DE EN
Customer project

Multichannel Permission Handling in an
International Mobility Company

The solution automates international permission handling and creates a legally compliant foundation for cross-channel customer communication. CRM integration, channel-dependent permission collection, multilingual templates and response processing connect data protection, data quality and customer experience across countries, brands and channels.

LISTEN TO BUSINESS CASE
0:00 5:22

Business Activity

The company is an internationally active manufacturer with numerous national subsidiaries responsible for the global activities of several vehicle and service brands. Its product range spans various vehicle types through to specialised chassis solutions. In addition to production and sales, the company operates a global service network and offers comprehensive services covering the full vehicle lifecycle, including used vehicle trading. The company is part of an internationally operating commercial vehicle group, which ranks among the world's leading manufacturers in the commercial vehicle sector.

"The automated permission handling allowed us to significantly simplify a process that was once very manual and paper-intensive. Particularly valuable for us is that the consent is automatically collected via the appropriate communication channel depending on the contact data available, and the response flows cleanly back into the CRM. At the same time, we can centrally manage countries, languages and brands, and control our customer communication far more effectively."

Project Manager Sales & Marketing

The Project in Detail

Application

An automated, bidirectional integration between the CRM and Marketing Automation was implemented for the company. The focus is on the automatic exchange of master data, permissions and bounces, as well as multilingual permission handling across multiple communication channels.

The solution covers three permission channels: e-mail, telephone and post. E-post encompasses digital contact channels such as e-mail and social media. Depending on which master data is available for a person, consent is collected automatically by e-mail, SMS or letter.

Starting point

Before automation, permission handling involved considerable manual effort. When GDPR was introduced, consent forms were created and sent to customers by post. This led to large volumes of paper, complex logistical processing and many manual follow-up steps.

Undeliverable letters were returned, responses arrived by post or e-mail and had to be manually reviewed, filed in the CRM and correctly processed. The relevant consent flags per channel also had to be set manually in the CRM.

Typical challenges included:

  • Very high manual effort for sending and processing consent responses
  • Large volumes of paper through postal permission forms
  • Returns caused by incorrect or outdated addresses
  • Manual filing and documentation in the CRM
  • Error-prone setting of channel-specific consent flags
  • Differing requirements per country, language and brand
  • Limited scalability for international rollouts
Solution

An automated permission handling system based on CRM and Marketing Automation was implemented for the company. As soon as a person is created in the CRM, the permission process is triggered automatically.

Contact initiation follows a clear channel prioritisation: if an e-mail address is available, permission is collected by e-mail. If only a mobile number is available, the contact is made by SMS. If neither an e-mail address nor a mobile number is available, a letter is generated.

For the letter process, profile data is transferred to Marketing Automation and further processed via a custom-developed letter tool. The responsible country managers can download the required PDFs in bulk and send them out. The letter contains a personalised QR code that takes the customer to a web form.

Regardless of whether the customer is contacted by e-mail, SMS or letter, the process always leads to the same landing page. There, the customer can add their contact details and decide for themselves which channels they wish to be contacted through in future.

The core solution components:

  • Automatic bidirectional transfer of master data between CRM and Marketing Automation
  • Automated processing of permissions and bounces
  • Multilingual permission handling via e-post, telephone and post
  • Channel-dependent outreach by e-mail, SMS or letter
  • Personalised landing page with a cross-channel web form
  • Profile enrichment through new customer data, in particular e-mail addresses
  • Automatic write-back of consents to the CRM
  • Template logic for 14 country tenants with various language variants
  • Brand-specific templates for five group brands
Benefits

With the solution, the company was able to largely automate a previously paper-heavy and manual permission process. Consents are now collected in a channel-dependent, personalised and multilingual manner, without each country or brand having to build its own separate processes.

Particularly valuable is the combination of automation, international scalability and cross-channel flexibility. Customers can independently decide, regardless of the initial point of contact, which channels they wish to be reached through in future. At the same time, profiles are enriched, permissions are cleanly documented and bounces are systematically processed.

The concrete benefits for the company:

  • Significantly less manual effort for collecting and processing permissions
  • Reduction of paper-based processes
  • Automatic channel prioritisation based on available master data
  • Better data quality through profile enrichment via web forms
  • Consistent documentation of consents in the CRM
  • Multilingual and country-specific delivery via central templates
  • Brand-specific communication via reusable template logic
  • Greater process reliability for GDPR-relevant consents
  • Better control of customer communication across e-post, telephone and post
Business Impact

The solution delivers both operational and economic improvements for the company:

0-0%Less manual effort for collecting, processing and documenting permissions
0-0%Less manual rework through automatic write-back of consents to the CRM
0-0%Faster process speed for newly created contacts through automated permission start
Further benefits
Significant reduction in paper, postage and processing costs through digital channel prioritisation
Significantly lower error rate when setting channel-specific consent flags
Higher data quality through bounce processing and enrichment of missing contact data
Better scalability across 14 country tenants, multiple language variants and five brands
Faster usability of customer data for legally compliant communication

The economic effect arises from replacing manual paper processes, reduced processing effort and a significantly higher degree of automation in the interplay between CRM and Marketing Automation. At the same time, the quality of customer data and the legally compliant usability of communication channels both improve.

Strategic Value

With the solution, the company has not only automated an operational permission handling process, but created an international foundation for legally compliant, cross-channel and brand-specific customer communication.

The particular strategic value lies in the combination of CRM integration, channel-dependent permission collection, multilingual template logic and response processing. This creates a scalable platform that connects data protection requirements, data quality and customer experience across countries, brands and channels.

Business Impact

The solution delivers both operational and economic improvements for the company:

0-0%Less manual effort for collecting, processing and documenting permissions
0-0%Less manual rework through automatic write-back of consents to the CRM
0-0%Faster process speed for newly created contacts through automated permission start
Further benefits
Significant reduction in paper, postage and processing costs through digital channel prioritisation
Significantly lower error rate when setting channel-specific consent flags
Higher data quality through bounce processing and enrichment of missing contact data
Better scalability across 14 country tenants, multiple language variants and five brands
Faster usability of customer data for legally compliant communication

The economic effect arises from replacing manual paper processes, reduced processing effort and a significantly higher degree of automation in the interplay between CRM and Marketing Automation. At the same time, the quality of customer data and the legally compliant usability of communication channels both improve.

Strategic Value

With the solution, the company has not only automated an operational permission handling process, but created an international foundation for legally compliant, cross-channel and brand-specific customer communication.

The particular strategic value lies in the combination of CRM integration, channel-dependent permission collection, multilingual template logic and response processing. This creates a scalable platform that connects data protection requirements, data quality and customer experience across countries, brands and channels.