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Interview With Debra Taeschler of Gráfica
November 2000
 SAM STONE: Recorded live from our studios located in the financial district of New York City, this is Sam Stone for Wall Street Reporter magazine. My guest today is Debra Taeschler. Debra is president of privately held Gráfica, Incorporated. Debra, welcome to the program.
DEBRA TAESCHLER: Thank you, Sam.
SAM: We're delighted to have you on the show today. Debra, I thought you could begin by telling us about the full-service launching of the eCRM part of your business, thus Gráfica.eCRM Corp. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
DEBRA: Sure, I guess the best place to begin is at the beginning, and first there was Gráfica. Gráfica is the traditional integrated marketing and advertising agency that I started in my basement 14 years ago. Back then, we had three employees and one client. Today we have grown to 58 million dollars in capitalized billing with over 70 employees and many clients, including AT&T, Lucent, PSE&G, and the New Jersey Lottery. Our five-year-old sister company, GráficaInter.active, is currently ranked the number-one independent interactive agency in New Jersey by both Adweek and Ad Age magazines. Our interactive clients include BUYandHOLD.com, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey. And this month, Sam, we launched Gráfica.eCRM Corp., which is the first full-service eCRM advertising agency. This new company is committed to helping our clients transition all or part of their marketing communications campaigns to an eCRM platform, and that's really the company I wanted to talk to you about today.
SAM: Tell us how eCRM works in this marketplace in this sector, if you will.
DEBRA: Well, eCRM, the true premise of it, is really to deliver the right message at the right time to the right person with the right media. How you enable that to happen is through collecting data at different touchpoints; albeit email marketing, direct mail, telemarketing, print, TV...capture the data, do the data mining to predict the next response out and what that next best message out would be, all to be able to acquire customers, retain customers, and cross sell and upsell those customers.
SAM: What would be some of the benefits for the marketers who will be using some of eCRM's product technology? Could you tell us some of the benefits and how that would work?
DEBRA: The benefits are really endless. It's increased customer satisfaction, it's decreased cost per acquisition, it's enhanced...it's enhancing the lifetime value of the customer. It's really realizing all the benefits of the customer by being able to design and work around what that customer wants and when they want it and how they want it. It enhances the ability from a corporation; the profound impact, I believe, is the company being able to develop products based on what the customer needs are, to make sure their customer service is focused on what the customer needs are. I think the customer has been empowered by the Internet, and therefore the 21st-century corporation of today must be customer centric, and that's what the one-to-one marketing or eCRM platform allows you to deliver on.
SAM: Debra, could you provide our audience with an example of eCRM, hypothetically now, how one customer or one company might work in correlation with your services?
DEBRA: I think a great example that I've experienced is at one point I had ordered a suit jacket and a pair of pants from a company online. And then the following month I received an email and, of course, I had notified the company that that's my preferred method of communication, and my email that I received a month later alerted me to the fact that, well I didn't buy the skirt in the outfit and now that skirt is on sale, so would I be interested in purchasing that. So not only did they know me, they knew what, asked what components of the ensemble I had purchased and which ones I might be open to receiving. So, again, I think they secured a lifelong customer in that example.
SAM: Tell our audience about the management team behind Gráfica, if you could highlight — I'll give you an opportunity to talk about five key people. Let's begin with a brief description of your background first.
DEBRA: Sure, I've been in advertising and marketing for 26 years. Before starting Gráfica, I was vice president of account services for a major New York advertising agency. But I guess I'd really like to focus on who I feel the real team members of my team are, as teamwork is critical in our agency environment...and they are Jason Bacharach and Lew Chasalow.
Jason is vice president of marketing at Gráfica. Jason's combined advertising and direct marketing background really exemplifies our heritage of designing measurable campaigns that build on both brand and relationship equity. He's been in the business of building brands for 15 years, with most of his experience coming from several major New York City advertising agencies, including NW Ayer and McCann Erickson.
Lew Chasalow has 22 years of database and systems architecture experience through significant tenures with AT&T and IBM. He brings the critical technical know-how to the table. He's built and operated large-scale systems that support sales and marketing, data warehousing, and financial systems in Internet and client server environments. As the chief operating officer of Gráfica, Lew will be responsible for the implementation and ongoing operation of the full-cycle eCRM solutions that we'll be delivering to our client base.
SAM: Customer service, Debra, is obviously a core value in any given business today. What is customer service, what is customer care, and what does customer satisfaction represent to your business? Could you elaborate on that?
DEBRA: Definitely. Well, Sam, the "c" in eCRM stands for customer. So, clearly we're an advocate of improving customer relationships. In fact, eCRM will work for any enterprise that recognizes the customer as the primary strategic asset. We know that nearly 90% of online shoppers will abandon a merchant's Web site if they experience poor customer service. And conversely, 80% say they will increase spending if the customer service is favorable. Now, if you net out the numbers, assuming an online merchant has a hundred customers spending 1,000 dollars a year, the company with good customer service is making 100,000 dollars while the others make zero. Gráfica.eCRM was formed to capitalize on the obvious business opportunity represented by those numbers. One way to begin is permission email marketing. Gráfica has helped many of its clients drive sales through smart opt-in email campaigns which produce higher results than those achieved in traditional direct mail and advertising, at a fraction of the cost.
SAM: Debra, what truly separates Gráfica.eCRM Corporation from the competition, if you had to single out perhaps one or two areas that you truly feel separate your business from the rest of the pack, what would that be?
DEBRA: Well I believe it's as the first full-service eCRM advertising agency that we've made that statement about our commitment to eCRM. It's proof that we're thinking about tomorrow by leveraging the technologies of today. Other advertising agencies and marketing shops that do not adapt to this converging cycle weave of technology and communications will fall by the wayside. I really feel it's the simple case of Darwinian theory — either you're going to evolve or face extinction.
We're really different because our vision is eCRM-focused, which means that we believe in creating more personalized one-to-one relationships with customers. I believe that, after all, customers empowered by the Internet should be in charge of how marketers market products and services to them. Through eCRM, customers can tell marketers and advertisers what types of products and services they want, when they want them, and how they want them. Gráfica.eCRM embraces this new paradigm, and we're really intent on helping our clients embrace it as well.
SAM: What can we anticipate in the immediate future for Gráfica.eCRM Corporation? Could you talk about some of the challenges and perhaps opportunities that may come to fruition as we look into a new year and the new millennium for Gráfica.eCRM Corp?
DEBRA: Sure, right now we're focusing on educating clients about the benefits of eCRM. Our immediate goal is to help enterprises see that eCRM is real and that it works. Our database marketing heritage uniquely qualifies us to turn this theory into profitable applications. Our brand and traditional advertising groups allow us to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time via the right media...and for me, Sam, that's what it's always been about and that's what it's about more than ever today, with the technology empowering it.
As far as challenges to implementing eCRM, most are internal and they usually take two forms: philosophical and technical. Philosophically, eCRM is a business initiative that must be embraced from the top down, because it crosses the entire enterprise. On the technical side, legacy databases devoted to individual marketing channels can be huge impediments, because more often than not in the corporate world we work with day in, day out, those databases are not communicating with one another. There are several other well-known software companies that develop eCRM products to integrate database disparities, yet the real challenge for companies deciding to undertake eCRM is finding an agency that does more than utilize software. Yes, of course, the software is vital, but without the skills and experienced marketing professionals to analyze and interpret that data to create the refined one-to-one marketing campaign, I believe the cost of purchasing that software might not yield the desired long-term benefits.
SAM: Debra, final question. How can our audience find out perhaps more information about Gráfica.eCRM Corporation? Can we get a Web site address and perhaps a telephone number for contact?
DEBRA: Sure, they can go to our Web site at www.grafica.com, or they can call us at 908-879-2169.
SAM: Let's have that Web site address once more, if you can spell it out please.
DEBRA: Sure, it's www.grafica — g r a f as in frank i c a — .com.
SAM: Debra Taeschler, I want to thank you for joining us here today at the Wall Street Reporter. Debra is president of privately held Gráfica, Incorporated. Today we've been talking about the wonderful division of Gráfica, and that is Gráfica.eCRM Corporation. Check them out on the Web; it's a unique and great concept. Debra, I want to truly thank you for joining us here today at the Wall Street Reporter.
DEBRA: Thank you, Sam.
SAM: Covering America and the world's leading business concerns, this has been Sam Stone for Wall Street Reporter magazine.
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