing, CRM, e-commerce, and customer service work in separate channels and projects. There are no shared goals, data flows, or processes. The result is fragmented communication.

• Manual campaigns dominate: teams get stuck in calendar-based campaigns that take a lot of time but only give short-term results. Once the campaign is over, the work starts anew.

• Lack of methods: the company doesn’t know how to build relevant trigger-based campaigns. There are no practices for working insight-driven, personalizing content in the right way, and continuously analyzing and improving.

• Lack of competence: even when the platform is correctly installed, there is often a lack of knowledge in the organization on how to leverage its features. The result is the system is used at a fraction of its potential.

The Way Forward:

1. Ensure a technical foundation: make sure the platform is correctly configured and integrated into the overall IT architecture.

2. Train the team: build expertise in trigger design, personalization, and insight-driven work methods.

3. Establish cross-functional work practices: gather marketing, CRM, e-commerce, and customer service around shared processes and goals.

4. Pilot trigger-based flows: focus on a few key customer events (e.g., churn risk, onboarding, or purchase stimulation) and build automated, personalized flows.

Situation 3: Advanced – Ready for the Next Level

Why does this happen?

A growing group of companies have already come far. They work insight-driven, have set up a modern martech stack, operate omnichannel, and personalize at the individual level. They have also established processes and skills in the organization. Now they want to take the next step – to scale, become even more advanced, and be industry leaders.

Typical Ambitions:

• Move from personalization to hyper-personalization in all customer interactions.

• Scale up the number of use cases from tens to hundreds to achieve a greater impact on the business.

• Increase the level of automation, allowing machines to control the flows, so teams can focus on strategy.

• Develop proprietary AI tools that complement the martech stack and enhance orchestration, optimization, and decision support.

• Explore a composable CDP architecture, where you piece together and customize components.

The Way Forward:

1. Build a scalable architecture: ensure that platforms can handle both increased data volumes and more use cases.

2. Introduce AI gradually: start with recommendation engines, predictive models, and dynamic content generation – then assess how proprietary AI solutions can create competitive advantages.

3. Implement systematic experimentation: every interaction becomes a test that is continuously optimized.

4. Secure governance and ethics: as automation and AI take on a larger role, strong frameworks for data quality, integrity, and accountability are needed.

Finally 

No matter what starting point you're at, there is a path forward. 

• Do you have old martech? Modernize and build a data foundation. 

• Do you have modern tech but don’t use it fully? Build skills, methods, and cross-functional working practices. 

• Have you already come far? Scale up, hyper-personalize, and take the next step with AI and self-developed architecture. 

The important thing is to identify which situation best describes you – and start taking steps to reach the next level.