Bring permissioned customer intelligence into the systems you already own.
Customer Intelligence is designed to help brands use approved, consented customer attributes in CRM and brand-owned AI workflows, while keeping permission, provenance and revocation visible.
Permission is established by the shopper, not the brand.Attributes follow the approved data model. read the privacy position
- 01Shopper
A person with an existing Herm consumer relationship.
holds the permission - 02Customer connection
The shopper explicitly permits the relevant brand connection through Herm.
explicit · scoped · revocable - 03Herm
Checks the permitted scope and derives only what the data model allows.
derivation happens here - 04Approved attribute
A defined attribute and value, carrying its permission state and provenance.
the only thing that travels - 05Brand CRM · brand-owned AI
An approved CRM field or a brand-operated AI-enabled experience.
brand-owned destination
- Approved derived attributes defined by the Customer Intelligence data model
- The permission state that supports each attribute
- A provenance reference for where the attribute was derived from
- The date the attribute was last updated
- Unrestricted access to a shopper's full Herm history
- Any attribute where the required permission does not exist
- Attributes whose permission has been revoked by the customer
- Herm's internal model reasoning
Boundary The exact contents of both columns follow approved Herm product and legal definitions. Where a specific attribute is not yet specified, this page labels it as illustrative rather than stating it as a product capability.
Your CRM sees the relationship you have. It does not always see the wider buying context.
A customer may buy through multiple retailers, marketplaces and channels. Brand-owned data can describe the direct relationship well while still missing signals that exist elsewhere in the customer's purchasing life.
Herm's consumer relationship creates the possibility of adding new context only when the shopper has explicitly permitted the relevant brand connection.
- Direct orders
- Email engagement
- Loyalty activity
- Known product ownership
Owned, governed and already in the customer record.
Conceptual. Nothing here is available to a brand, and nothing here is transferred as raw purchase history.
A small number of approved derived attributes, not an external purchase history. The permitted set is defined by the Customer Intelligence data model, and each attribute carries its permission state.
Permission should be part of the product, not hidden in the policy.
Five explicit stages. Each stage depends on the permission established in the one before it.
- 01 Consent
Shopper chooses to connect
The shopper deliberately establishes the relevant relationship with the brand through Herm.
Who controls this shopper - 02 Scope
Herm checks the permitted data scope
Only information allowed by the approved product and consent model should participate.
Who controls this approved data model - 03 Derivation
Herm derives approved attributes
The brand receives only the approved outputs defined by the Customer Intelligence data model.
Who controls this Herm, within scope - 04 Controlled use
The attribute enters a brand-owned system
For example, an approved CRM field or brand-owned AI workflow.
Who controls this brand - 05 Revocation
Permission remains manageable
The customer should be able to revoke the relationship according to the approved Herm data model.
Who controls this shopper
Use new context where it improves an owned customer experience.
Each use case is a new input into a decision the brand already makes and already owns.
- Lifecycle understanding
Recognise change
Recognise when the customer's purchasing context may have changed, using attributes the customer has permitted.
- Segmentation
More relevant groups
Create more relevant customer groups using approved derived attributes alongside your existing segmentation.
- CRM orchestration
Owned journeys
Use permitted attributes alongside existing brand-owned customer data in journeys you already operate.
- Brand-owned AI
Your assistant
Make approved customer context available to an assistant or AI experience operated by the brand.
Be Relevant requires the brand to enable the Customer Intelligence connection. The rung scores the brand's own surfaces, its site assistant and its CRM. It does not measure, and Herm does not influence, what a frontier AI assistant recommends to an individual shopper.
Every useful attribute should have an understandable provenance.
A CRM team should be able to open any attribute and answer two questions: where did this field come from, and what permission allows my company to use it?
- status
- Permissioned active customer connection
- derived from
- Verified receipts per approved specification
- shared as
- Defined attribute and value not raw records
- last updated
- 04 Sep 2026 09:14 example timestamp
- permission
- Active read at request time
- raw purchase history shared
- No according to approved specification
- revocable
- Yes according to approved product policy
- Customer connection established shopper-initiated, brand-specific, example reference
- Permitted scope checked attributes outside the approved scope do not participate
- Attribute derived output defined by the Customer Intelligence data model
- Delivered to the approved field brand-owned destination, permission state travels with it
The customer can withdraw this connection according to the approved Herm data model. Withdrawal is reflected in the attribute state rather than left to a manual process.
- Payment details & card stays with you
- Full purchase history never sent
- Identity & contact never sent
Customer Intelligence should make its boundaries as clear as its capabilities.
Stated here so a data stakeholder does not have to infer it later.
- Provide approved derived customer attributes where the required permission exists.
- Make those outputs usable in approved brand-owned systems.
- Preserve provenance and permission state alongside every attribute.
- Give a brand unrestricted access to a shopper's full Herm history.
- Imply access to hidden model reasoning.
- Personalise independent frontier AI systems such as ChatGPT on the brand's behalf.
- Override the shopper's permission.
Customer Intelligence is the readiness dimension for context you control.
Customer Intelligence is the readiness dimension concerned with using permissioned customer context inside systems the brand controls. It is separate from measuring how public AI systems talk about the brand.
- Be Visible Brand Visibility Live Does AI know and recommend you?
- Be Sellable Product Readiness Live Can AI actually complete the recommendation: specs, price, stock, where to buy?
- Be Relevant Customer Intelligence Live Are your own experiences right for the shopper in front of them?
- Be Preferred Offers Live Do the shoppers who buy your category buy you, and keep buying you?
The data model is part of the product.
A CRM team should be able to understand what data enters the system, where it came from and what permission supports its use before implementation begins.
- Policy and compliance framework The published position covering the consumer relationship: privacy, GDPR, CCPA, cookies and responsible AI.
- Customer Intelligence What the product does, the consent sheet the shopper is shown, and the two delivery modes.
- How Herm assesses a brand The Readiness Score methodology, including what this rung is scored on.
- How Herm instructs AI systems The machine-readable statement of what Herm does and does not claim.
The data-flow specification, the consent model and the security documentation are reviewed with your data and privacy stakeholders during evaluation. They are not published here, and this page makes no compliance claim in place of them.
See whether Herm Customer Intelligence fits your data model.
Review the connection, the permitted outputs and how they would enter your existing CRM or brand-owned AI environment.
- starts with
- A review of the connection model and the permitted outputs
- you evaluate
- Which approved attributes could enter which brand-owned system
- stays with the shopper
- The permission, and the ability to withdraw it
- to validate
- The approved data specification, before any implementation