Become a Customer Economist: Why CRM Should Speak in Value, Not Volume

This article is part of our ongoing series expanding on Plinc’s Strategic CRM Playbook: From Execution to Influence. The Playbook offers a practical roadmap to help CRM teams shift from campaign execution to strategic leadership.

In Chapter 4: Become a Customer Economist, we explore how CRM can move beyond channel metrics and start influencing financial strategy by reframing performance in terms of customer value, not just campaign performance.

Download the full Playbook now or follow this series to explore all 10 chapters.

A Familiar Limitation

CRM is often rich in customer insight but isolated from the conversations where financial decisions are made.

Instead of being asked what’s happening in the customer base, CRM is asked how last week’s email performed. Instead of being involved in margin or pricing discussions, CRM is looped in to send the follow-up.

It’s not that CRM doesn’t know the customer. It’s that the business often doesn’t know what CRM knows or how to connect it to commercial decision-making.

What’s Missing

The disconnect usually isn’t intent. It’s language.

Most CRM reporting still revolves around:

• Response rates
• Sales per send or last click revenue
• Open and click performance

But senior leadership is focused on among other things:

• Business profitability
• Retention health
• Margin per customer
• Lifetime value of a segment

CRM teams may have the raw data for all of this. But they’re not always set up or expected to report it in those terms.

That’s what we’re here to challenge.

The Reframe: From Reporting Output to Managing Value

Strategic CRM teams operate like customer economists.

They:

• Understand the distribution of value across the base
• Identify what behaviours and channels produce the most profitable customers, and the relationship between those touchpoints and activities
• Monitor the health of acquisition and retention cohorts over time
• Flag risks and opportunities in the customer base before they appear in revenue figures

This shift allows CRM to move from post-campaign analysis to pre-emptive customer strategy.

What It Looks Like in Practice

We’ve seen CRM teams earn greater influence with Finance and Trading by making three key moves:

1. Standardise customer value metrics

Introduce consistent measures like:

• Lifetime Value (LTV)
• Repeat purchase KPIs
• Retention rate per segment
• Margin per customer
• Product mix or progression over time

Use these to evaluate performance over months and quarters. Not just in campaign windows.

2. Tell financial stories with customer data

Shift from talking about send volumes to customer economics:

• “We’re growing the % of high-value customers in this category.”
• “Mid-value customers are decaying. Here’s where we can intervene.”

3. Build bridges with Finance and Trading

Frame CRM insight in terms of:

• Growth efficiency
• Margin defence
• Customer contribution
• Risk to future revenue

This language translates CRM effort into financial relevance and starts to change how the function is perceived internally.

Quick Wins vs Long Plays

Quick win: Create a simple “Customer Value Health” dashboard. Segment customers into high / mid / low value tiers and show changes in size, spend, or retention across 3–6 months. Even a basic view can unlock new internal conversations.

Longer play: Work with Finance to integrate customer value metrics into monthly performance reviews or board packs. Start small. One customer insight per cycle and build trust over time.

Why This Shift Builds Influence

The more CRM teams tie their work to customer value, the more they become essential partners to growth planning. Not just campaign delivery.

And that shift doesn’t require a data science team or a major tech overhaul. It starts by speaking a new language. One the business already understands.

This article is part of From Execution to Influence, Plinc’s Strategic CRM Playbook. Download the full Playbook here to explore all 10 chapters.

Next Up:

Chapter 5 – See Beneath the Surface

→ How CRM teams are surfacing deeper commercial insights and turning segmentation into strategic intelligence.