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AI won't save your CRM strategy if your customers are quietly switching you off. Right now, businesses are pouring money into AI. AI subject line testing, AI-generated content, AI recommendations, AI personalisation engines and every new capability promising improved customer experience and greater efficiency. But there is one small problem. There is absolutely no point investing if customers no longer to hear from you

True CRM is about understanding customers, driving long-term value, improving profitability, protecting margin and building sustainable engagement across the entire customer lifecycle. As more businesses come under pressure from rising costs and tighter consumer spending, the industry is seeing an explosion of self-proclaimed “experts” selling oversimplified solutions to very complex commercial problems.

This time last year, Click Frenzy was running its “Click Frenzy Mayhem” event. Click Frenzy itself may no longer be front-and-centre in the retail conversation (for now), but over the last few days I’ve received a significant number of emails promoting some form of “Frenzy” sale. Which is interesting. Even as the original platform faded from view, the behaviour it created appears to have remained firmly embedded in Australian retail. Sales events became annualised to drive tr

Underneath that surface, a different story is often unfolding. Margins are eroding. Customers are being trained to wait for offers. And critically, many businesses have little to no understanding of what is actually driving the performance they are seeing. Without that clarity, it becomes almost impossible to make informed decisions about where to invest next. From a CRM/Customer loyalty perspective, this is where the real challenge emerges.

From 1 July 2026, new anti-scam rules will force brands to rethink CRM beyond conversion. In tougher trading conditions, aggressive tactics like urgency and hyper-personalisation are blurring the line with scams, eroding trust. Customers judge both brand and channel instinctively. Inconsistent email and intrusive SMS weaken performance over time. Trust is no longer a soft metric — it’s a commercial advantage driving long-term growth.

Recently I have found myself deep in conversation with other CRM and Loyalty professionals about the current state of the industry. One theme kept coming up again and again. In an effort to reduce costs, more businesses are hiring junior resources, but loading them with the responsibilities of far more senior roles, at junior salaries. On paper, it looks efficient. In reality, it introduces a level of risk that many organisations are underestimating. To be clear, this can be

The ACCC is right to crack down on misleading “sitewide” sales. But not all urgency is manipulation. Limited-time offers and curated promotions are core retail levers, especially under pressure. The issue is clarity. During peak trade, success comes from making it easier to shop, being transparent, and aligning to customer expectations. Preference capture beats guesswork. Trust is built through responsible strategy and informed customers—not noise.

Personalisation can be a powerful thing… until it isn’t. In a previous article I spoke about the importance of framing personalised content, if you’re going to call something “your personalised edit,” it actually needs to feel personal, otherwise you’re not just missing the mark, you’re training customers to ignore you. Like most of you, my inbox is full of “just for you,” “your edit,” “we thought you’d like this,” so I barely blink anymore... until recently.

Recent changes to a significant airline loyalty partnership and payments are tightening the economics behind points. Updates to Qantas Frequent Flyer / Emirates Skywards and interchange reform from the Reserve Bank of Australia mean points are harder to earn and less valuable to redeem. As programs shift from customer-first to margin-aware, success will depend less on currency and more on strategy, customer understanding, and CRM execution.

Most CRM programs aren’t underperforming… they’re being over-credited. Scroll LinkedIn and you’ll see huge claims about email driving revenue. The work often looks great, but most results are built on attribution, not impact. Attribution shows where CRM showed up, not whether it changed behaviour. Incrementality answers that. It measures what CRM actually did and that’s what the business really cares about.

One of the most common questions I get asked is deceptively simple, “How do I know if our CRM program is performing well?” On the surface, it feels like a metrics question. But it’s not. It’s a strategy question. Most CRM teams set objectives. They build journeys. They send campaigns. They report on opens, clicks and revenue. But very few step back and define, clearly and collectively, what acceptable , good and great performance actually look like, what they’re measuring and

Consumer confidence is 68.5. Inflation 3.8%. Rates 4.10%. 3.3M Aussie households have mortgages. Most brands react the same way: more promos, more volume, more urgency. Lazy. When pressure rises, customers don’t stop buying, they get smarter. They scrutinise and trade down. More emails won’t save you. Bigger discounts won’t build loyalty. Shift from growth-at-all-costs to retention. Protect your top 20%. Relevance beats volume. Smart wins.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love cake (gluten free these days, but still cake.) My grandparents, uncles and now cousins have all been involved in building a successful chain of bakeries on the Gold Coast. Oddly enough, I think bakeries provide one of the best ways to explain where CRM and loyalty sit in customer strategy. Running a bakery is a perfect analogy for how customer engagement really works. The Cake — The Core of Your Business The cake itself is the core produc

A loyalty program without CRM is just a database with points. Over the past few days I received emails from Sheridan and Priceline confirming rewards I’d earned and how to use them. Simple, clear and timely. With Australians now belonging to around 10 loyalty programs, customers aren’t logging into apps to check rewards. CRM is what brings loyalty to life, recognising the customer and delivering the right message at the right moment.

I opened my spam folder this week; big brands, serious budgets, sitting in spam. I’m also getting 2:00am emails for offers expiring the same day. That’s not innovation failure, it’s hygiene failure. Before you optimise, sanitise. Deliverability, throttle rate and send-time discipline protect every dollar CRM generates. You can’t optimise what customers never receive. Go check your spam folder.

Interesting recent updates to Qantas Frequent Flyer And Velocity. Velocity has focused on accelerating status earn and rewarding long-term loyalty. In early 2026, Velocity launched one of its largest ever bonus Status Credit promotions, allowing members to fast-track to Gold, Platinum and Platinum Plus. The bigger structural change is the introduction of Forever Gold, recognising sustained loyalty over time. Overall, Velocity’s strategy is about making status more attainable

Every CRM demo now starts the same way. Slick dashboard. Auto-built journey. Subject line in seconds. “Powered by AI.” I’m not anti-AI. The speed gains are real. The accessibility is impressive. But let’s be honest. A lot of what’s now being labelled as “AI” is what we used to call data modelling, predictive analytics, automation logic, segmentation rules, etc. Important? Yes. New? Not entirely. AI is accelerating execution and optimising our resources and time. It’s not rein

Since moving into consulting, I’ve been watching how lots of CRM 'consultants' define “success” and there’s a clear pattern emerging. Big revenue claims, bold percentage lifts, screenshots of attributed sales and increasingly confident statements about AI driving performance gains. But here’s the uncomfortable question that rarely gets asked; was it the investment in AI that caused the uplift, or was it your very hard working undervalued CRM team curating exceptional content?

Most organisations have invested heavily in CRM platforms, data and talent, expecting retention and revenue growth. Yet many still treat CRM as a send button. In reality, CRM sees behaviour shifts, margin erosion and offer fatigue before revenue slows. With AI removing execution limits, the constraint is structural. Used strategically, CRM is commercial intelligence, not a production desk.

Brands who have robust CRM programs deliver the best results. I’ve been refining a simple Customer Engagement Matrix that helps teams step back and ask who do we want to target? with what sort of messaging and offers? how frequently? and what is the end goal of these communications?