The luxury shoppers who buy from Burberry expect top-level service. To be sure that it’s giving those customers the brand experience they expect, the upmarket lifestyle retailer captures data on about 85% of transactions from 9m opted-in customers. It tracks customer analytics from website browsing behaviour to footfall, and anonymised social media data. This information is combined to give a single global view of the customer.
“We have already made substantial progress in using customer data to provide customers with a better experience and to create value for the business,” Steve Sacks, chief customer officer at Burberry, told investors at Burberry’s May 2015 preliminary results presentation.
The results can be seen in joined-up services that deliver bottom-line results. Order online and collect-in-store services are so popular that more than 20% of digital sales are now collected in a store. Customer service is available 24/7, with support offered in 14 languages via phone, email, through live chat, and through a ‘call me back’ function. Social media support, designed around the company’s customers, spans Twitter, Facebook, WeChat and Sina Weibo.
Customers can log in to a popular Customer One-to-One iPad app, powered by free high-speed guest wi-fi when they walk into any of 480 stores in 30 countries. Staff can see from in-stores iPads whether the item the shopper is looking at is available in-store or online in a specific size and/or colour, and where the item can most easily be delivered.
Queues do not fit the luxury experience, so a new point-of-sale solution that includes wi-fi enabled iPads and iPhones is being rolled out to all directly managed stores ahead of Christmas 2016, to enable shoppers to pay wherever they are. Some 25% of Burberry’s digital sales are made via in-store iPads. At the same time, the data helps to optimise service: streamlined distribution introduced first to the US and China ensures the right product is in the right store at the right time.
The more purchases the better the data, and top customers are promised new levels of personalised service through a customer value management system (CVM). Burberry analysis shows CVM customers on average spend 50% more than other Burberry customers. It seems to be a win-win, since Burberry figures show that customers that have received more relevant service are 50% more likely to return, and that they spend an average 50% more.
