The system monitors and tracks customers’ preferences and spending triggers to empower store staff at the point of sale.
The CDC MarketFirst system has also enabled Harvey Nichols to bring the execution of e-mail marketing campaigns in-house. The improved customer data will mean the retailer can create much more focused e-mail marketing.
Harvey Nichols IT and logistics director Martin Schofield said that the system provides operational customer relationship management, because each till point has access to the real-time central customer database. The system will segment customers so that staff can offer relevant service at the point of sale, rather than using the data retrospectively.
In particular, more data will be gathered on customers who use the retailer’s personal shopping services, in order to make the service more personal.
A trial at Harvey Nichols’ Birmingham store showed that staff can engage with customers confidently enough to capture information and identify previous customers at the till through conversation, rather than turning to identification methods such as loyalty cards. “So far, we are doing it on a dialogue basis by asking if they are an existing customer,” said Schofield.
In addition, Harvey Nichols wants to gather data on as many customers as possible, so it will collate information from its Merret transaction database, online store, restaurant booking system and store-card data.
Schofield said that the system was not being implemented specifically to support Harvey Nichols’ fledgling online business, but that the company did want to recognise customers from all channels.
He explained how this operational approach could be used in the future. “Maybe we want to understand if a customer has reached a certain spend threshold and then send them an e-mail or SMS voucher for a free drink or meal in one of our restaurants. We can develop other applications around the dataset and have the skills to do that in-house,” he said.
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