Category: CRM Experts

In today’s competitive retail landscape, customer experience is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s a necessity. A recent research by Statista (APAC Importance of Personalized Customer Experience by Country)  say that le likelihood of quitting a Brand due to a poor customer experience vary between 51% and 90%. This experience, encompassing every touchpoint a customer has with your retail brand, is best understood as a journey – the customer’s journey. 

Crafting a seamless and personalized customer journey is crucial for building brand loyalty and driving sales. Enter Retail CRM, a powerful tool that empowers retailers and brands to understand their customers, personalize their experience, and ultimately create the ultimate customer journey. Hypertrade Software Solutions offers a state-of-the-art Retail CRM solution specifically designed to achieve this goal. 

Segmentation as a starting point: Tailoring the Journey for Different Customer Groups 

Not all customers are created equal. The first level of understanding about customers is how to segment them. The segmentation can be strategic (i.e. the same segmentation will be used throughout the year to measure the evolution of each segment and the possible movement of individual shoppers from one segment to another one) or tactical (specific segments are built to understand the behaviors of specific customers groups throughout selected periods of time or sales channels. 
Best practices recommend to: 

• use a combination of both segmentation types. 
• ensure that each segmentation incorporates shopping behavior metrics (basket size, category penetration, frequency…) 

Flexibility in your customer segmentation will enable marketers to understand and differentiate customer groups with their differences in preferences and behaviors, and therefore tailor the journeys for each group. 

Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software empowers you to create customer segments based on various criteria. Imagine segmenting customers who frequently buy running shoes. You can then craft targeted email campaigns showcasing new running shoe arrivals, exclusive discounts on running apparel, or training tips relevant to runners. This level of segmentation ensures your marketing efforts resonate with each customer group, leading to higher engagement and conversions. 

Understanding Your Customers: The Power of Personalization 

At the heart of the customer journey lies customer behavior. What products do they browse or buy? What motivates their purchases? How do they interact with your commercial offer across different channels? Retail CRM excels at gathering and analyzing this valuable data. 

This data empowers retailers to personalize the customer journey. Imagine sending targeted ad based on a customer’s recent non-purchase behavior or offering personalized product recommendations on your website based on cross-merchandising or Next Best Offer algorithm. And solutions like LAGO are able to bring this Personalisation to a website or an app home page.  

The benefits of personalization are undeniable. In addition to the impact on sales, it also boosts loyalty. Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software facilitates such personalization through features like customer segment profiles, comprehensive purchase tracking, and seamless integration with loyalty programs. 

Building the Blocks: Tactical Strategies for Each Stage 

A well-defined customer journey can be traditionally broken down into four key stages: 

1. Awareness: This is where potential customers first discover your brand. 

2. Consideration: Customers learn more about your products and consider making a purchase. 

3. Purchase: The conversion takes place – the customer makes the purchase. 

4. Post-purchase: Retain loyal customers and encourage advocacy. 

At Hypertrade, we like articulating the journey around Loyal Customers Life Cycle, as for example: 

1. Onboarding: your customer just joined your loyalty program 

2. First Purchases: you customers are testing and experimenting their first purchases, online or offline. 

3. Life Cycles: from social events to commercial operations and targeted campaigns, your customers are benefiting from specific offers – either transactional or informational 

4. Lapsing: some customers are decreasing both their shopping frequency and spending, and its time to know why so corrective actions can be deployed 

Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software offers a treasure trove of functionalities – that can be all automated – to enhance each stage: 

• Onboarding: create automation to welcome the newcomers, gratify their first transactions and progressively share the benefits your Loyalty Program offers. 
• First Purchases: Follow up the purchase activities and start understanding newcomers browsing and shopping preferences. Stimuli can be offered in case of a low activity. 
• Life Cycles: With a growing purchase history, shopping patterns and preferences are becoming clearer. You can nurture customer relationships with personalized post-purchase emails requesting feedback, offering exclusive discounts for repeat purchases, and rewarding loyalty program members. 
• Lapsing: You can save your customer relationships by automatically identifying lapsing customers and maintain the relationship with, here again, a variety of informational or transactional personalized contents. 

Alignment with Promotion Plans: A Unified Customer Experience 

A seamless customer journey requires alignment between your Retail CRM efforts and your overall promotion plan. Each retailer has its own communication and promotion plan, that will include a variety of events like seasonal sales, flash deals, or loyalty program point multipliers. Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software integrates with your marketing automation tools, allowing you to design targeted email campaigns and social media posts promoting these initiatives. 

Imagine a simple scenario where you’re running a back-to-school promotion offering discounts on backpacks and notebooks. Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software can identify customers who have purchased these items in the past. You can then craft targeted email campaigns promoting the back-to-school sale, showcasing relevant products, and highlighting the exclusive discounts available. This ensures a unified customer experience where promotions are communicated effectively and resonate with the most relevant customer segments. 

Vendor Management & Personalized Campaigns 

Retailers’ loyalty programs collect valuable data on customer behavior, including what they buy and how often they get things shipped. Suppliers are eager to sponsor targeted and personalized ad campaigns using this shipping data.  

This allows them to reach the right customers with the right message at the right time, significantly boosting the chances of a sale and driving up demand for their products. 

Some of these campaigns can be integrated into each supplier’s yearling trading agreement as well as be used for tactical sales and market share boost. 
 

Automating the Journey: Streamlining Customer Interactions

In today’s fast-paced world, automation plays a crucial role in streamlining customer interactions. Each of these customer touch points, each event, each change of behavior can be defined as a trigger for a specific campaign, for a specific customer segment, with a specific personalized offer. 

Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software goes beyond manual outreach, offering a suite of automated features like, for example 

• Abandoned Cart Reminders: Customers often abandon carts due to distractions. Hypertrade’s CRM can automatically send gentle reminders, prompting them to complete their purchase. 
• Personalized Welcome Emails: Make a lasting first impression! Hypertrade’s CRM allows you to set up automated welcome emails for new customers, offering a personalized greeting and introducing them to your brand story. 

• Birthday and Anniversary Offers: Personalized birthday or anniversary emails with special offers showcase that you care. Hypertrade’s CRM automates this process, fostering customer loyalty. 
• Triggered Email Campaigns: Take personalization a step further with automated email campaigns based on purchase history or browsing behavior. Imagine sending emails showcasing complementary products to a customer’s recent purchase – Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software makes it effortless. 

By leveraging the power of automation, Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software enable retailers to achieve 3 major business benefits: 

• Increase efficiency and cost savings. 
• Improve consistency and scalability. 
• Continuous increase of Customer understanding. 

Discover Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software, a retail CRM solution developed by Hypertrade.

Contact us to learn how we can help you improve your omnichannel Customer Journeys 

• Africa & Middle East : Katie Trinh 
• South East Asia : Peerapol Prakaisak 
• Philippines : Annika Dadivas 

In today’s dynamic market landscape, consumer loyalty is a precious commodity. Faced with an abundance of choices and ever-evolving preferences, customers are increasingly prone to “brand switching”, presentings a significant challenge for businesses, resulting in lost revenue, hindered growth, and increased marketing costs.

However, brands needn’t be passive observers in the face of this shifting loyalty landscape. By leveraging data-driven insights and implementing strategic initiatives, businesses can effectively combat brand switching and foster long-term customer relationships.

This article explores various strategies brands can utilize to understand and minimize brand switching, drawing on capabilities of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software like Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software.

Harnessing the Power of POS Data

Traditional methods of understanding customer behavior often rely on surveys and focus groups, which can be time-consuming, subjective, and offer limited data points. In contrast, Point-of-Sale (POS) data provides a treasure trove of objective, real-time information on customer purchasing habits. By analyzing past purchase histories, brands can identify:  

• Customers who haven’t bought from them recently or  
• Customer who left and started purchasing competing products.  
• Proactive engagement actions, enabling brands to reaching out to these at risk customers, at the right time, with personalized offers and incentives to entice them back.  

Solutions like Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software can analyze and interpret this data to identify patterns and trends in brand switching behavior.

Targeted Campaigns Based on Behavior

One-size-fits-all marketing campaigns are no longer effective in today’s diverse and segmented market. Understanding the “why” behind brand switching is crucial to crafting targeted campaigns that resonate with specific customer segments.

By analyzing POS data alongside customer demographics, purchase history, and product preferences, Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software can uncover underlying factors influencing customer behavior. .

For example, particular customer segment may switch brands due to concerns about  

• Product Quality  
• Price Changes
• Competitor Promotional Offers

Armed with such insights, brands can tailor their messaging and offers to address specific concerns traditional customer surveys may not uncover and encourage greater loyalty.

Beyond Panels: Data-Driven Insights for Understanding Switching Behavior

While customer panels provide valuable information, they are often challenged in granularity of insights due to sample size limitations. By leveraging data analytics from POS systems, Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software can offer a more in depth comprehensive and unbiased perspective on brand switching behavior, down to SKU level.

This data-driven approach allows brands to identify patterns and trends that may be missed through traditional methods, such as:

• Seasonal fluctuations: Certain times of the year or specific events may trigger an increase in brand switching. Identifying these patterns allows brands to anticipate and proactively address potential customer churn during these periods.  For example, in Western markets premiumisation occurs in many categories at Christmas, as shoppers trade up to celebrate the special occasion with loved ones.  This is especially true in Soft Drinks.
• Product category impact: Analyzing switching behavior across different product categories can reveal specific areas where brands might be losing ground to competitors. This insight can be instrumental in product development and improvement strategies.
• Regional variations: Customer demographics and preferences can vary significantly across different regions. Utilizing POS data allows brands to tailor their strategies and messaging to cater to the specific needs and preferences of their regional customer base.

Quantifying the Cost of Churn

Understanding the financial impact of brand switching is crucial for effective resource allocation. Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software can help brands calculate the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) – the total revenue a customer is expected to generate over their relationship with the brand. This, coupled with the analysis of switching patterns, allows brands to quantify the cost of winning or losing customers to via brand switching.

With a clear understanding of the financial implications, brands can allocate resources efficiently, prioritizing strategic initiatives and marketing campaigns that offer the highest potential return on investment (ROI) in terms of customer retention.

Beyond the Mentioned Strategies

The fight against brand switching requires a holistic approach that extends beyond the strategies mentioned above. Here are some additional considerations:

• Building Emotional Connection: Foster deeper customer relationships by building an emotional connection with your brand. This can be achieved through personalized communication, exceptional customer service, and a commitment to social responsibility.
• Investing in Customer Experience: Prioritize creating a seamless and positive customer experience across all touchpoints, from online interaction to physical stores.
• Continuous Improvement: Regularly gather feedback from customers and employees to identify areas for improvement and adapt your strategies accordingly.
• Data Security and Privacy: Ensure compliance with data privacy regulations and implement robust security measures to protect customer information.

Conclusion

In conclusion, brand switching presents a significant challenge for businesses in today’s competitive market. However, by leveraging data-driven insights from solutions like Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software, brands can gain a deeper understanding of customer behavior, identify the triggers for brand switching, and implement targeted strategies to foster loyalty and mitigate customer churn.

Constant customer behaviors changes can make it quite challenging for marketers to constantly adapt their commercial offering. Still, thanks to technology and solutions like Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software Automated Campaigns, Identifying, understanding and acting automatically upon these changes in each customer’s purchasing behavior is crucial for businesses for 5 main reasons:

Personalization

Customers today expect personalized experiences. When you track and analyze their purchasing behavior, you can tailor your marketing messages, product recommendations, and promotions to their specific preferences and needs. This personalization can significantly improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Customer Retention

Recognizing changes in purchasing behavior can help you identify signs of customer churn or dissatisfaction early on. For instance, if a once-frequent customer starts making fewer purchases, or drops in her shopping frequency, it may indicate a problem or dissatisfaction that needs to be addressed promptly. Reacting to such changes can help you retain valuable customers.

Upselling and Cross-selling

Understanding customer behavior can also help you identify opportunities for upselling and cross-selling. If you notice a customer consistently buying a particular product or a category, you can suggest complementary or higher-value items, increasing the average transaction value.

Inventory Management

Analyzing purchasing behavior can help with inventory management. You can better predict demand (see Ariane’s Machine Learning Forecast Engine) , reduce stock outs, and avoid overstocking by having a clearer understanding of what customers are likely to purchase in the future.

Marketing Efficiency

By tracking changes in behavior, you can allocate marketing resources more efficiently. Instead of sending generic messages to all customers, you can focus your efforts on those who are more likely to respond positively to your promotions or offers.

Here’s how to react to changes in customer purchasing behavior effectively:

Data & Retail CRM

Invest in data analytics tools like Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software and expertise to collect, clean, and analyze customer data effectively. This includes purchase history, demographic information, and any other relevant data.

Segmentation

Segment your customer base based on common behavior patterns. This allows you to create tailored marketing strategies and messaging for each segment.

Real-time Monitoring

Set up real-time monitoring systems to detect changes in behavior promptly. This can include automated alerts for significant deviations from the norm.

Customer Engagement

Reach out to customers who exhibit unusual behavior. For instance, if a customer who usually buys monthly suddenly stops purchasing, send them a personalized email or offer to inquire about their needs or address any issues they might have.

A/B Testing

Experiment with different marketing strategies to see how they impact customer behavior. A/B testing can help you refine your approaches and determine what works best.

Feedback Mechanisms

Provide easy ways for customers to provide feedback. This can be through surveys, reviews, or direct communication channels. Use this feedback to make improvements and address concerns.

Continuous Learning

Keep learning from your customers’ behavior and adapt your strategies accordingly. Customer preferences and market dynamics can change, so staying agile and responsive is crucial.

Automation

Utilize marketing automation tools to send personalized messages and offers at scale. These tools can help you react to changes in behavior in a timely and efficient manner.

In summary, identifying and reacting to changes in customer purchasing behavior is essential for building and maintaining strong customer relationships, increasing sales, and staying competitive in today’s market. It requires a combination of data analysis, segmentation, proactive communication, and continuous improvement efforts.

About Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software and Automated Campaigns

• Create any customer segmentation based on your own criteria.

• Select the campaign mechanics of your choice.

• Track customer behavior on any changes

• Define your own campaign frequency.

• Track & monitor the performance of each campaign.

• Automatically export your campaign to your POS, ERP and CDP

• Control your spending per campaign.

‍In an increasingly competitive modern retail landscape, Retailers and Manufacturers are actively seeking ways to gain an edge by comprehending shoppers’ behaviors and the reasoning behind their choices.

Among the myriad of tools and strategies available for acquiring such valuable insights, shopper’s basket analysis stands out as an essential component. This analytical technique sheds light on shopper behavior by uncovering patterns of frequently co-purchased items and identifying the triggers that prompt shoppers to make their initial purchases.

By diving into shopper’s basket analysis, Retailers and Manufacturers can gain a deeper understanding of their customers, enabling them to make informed decisions to enhance their customer shopping experience and drive sales.

Challenges

Our client was facing a significant challenge when it comes to understanding their customer’s behaviors, optimizing their commercial offers, and improving Customer satisfaction. This led to a decline in sales revenue and profitability, as well as unsatisfactory outcomes in customer assortment surveys.

Challenge 1: Limited Customers insights.

Shopper’s basket analysis provides valuable insights into purchase behavior, preferences, and purchasing patterns. Without this analysis, the Marketing team was lacking the understanding necessary to segment their customer base effectively and tailor their marketing strategies accordingly. It resulted in generic or irrelevant marketing campaigns, reducing customer engagement, and lowering conversion rates.

Challenge 2: Ineffective Targeted Campaigns.

Shoppers basket analysis is the foundation of personalized product recommendations. By understanding the associations between products, Retailers, and Manufacturers can provide relevant and targeted recommendations to customers, enhancing their shopping experience. Without this analysis, product recommendations may lack accuracy and effectiveness, potentially leading to lower customer satisfaction and reduced sales.

Challenge 3: Inefficient product location

To determine the optimal product location is to identify associations between products frequently purchased together not to miss cross-selling or upselling opportunities, leading to lower sales and customer satisfaction.

Actions

To address this challenge, our Client’s Team decided to proceed step by step and focus on Categories that were experiencing performance challenges. Their goal was to understand the root causes of these challenges and determine corrective actions to solve them.

Step 1: Identify Decreasing Spending Category

Among their top categories within each division, our Client’s Team selected categories with the most significant decrease in sales. They then conducted a deep dive analysis to uncover the root cause for this decline.

Step 2: Basket Decision Tree

Their next step involved using a Basket Decision Tree to gain insights into the decrease in spending within the Confectionary category, for example.

By examining the data, the team identified two possible causes: a lower number of baskets or a decrease in spending per basket.

Interestingly, they observed that the number of baskets was actually increasing while the overall spending value was decreasing.

At this stage, 3 potential scenarios were possible:

1. Shoppers were purchasing products from a lower price tier.
2. Shoppers were buying fewer number of SKUs.
3. Shoppers were purchasing lesser quantities.

After careful consideration, the Client’s Team concluded that customers were buying fewer number of SKUs than they previously did. Consequently, they made the decision to focus on their Top-Spending Customers to address this issue.

Step 3: Customer Segmentation

Customer segmentation provides valuable insights into customer behavior, specifically in terms of recency, frequency, and spending within different segments.  

This information allows for the implementation of dynamic commercial strategies. In response to the spending challenge our Client was facing, their team decided to focus on their Top Spenders, who make up 55% of their customer base.

Step 4: Optimize Commercial Offer

Now that our client’s team had identified their target audience, the next step for them is to determine how to increase the number of SKUs in Customers’ baskets.

One of the many ways is by identifying the products that are frequently purchased together by Customers, using this information they can leverage Cross-Selling strategies.  

Based on the analysis of POS data, our Client’s Team discovered that Biscuits are complementary products to Confectionery. With this insight, they created displays and promotions that highlight these complementary products, Biscuits next to the Confectionery shelves.  

Step 5: Targeted Campaigns

Regardless of the implementation in stores, effective communication with Customers is essential for success. Without proper communication, the desired outcomes may be impacted.  

In the early stages, our Client’s Team identified their top spending customers. Utilizing this customer list, the Client’s Marketing Team can launch targeted campaigns specifically designed to attract these shoppers to the confectionary category. They can offer special discounts that apply to all items in the complementary category (Biscuits), encouraging these customers to make additional purchases.

Results

After 6 Months  

• Sales Growth increased by 17.2%
• Average spending for selected category increased by 10.8 %.

What does this show?

Understanding customers’ behaviors and preferences through Shopper basket analysis helps Retailers gain a deeper understanding of their customers.  

By leveraging the insights gained, Retailers can optimize their commercial offerings, effectively segment their customer base, tailor their marketing strategies, and enhance the overall customer experience. This ultimately leads to an increase in the average number of items per basket, resulting in higher sales and profitability, and driving growth in a highly competitive Retail landscape.

On our side, we were of course happy to see that our Tools and Expertise are helping create the right value for our clients and helping optimize Shopper’s experience and delighting more Shoppers every day.

ABOUT US

We are a Tech driven Category & Shopper Management Platform

We help retail players who know data & people are their next opportunity for growth.

We make data mining a breeze & build powerful tools teams love, that help them understand shoppers and support their category decisions.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a strategic approach to managing customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes, including marketing, sales, and customer service. CRM can help retailers to better understand and meet the needs of their customers, and ultimately drive increased sales and profitability. Here are five steps for implementing CRM at a retail organization for a company that has already selected its Retail CRM system.

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Step 1: Define Business Goals and Objectives

Though it seems obvious, this first step is by far the most difficult one. It is about defining the business goals and objectives that the CRM team will support. This might include increasing sales, improving customer retention, and optimizing marketing and sales efforts. By defining clear goals and objectives, retailers can better understand the specific needs and challenges that the CRM Team will need to address.

To achieve the business goals and objectives, it will also be the opportunity to define the CRM team:

• Role & Responsibilities
• Assessment metrics
• Decisions Scope
• Authority Level

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Step 2: Gather Customers Data

The level of data gathered depends on the technology advance the company is ready to implement. In a first phase, we recommend gathering sales record and basics customer data. In a second phase, when the company is ready to extend its CRM systems to a Customer Data Platform level (CDP), social media interactions, Customer Service and Surveys data can also be added1. The information will help gain insights into consumer behavior and preferences and use this information to tailor their marketing and sales efforts to meet the needs of their target customers.

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Step 3: Become Legally Compliant

In addition to collecting and using consenting Customers data, it is legally critical to setup a Data Controller and define data access rules (who can access the data and for what purpose), storage rules (where are the data store and what are the data security systems in place) as well as data breach procedures (what needs to be done in case of a hack or data breach)

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Step 4: Build the CRM Team’s Budget

The CRM team’s expenses include the following:

• Recruitment, salaries & benefits
• Customers Acquisition costs
• 1 By law, consents from customers must be obtained to collect, store and use their data. Most countries are using the GPRD model.
• Solutions to continuously improve Shopper Engagement – rds.hyper-trade.com/ 2 | P a g e
• Customers Retention Costs
• Planned Campaign Costs
• Unplanned Campaign Cost (to accelerate spending or frequency)
• Systems Costs (CRM systems, Big Data Engine, CDP…)
• Social Media Costs
• Communication Costs (including in store)

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Step 5: Position the CRM Team in the organization

Depending on each company’s available resources and maturity level, several options are possible

Option 1: CRM Team reports to Marketing

This is the most frequent case. It requires the Marketing Senior Leadership to be familiar with CRM, agile with data and metrics and possess a reasonable level of strategic thinking.

Option 2: CRM Team reports to Merchandise

This is an alternative solution when the Marketing Leadership is not ready yet. In this solution, one has to be aware that Merchandise de facto becomes Judge and Jury on its decisions concerning Customers strategies, the biggest trap being to transform CRM in a predominantly monetizing vehicle.

Option 3: CRM Team reports to CEO

While CEOs are already busy with so many other topics to drive, this is, in our opinion, the most reliable and efficient alternative in the case where no suitable Marketing Leadership is to be found. It guarantees the neutrality of Customers Strategies, protects from to much suppliers influence and supports operations and supply chain fully.

Option 4: CRM Team reports to an external party

This solution can only be temporary until a suitable Marketing Leadership can be found. This option also guarantees neutrality, execution and efficiency.

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Step 6: Build the Team

At its starting point, the CRM Team needs at least 1 manager and 2 executives.

CRM Manager Profile: 6 essentials skills

Strong analytical skills: A retail CRM manager should have strong analytical skills and be able to analyze customer data and market trends to identify opportunities for improvement and inform CRM strategies.

Leadership skills: A retail CRM manager should be a strong leader who can motivate and manage a team of employees and work effectively with other stakeholders, such as marketing, merchandise, operations and supply-chains teams.

Strategic thinking: A retail CRM manager should have strong strategic thinking skills and be able to develop and implement long-term CRM plans that align with the business goals and objectives of the organization.

Communication skills: A retail CRM manager should have excellent communication skills and be able to clearly articulate CRM strategies and recommendations to other stakeholders, as well as effectively listen to and incorporate feedback from employees and customers.

Technical skills: A retail CRM manager should have a good understanding of CRM technologies and be able to effectively use CRM systems to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes.

Customer-focused mindset: A retail CRM manager should have a customer-focused mindset and be able to anticipate and meet the needs of customers to drive increased satisfaction and loyalty.

CRM Executive

The CRM executive should have excellent analytical skills and communication skills

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Step 7: Establish the Team in the Organization

Establishing the Team in the organization is achieved by performing the following tasks:

• Define the routines & reporting tasks of the CRM Team as well as its decisions scope
• Introduce the role & responsibilities of the CRM team to other Business Units and the benefits they will gain
• Explain to other teams what actions are needed when receiving CRM’s data and insights
• Build the official communication channels between the CRM Teams and other units
• Officialize the CRM Team’s budget with Finance Team
• Decide which Teams can access to what insights with what type of decisions scope
• Solidify all CRM related interactions with Suppliers (Marketing, CRM and Merchandise: who does what? how do they inform each other? what are the business rules to be respected?

Depending on the CRM goals and business objectives (see Step 1) and each company’s specific organisational structure, some tasks can be added or deleted

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Step 8: Train the CRM Team

Continuous training on the selected Retail CRM system should be in place, to ensure the Teams is aware of what can be done, what cannot be done and what are the walk arounds.

A clear communication between the CRM Team and the Retail CRM system service provider will also enable the provider to give better guidance.

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Step 9: Train the Other Teams

To avoid useless emails and accelerate agility, all divisions concerned by the CRM Team data and customers insights should have a protected and defined access to the retail CRM system. These teams must be trained both on the tool itself, and on how to read data and be able to connect data reading and actions.

The training should be articulated around the agreed shared data and decision-making rules and responsibilities.

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Step 10: Include CRM Insights in the Executive Committee

By setting up a CRM full fledge team, the company asserts its willingness to put Customers at the centre of its business. From strategic, operational and performance perspectives, CRM should be participating in the Excom meetings not only to share performances, but also to provide their strategic and tactical recommendations.

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What solutions will you probably have to find

Inserting a new cog in any mechanism often carries it share of challenges. The challenges described below happen the most frequently

Conflict of Interest with Merchandise

The conflict will arise first on the Assortment:

• Merchandise Team often make written or non-written agreements with Suppliers
• Merchandise teams will have difficulties in accepting the data-driven recommendations
• Merchandise will have difficulties in executing the actions recommended by the CRM Team

Conflicts will also arise on Promotion:

• Merchandise will defend their promotion items choices based on written or non-written agreements with Suppliers
• Merchandise teams will have difficulties in negotiating the promotions suggested by the CRM Team
• Merchandise will argue on the CRM Campaign fees negotiated with Suppliers
• Merchandise and CRM Team might have different views on the number of campaigns and the maximum number of times a (consenting) customer can receive a campaign by month
• Merchandise and CRM might have different views on promotion sales forecast, especially if the promotion business model limits the quantity sold

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The solution: layout all the concerned business rules in advanced and review them regularly for adjustment when necessary. Additionally, the setup of a CRM Team is a good opportunity to review existing Vendor Management Policies, or establish them if they don’t exist yet.

Conflict of Interest with Operations

• For the most popular items display guidelines, it is not rare that Operations asserts a better local knowledge and understanding of its catchment area’s customer knowledge
• For the Loyal Customers sales contribution, stores with a low contribution will often complain about a lack of marketing budget (store decoration and signage)

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The solution: for Housewife basket, jointly decide of the scope to be integrated for the calculation and agree on a planned performance review. For the sales contribution, the in-store communication budget should be decided in the CRM Team’s budget (see step 4)

Conflict of Interest with Supply Chain

Direct conflict with supply chain is rare. They mostly occur when the promotion or campaign ordered quantities are very different from the sales forecast. If Merchandise is the Business Unit that validates quantities, then the conflict will be with them.

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The solution: layout all the concerned business rules in advanced and review them regularly for adjustment when necessary.

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Conflict of Interest with Finance

Conflicts with the Finance Department arise mostly in 2 areas:

• Budget: the spending is over budget
• Margin: CRM operations do not generate the margin target

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The solution: For Budget, CRM should be subject to the same established budget management rules as other Business Units. These rules should include the exceptional situations when Senior Leadership requests for additional campaigns to boost basket and traffic.

For the margin issue, the solution goes to a higher organisational concern: who is responsible for gross margin. The established rules should apply to CRM events.

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Conflict of Interest with Marketing

Conflicts with the Marketing Department arise mostly in 2 areas:

• Communication Plan: depending on the business and sales situation, the CRM Team will, often, create campaigns or events that are not planned
• When joined marketing operations are created, CRM and Marketing might disagree on the suppliers’ budget and its allocation

‍The solution: The solution: layout all the concerned business rules in advanced and review them regularly for adjustment when necessary.

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Retail CRM System Mapping: an Example Overview

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Learn More about Retail CRM

• How to setup a CRM Team at a retailer
• Retail CRM Top 10 business Benefits
• Retail CRM Glossary
• CRM Persona & Personalization
• How CRM impacts the entire Customer Experience
• Why Post Campaign analyses are more important than campaign results
• 4 ways to Maximize Campaign Results

Contact us to get the White Papers you are interested! I want to learn more about Retail CRM

From an increase of customers acquisition costs over 60% in the last five years (source: Digital Information World) to communication clutters to general inflation and customers’ annoyance of being so often contacted for offers that do not relate to them, several factors are making it necessary for retail marketers to rethink their Customers Engagement Strategies.

In these new engagement strategies, the relevance of the communication to Customers (or Personalization) and ROI plays a critical role. This is where Retail CRM comes into action.

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1. Improved Customer Loyalty

Customer Loyalty defines the behaviors of customers who come back often and progressively grow their spending, either in the same categories or across new categories they never purchased before.

By providing a personalized and efficient customer experience, retail CRM software can help retailers build customer loyalty and increase repeat business. It can also identify areas for improvement, which once realized, can further enhance customer loyalty.

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2. Cost efficiency

Because Retail CRM systems shares data and insight among Teams, it can streamline category management and promotion processes, reducing the amount of time and resources needed to improve commercial offerings’ relevance. Retail CRM systems can also help businesses automate certain tasks, such as sending personalized emails or generating reports, which can further increase efficiency.

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3. Sales Growth

By providing retail Teams with a comprehensive view of customer interactions and preferences, retail CRM systems can help identify.

• Next best purchase opportunities
• Categories with declining spending
• Categories with declining penetration
• Campaigns’ performance tracking

Merchandising and Marketing Teams are therefore empowered to focus on the most important opportunities.

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4. Reduced Customer Churn

By monitoring, for each carded customers, the frequency, recency and value of transactions, Retail CRM can help retailers identify at-risk customers and take proactive steps to retain them, such as offering special promotions or personalized customer service. The reduction of customer churn not only reduces the cost of acquiring new customers, and also increase the lifetime value of their customer base.

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5. Advanced Customer Segmentation

Retail CRM systems allow businesses to segment their customers based on various characteristics, such as demographics, purchase history, and customer behavior. Fixed segmentations allow to monitor the movements of customers across segments while dynamic segmentation allow to create ad hoc segmentation. This allows retailers to tailor their marketing efforts and create targeted campaigns that are more likely to be successful. Advanced segmentation also enables teams to identify customers at risks (lapsing) and reduce churn, as well as VIP Customers, who must be cherished and cocooned

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6. Increase Campaigns ROI

Building on advanced segmentation, it is possible Retail CRM systems to propose commercial offers that are more relevant to the targeted customer group. Not only is the number of targeted customers smaller, but higher conversion rates and sales derive from this targeting. By targeting marketing efforts to specific customer segments, businesses can more effectively reach and engage their audience, leading to increased ROI and sales.

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7. Better Relationships with Customers

By definition, a Retail CRM software tracks customers interactions and preferences. These tracking data – in online or physical stores – can then help improve CX and build stronger relationships. In return, these actions lead to increased customer loyalty and repeat business.  The personalization of offers also contribute to the strengthening of the relationship.

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8. Enhanced Customer Service

Still building on the tracking of customer interactions and preferences, Retail CRM empowers team to provide more personalized and efficient customer service. By getting a quick and accurate access to Customers’ history, Teams can provide a faster service in addressing inquiries or complains. Just think about the management of a return or customer calling to review its latest purchases. The impact on Customer Satisfaction can be quite significant.

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9. Better & Faster Decisions

A Retail CRM software has access to a wealth of data on customer preferences and behavior. These data can then be used in Range, Distribution, Promotion and Supply Chain processes with great accuracy, access in minutes. As a Retail CRM systems can be used by different business units, the identification of  trends and patterns in customer data can be used to optimize business operations and improve the customer experience.

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10. Improved Data Security

Retail CRM solutions often include robust security features to protect customer data (which can help businesses avoid data breaches and maintain customer trust) as well as protect customers from unwanted solicitations and offer (GPRD compliance). By securely storing and managing customer data, retailers can demonstrate their commitment to protecting customer privacy and build customer trust.

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Read More About Retail CRM

• CRM Essentials for Retailers: How to setup a CRM organisation in your retail Business
• Business Case: Learn how a medium-sized retailer built and uses Customers’ Persona
• CRM Glossary for Retailers: Get familiar with the Retail CRM Jargon
• How CRM can impact your whole CX: What are the real pillars of customers retention
• Compare and Choose your Retail CRM system: Practical Guide

One can easily find CRM glossaries online, and some of them are really good. Still, we could not find a glossary that is specific to retail and that could explain the practical usage of the main components of CRM for our own growing Teams.

So, we decided to build our own. If we are lucky, our little efforts will also be useful to others

Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software ™ is a Retail CRM online Solution published by HPT Ariane Ltd, South East Asia Leading Retail Collaboration Platform.

Fed by POS Data, ERP and CRM Data, Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software ™ is a tool that enable retailers and marketers to understand customers purchase and non-purchase decisions.

Developed by and for retailers, Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software ™ is both offering simplicity in its usage as well as a really deep level or granularity.

Ulys Customer Intelligence SaaS Software ™ is articulated around functionalities:

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• CRM Performances & Profitability Dashboards
• Purchase behaviour
• Basket Analyses
• Purchase Trends
• Customer Segmentation
• Promotions
• Customers history

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Like many companies, our CRM activity is growing fast. Retailers are in high demand of improved CRM solutions and advanced Analytics. So, our Teams working on the development of our CRM Tools, as well as our Teams commercializing these solutions, are growing too. To welcome these newcomers, who might not always have an extensive experience of Retail CRM, we started looking for CRM Training Materials, especially glossaries, online.

One can easily find CRM glossaries online, and some of them are really good. Still, we could not find a glossary that is specific to retail and that could explain the practical usage of the main components of CRM. So, we decided to build our own. If we are lucky, our little efforts will also be useful to others.

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Part 1: Customers

Loyal Customers

Is a customer who owns a Loyalty Card – physical or Digital from her preferred Shop. Loyal Customers are often referred to as carded customers, in reference to the loyalty card they own.

Active Customers

Is a Customer that shops at a certain frequency, defined by the retailer. For example, if that frequency level is defined at least one shopping trip every 4 weeks over a period of, say 12 months, every customer that correspond to that pattern (shop at least 1 time every 4 weeks during a period of 12 months) is considered active.

A Customer who shops below a defined threshold of this pattern will be considered as inactive.

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New Customer

A new customer is a customer who recently acquired the card. Each company will define its own duration during which a Customer can be labelled as New.

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New Customer Onboarding Journey

Defines the several steps a customer will go through from the first interaction with the Loyalty Program (information quality, simplicity and easiness of access), then the registration itself, and the several interaction the retailer will have with her during the first weeks of her experience as a new member of the Loyalty Program Community.

Note: this is a Retail CRM area which is often forgotten by retailers, although it might be one of the most important components of any CRM Strategy. Let’s remember that there is the word Relationship in CRM. And like for all relationships, a good start can promise a great future

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Basket

Defines what carded customers buy during a shopping trip, online or in physical stores.

Share Of Wallet (SOW)

Defines the percentage of expenses of a group of products compared to the total basket value. Imagine a Customer spends 10 USD in her store visit. In these 10 USD, 2.75 USD have been spent on toothpaste and toothbrushes. The Oral Care share of Wallet of that customer in that shopping trip is then 27.5%.

The SOW can also be used to measure the customer behavior towards an activity

Imagine you run a promo for a Shampoo valued at 3.9 USD. If the Shampoo SOW is 95%, it means that the shopper came to your store to buy this promo only, indicating that no additional purchase has been generated from the promo.

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Housewife Basket (HWB)

Details and rank the products which are the most found in the baskets of Customers. The products that are the most frequently found in the Housewife Basket are therefore the products with the highest penetration rate (see Basket Penetration)

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Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

CLV defines the value a customer will deliver to the retailer during her lifetime, either form a cashflow perspective (sales) or profitably (margin) perspective.

There are several ways of calculating CLV, and one of the most detailed and well explained approaches can be found in this article from Maryna Sharapa.

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Part 2: Behaviors

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The behaviors we want to focus on here only concerns what happens once the Customer is in the store (physical or digital)

Frequency

Is the number of times a customer shops within a certain time period

Recency

How recently a customer has made a purchase

RFM [Recency-Frequency-Monetary]

RFM analysis numerically ranks a customer in each of these three categories, generally on a scale of 1 to 5 (the higher the number, the better the result). The “best” customer would receive a top score in every category.

ABC Analysis

ABC analysis is a method of analysis that divides the subject up into three categories: A, B and C. It uses the Pareto principles and enables to group customers from the most valuable (A segment) to the least valuable (C segment)

COHORT Analysis

A cohort is a group of people with similar behaviors or characteristics within a certain period of time. Cohort analysis is a type of behavioral analytics, which is primarily identified by breaking down customers into related groups in order to gain a better understanding of their behaviors

Drop From Market

Is a market research term that defines customers who used to buy from a (set of) categori(es) during a certain period of time and then stopped.

New To Market

Is a market research term that defines customers who did not buy from a (set of) categori(es) during a certain period of time and then started.

Switch Gain

Defines, for a Brand, a group of customers who used to buy competitors’ Brands and then switched to their own Brands.

Switch Loss

Defines, for a Brand, a group of customers who used to buy their brand and then switched to their competitors’ Brands.

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Part 3: Customer Engagement

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Loyalty Program

A loyalty program is a marketing strategy designed to encourage customers to continue to shop at or use the services of a business associated with the program. It is usually embodied by a system of Card, physical or digital, which enables Customers to both accumulate and redeem points – or any other internal currency – as they shop.

Over time, Loyalty Programs have evolved from a Points Bank positioning to a promotion factory as well as active Communities where several benefits and advantages – involving 3rd  and related parties – are offered to its members.

The major ongoing trends in Loyalty Programs are:

• Increase of the Customer Centric-Evolution
• Review the Financial and Economics Models of Loyalty Programs
• Presence in various eco-systems and marketplaces
• Increased convergence with payments and Touch-Free
• Data Security
• Ever evolving member expectations

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Conversion Rate

Defines the number of customers who used a coupon or other received promotional mechanisms compared to the total number of Customers who received it

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Campaign

A campaign is a set of special offers proposed to customers over a period of time. Campaigns can serve several purposes and focus on various targeted members or future members

• Recruitment campaigns to invite new members
• Activation campaign, to stimulated specific member
• Promotion Campaigns
• Private Label Campaigns
• CSR Campaigns
• …

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Campaign Management

Is the ability to plan and monitor the several steps of a campaigns to maximise its efficacy and effectiveness. If we compare a Campaign Life Cycle to a Product Life Cycle, specific messages and stimuli will be needed at various stages of the Campaign’s life

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Onboarding Journey

Defines the several steps (the Experience) a new member will go through from right after her becoming a member to a certain period in time after the recruitment. It is useful to define these steps as well as setting objectives to the Onboarding Journey.

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Churn Rate

The churn rate, also known as the rate of attrition or customer churn, is the rate at which customers stop doing business with an entity. It is often as the percentage of service subscribers who discontinue their subscriptions – de facto or by stopping their shopping – within a given time period.

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Churn Management

Every time a customer leaves the program is a great opportunity to learn what happened. Churn Management consists of 4 key points:

• Understand why Customers leave
• Identify Customers most at risk to leave
• Identify among these customers who are the one we want to keep based on the value they bring
• Setup strategies to keep them

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Targeted Offer

A targeted offer is a commercial proposition sent to a specific customer based on her shopping preferences and behaviors.

• A targeted offer can be part of a campaign and is anyway managed like a campaign
• A targeted offer can be initiated and financed by the retailer.
• A targeted offer can be initiated by the retailer and sponsored by supplies

By definition, the Targeted offer is personalised.

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Part 4: Thoughts on CRM

Initially designed as a Point issuing Bank, CRM has evolved into a sophisticated tool to retain customers.

Technology now enables CRM program Managers to do much more than issuing points: they can create communities, be present in several eco-systems, enlarge the markets for the value of their own internal currency (the Point), understand shopper behaviors and directly interact with them with an adapted offer (i.e. Range, Assortment, Price and Promotion)

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Towards a new revenue management system for retailers

During the Pandemic, in locked-down and economically shattered environments, several retailers realised that their bottom line, despite the huge increase of operating costs and potential cash-flow challenges – was not that bad. One of the key reasons is that they had to drastically decrease their promotion and communications.

Still, even as retailers could not publish as many promotions as in the past, most of them successfully maintained suppliers support.

Still, It is probable that it might take some time before the return to massive promotion communication strategies.

Consequently, retailers will have to find new ways of generating additional income from suppliers to compensate the decrease in Promotion Support fees.

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The alternative and the big risk

CRM and its ability to build personalised and targeted offers is one of the most attractive alternatives for both physical and digital commerce. Such offers will be more efficient, and their generation of additional traffic and spending will by far surpass, at the member level, the results of previous mass promotions.

At the same time, customers level of satisfaction will also grow since the offer they will receive will be truly relevant to their needs and aspirations. And the fees income will be much greater, by product, than these generated through mass promotion communication.

The big risk for retailers and marketers is to over-exploit the direct and personalised engagement opportunities technology offers today. New business rules will have to be established to ensure that the retailers don’t become another nuisance on the Customer’s mobile phone or email inbox.

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CRM Management needs a re-think

At the very beginning of CRM, the CRM Manager was essentially a Finance expert: she was managing points, evaluating their impact of the margin and balance sheet. Her work and analyses were driving the financial value of the point and the redeem strategies.

CRM Management is today at a stage when CRM Managers have developed advanced analytical skills to understand shoppers, adapt their commercial offer accordingly, and build strategies: traffic pull, spending push and retention.

Today, CRM Teams face a new challenge: address what customers want more than money. Most researches on the subject agree that what matters most for customers is a collaborative relationship where consideration is the highest value currency. “Can’t buy me Love” as the song goes.

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In other words, it means that CRM Teams need to find ways to entertain personal relationships with millions of individuals simultaneously. Emotions are as important as transactions.

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Yes, of course technology will help. But technology will only help automate a set of business rules and communication engagement that Teams will setup (and yes again: Machine Learning will help optimise them).

So the paradigm-shift is here: the future of CRM and Customer engagement needs to accelerate its migration from “Mostly Transactional” to “Emotional and Transactional”.

In practice, it means that CRM Teams will have to change some of the usually asked questions like “How much should we invest / Finance” in such or such customer scenario into “What Question Should we ask?” or “What would be the best thing to say?”

From an operational perspective, it implies that Teams will have to setup new workflows, new metrics and new rules to address all the non-transactional aspects of the relationship and remain consistent with the Retailer’s vision on the omni-channel Customer Experience it wants to offer.