CRM Tech Stack

A CRM tech stack is a collection of different kinds of software used to execute your strategy. Essentially, a stack is kind of a concept, a way of thinking about the full array of technologies that impact the user journey. In this post, I would like to explain the tech stack I am currently using, how and why the tools are used.

Braze

A comprehensive customer engagement platform that powers relevant and memorable experiences between consumers and the brands they love. Context underpins every Braze interaction, helping brands foster human connection with consumers. (1)

Braze is the base of our CRM operations. All messages are going out from there. We are using: Email, Push Notifications, In-App Messages, SMS. Especially "Canvas" a user journey builder gives you the possibility of joining different channels in one clear overview.

AWS Lambda/PinPoint/API

Sending SMS from braze is possible but we are not sending as much as justifying the package price that is currently in place. As a workaround. We are using AWS. With some help, I built a CRM API endpoint which can be called from braze via a webhook. This way, the message still lives in braze and is adjustable whenever needed. AWS allows you to integrate different tools with braze via webhook. We integrated Zendesk the same way.

AWS S3/Looker

Analytics are important for the daily business. Finding and understanding important KPIs is key to improve campaigns and whole user journeys. With so-called braze "currents" you can set up a data export to an S3 bucket. Our BI Analyst is getting all the data from S3 into looker where it is easy to build useful dashboards and have all the data visualized in one place. The imported data is connected with data coming from other sources to track conversions and engagement of users.

Basic dashboards for me are: a deliverability dashboard, helping me to understand if we have an issue with bounces or delivery in general. A main dashboard with general campaign performance week over week and month over month. Changes can be discovered quick and campaign adjustments can be done.

Confluence

I always found it important to write a documentation about everything that is in place and that might be needed if I am on vacation or new people joining the team. Everyone should be able to understand what is in place, what is possible and how everything works. For that, I am using confluence.

For daily operations I am using a lot more tools to create HTML templates, in-App messages, resizing images, writing copies etc. Those are not relevant for this article, because it is mainly a personal preference. If it's interesting, drop me a line. I am happy to elaborate.