Expert Rinat Tagirov on MarTech and CX in Sensitive Industries: Building Empathetic Marketing and Winning Price Wars in Conservative Retail

Marketing in industries where customers face significant emotional stress—including memorial architecture—is fundamentally different from traditional e-commerce. Standard digital marketing tactics and aggressive sales approaches can often create resistance rather than engagement. In this interview, marketing and operations expert Rinat Tagirov examines customer psychology in conservative industries, explores MarTech tools for building more empathetic sales processes, and explains how a strong customer experience model can help businesses compete effectively in price-driven markets.

Customer Psychology Under Stress: Why Aggressive Marketing Fails

— Rinat, most marketing funnels are designed around either rational decision-making or impulse buying. However, in industries where demand is highly specialized and emotionally sensitive, customers are often under significant psychological stress. What are the main psychological barriers customers face, and why does conventional MarTech often fall short?

— In my view, the biggest mistake is treating the customer as an anonymous traffic unit rather than as a person. When someone is dealing with emotional loss, their mental state changes: they may feel anxious, have limited capacity to process technical details, and subconsciously look for a safe and respectful environment.

Aggressive targeting, intrusive pop-ups, or cold sales scripts built around manipulative discounts and pressure to buy immediately can trigger an immediate rejection—the customer perceives this pushiness as cynicism. The opposite extreme is the detached approach of some established regional businesses, where communication essentially comes down to: “Here’s the catalog—choose something. We’re not going to explain anything.” As a result, the customer can feel abandoned. The key is to find the right balance.

— What customer experience model did you develop to overcome these barriers?

— I completely redesigned the logic of customer interactions, putting empathetic design and sensitive customer support at the center. First and foremost, we removed pressure-based elements from the sales funnel and developed communication guidelines focused on listening to customers and supporting them. Managers are trained to first reduce the customer’s anxiety rather than try to sell them something at any cost.

We also simplified the way information is presented. Instead of paper price lists, we created a transparent online catalog so customers could explore their options from the comfort of their own homes and make a decision without the discomfort that can sometimes come with an in-person visit.

Another important factor is the speed of visualization. In a situation like this, waiting weeks for a designer to prepare a sketch can be a serious problem. That’s why we integrated graphic tools and rapid-generation algorithms that allow us to show the customer a 3D visualization during the meeting. This gives the person a sense of control over the final result and helps them make a decision much faster.

MarTech in Regional Markets: Local Adaptation and Hybrid Channels

— The effectiveness of digital tools can vary significantly by location: what drives conversions in one city may not work in a neighboring one. How do you approach selecting a MarTech stack while taking regional specifics into account?

— You’re absolutely right. There is a common misconception that advertising channels are universally effective. In reality, the performance of MarTech tools is closely tied to the local context. For example, when we opened one of our branches in Labinsk, we found that an online classified platform was a powerful source of traffic. But when we applied the same approach in another city, the conversion rate was close to zero. There, the audience relies more on direct referrals, local mapping services, and in-person visits. So project managers should keep in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all formula—and there never will be.

— In addition to regional differences, digital platforms often come with risks such as disruptions, outages, and server failures. How can you ensure the resilience of a marketing system under these conditions?

— Relying solely on digital channels is not a sound strategy today. If a website goes down because of technical issues or advertising accounts are suspended, the business loses its customer flow. I implemented a hybrid marketing system that connects digital channels—an online store, messaging apps, and mapping services—with a targeted hyperlocal offline presence. In particular, we launched targeted campaigns using physical advertising materials in areas where the target audience is most likely to be, including locations associated with memorial services. This unconventional channel generated about 20% of our total customer volume. MarTech should be a hybrid system in which offline channels provide a safety net for digital ones.

Transforming the Customer Experience as the Key Strategy Against Price Competition

— Competition in your industry is quite intense. What strategies do you use to stand out from the wide range of offers in the market?

— Competition is indeed quite fierce. I remember how the geopolitical changes in 2022 led to major disruptions in logistics. As a result, raw material prices rose sharply, and major competitors with inventory reserves entered a price war. How do you protect your business when a competitor is selling a finished product for 12,000 rubles while your cost of the raw materials alone is 20,000? Believe me, that’s a tough one. But it’s important to understand that price competition is always a trap. Trying to compete on price with a large player that has substantial inventory reserves means exhausting your working capital. Another dangerous mistake is cutting costs at the expense of quality—using unqualified crews or switching to lower-quality materials.

— And what strategy did you choose?

— My solution was to change the “playing field”: we shifted the competition from price to service quality and guaranteed reliability.

 — What made customers willing to pay more in the middle of a crisis?

— Large companies that compete through aggressive price cuts typically save on service: they employ untrained staff, while installation is handled by outside contractors without any guarantees. We countered this with our own service system. We built a permanent team of skilled technicians with strict quality control and introduced personal accountability—each order was assigned a dedicated manager who oversaw it from the initial design through final delivery. We also focused on giving customers confidence in the reliability of the structure and making sure they knew they would not be left alone with potential problems after the purchase.

It’s important to remember the specifics of this market: when customers are psychologically vulnerable, they are not necessarily looking for the lowest price—they are looking for reassurance that they will not have problems. That is what we built our strategy around. Later, as competitors’ inventory reserves were depleted by 2023–2024 and their prices moved back in line with the market, our company established a strong market position through its reputation.

AI and the Limits of Marketing Automation

 — Tell us about the role of automation and AI in your approach. Can AI completely replace a marketer in complex industries?

 — Absolutely not. AI is an excellent tool for handling routine tasks. We use it to create preliminary sketches quickly, reducing the approval process from days to minutes. However, AI has limitations when it comes to developing marketing strategies and building the customer experience. It generates generalized templates based on publicly available information and cannot fully understand the local mindset or assess the emotional nuances of communicating with a specific person in a specific region. Strategic marketing is about understanding human psychology, and decision-making always—I emphasize, always—remains the responsibility of the expert.

Applying this comprehensive system—from an empathetic sales funnel and MarTech adaptation to launching our own stone-processing facility—allowed Rinat Tagirov’s team to increase the company’s revenue from 1.2 million to 15–17 million rubles over four years. This is a remarkable result. His experience ultimately points to one clear conclusion: MarTech is effective only when it is grounded in a deep understanding of customer psychology. Moving away from aggressive sales in favor of empathetic interfaces, combining digital and offline channels, and focusing on quality rather than price competition create a model capable of delivering significant business growth even in the most conservative industries.