CMO Roundtable With The CMO of Buzz Franchise Brands (British Swim School), Angela Zerda Paules

How does your marketing department work with other internal departments to enhance your brand’s customer experience?

Angela Zerda Paules
Chief Marketing Officer
Buzz Franchise Brands (British Swim School)

At British Swim School, delivering an exceptional customer experience is truly a team effort, and marketing plays a central role in uniting the moving parts. Our brand is built on trust, safety, and results, and to deliver on that promise consistently, collaboration across departments is essential.

We maintain a strong cadence of cross-functional communication. Weekly marketing meetings bring together teams from across our Buzz Franchise Brands portfolio, creating alignment across functions, like creative, digital, and direct mail. Regular meetings with operations and full-brand team syncs keep everyone rowing in the same direction, ensuring that what we’re saying externally aligns with what’s happening on the ground at each location.

Franchisee support is a cornerstone of our model. Beyond the brand team, we have a shared services marketing team that provides hands-on support across core functions, whether that’s creating localized assets, refining direct mail strategies, or optimizing digital campaigns. We publish a monthly marketing newsletter to communicate new marketing initiatives clearly and proactively to franchisees, and our franchise business coaches act as a direct bridge to franchise owners to reiterate marketing strategies.

Data fuels nearly every decision we make. We closely track Net Promoter Scores, online reviews, and customer retention data and then collaborate with operations to identify trends and opportunities for improvement. We also leverage a robust business intelligence tool that provides daily performance insights, helping both corporate and franchise teams make smart, fast decisions.

A recent example of cross-department collaboration is our rollout of a new CRM and marketing automation platform. This effort brought together our marketing, digital, and analytics teams to ensure a thoughtful, integrated implementation. From mapping the customer journey to developing campaign triggers and integrating advertising campaigns, we coordinated closely across teams and maintained regular updates with our franchise business coaches and leadership to ensure clarity and alignment. Ultimately, this new platform will refine communications with our customers and provide personalized and timely information.

Enhancing the customer experience is not the responsibility of one team. It’s the result of every department working together. Marketing sits at the intersection of those efforts, helping to shape the customer journey at every touchpoint and keeping the brand experience strong from the first impression through ongoing loyalty.