Dear Ms. Cristina Ceresoli, Chief Marketing Officer at Soma, part of the Chico’s FAS group,
I’m writing to you because on June 30th, we at PostFunnel – a publication dedicated to everything relationship marketing – analyzed your company’s brand’s site experience according to our “7 commandments for basic CRM” – the ones brands should follow in today’s zeitgeist. In marketing, and the world as a whole. All, in order to improve their chances of building meaningful customer relationships.
You can read more about the method at the bottom of this page.
Since we ran the CRM analysis on your brand a few months back, we wanted to revisit it today to see what has changed – what has improved, stagnated, or gotten worse. After all, we all know these things are dynamic.
See the original analysis of Chicos
Your brand scored a final score of 76%, enough for a solid 20th place of the 47 brands we analyzed by that time. Now, 57 brands into our project – your brand is tied for 25th. Meaning, of the last 10 brands we looked into, 5 had a better score.
The two lowest scores Chico’s FAS/Some got were for “being helpful” and the all-critical “realtime personalization,” both of which received a mediocre 5 out of 10.
And, when we look at “realtime personalization” aspect again, we, unfortunately, don’t see any difference.
Still, we like the location adaptation, the “my closet” feature, and the product recommendations. But browsing a specific category for many long minutes did not result in any personalized site changes. Adding an item to our cart did not result in any personalized banner chasing us around the site or anything.
Then, when we left the site and hopped onto our social media feeds, still nothing – not even something to remind us of the category we so thoroughly browsed, or even the item we left in the cart.
The “5” we gave the group for “realtime personalization” a few months ago could have easily be lower now. Because, even though it’s basically the same as it was – the industry is moving forward and customer expectations change. What was enough in the past, is not necessarily enough now, of course.
With a lower score, would send Chico’s FAS/Some outside our top30. That’s a shame, because your brand nails it in so many other critical aspects of basic CRM tactics that fit today’s customer’s expectations – that falling short in something so critical (especially when there’s a solution out there) really feels like a waste.
To learn more about how how you and the group can take full advantage of all the latest, cutting-edge realtime marketing personalization and customer segmentation practices, feel free to reach out to me at any time.
Cheers, Amit Bivas, VP Marketing at Optimove
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About the 7 Commandments for Basic CRM Tactics in A Post-Coronavirus World:
We have a saying here at PostFunnel: All marketing is relationship marketing. Why? Because every touchpoint with a potential customer impacts the kind of relationship they will have with a brand, if and when they become customers. Even branding has. It’s like what people hear about their upcoming blind-date can determine the actual meeting’s success.
In recent years, it meant that the ways brands support global, social, environmental, and even political causes have become increasingly critical to their relationships with customers.
Then, 2020 happened. With its global pandemic’s tragedy, economic downturn, and historical social and political turmoils – people turned their eyes to brands, almost as much as they have to governments. Expecting and judging brands by how they conduct themselves throughout such events was never more crucial to a company’s CRM success.
One after the other, the internet got flooded with articles advising marketing and CRM leaders on how to make sure their brand is suited for this new reality. So, we combed dozens of them – and came up with a list of 7 staples that appeared in most of those articles.
The seven most essential commandments a brand must follow these days to make sure they put themselves in the best position possible to develop long, meaningful relationships with their customers.
The 7 Commandments:
1) Transparency. Show the human side of your brand
2) Give incentives and perks (that make sense)
3) Be relevant (with your language, offering)
4) Be helpful (improve your communities’ lives)
5) Personalize in realtime (cause, duh)
6) Master UX (slow, clunky websites are no longer an option)
7) Leverage social media (don’t just treat it as a sales channel)
Yup, that’s all. Without being at least decent at all of these, your CRM efforts will struggle to achieve their full potential.
And, let’s be honest, it’s not too much to ask of a brand, right?
Yet, you’d be surprised how many well-known brands fall short too often when analyzed through these lenses.
Still, it makes some sense – these changes are happening fast, and not all brands can react and adapt quickly enough and on all fronts.
And we’re here to follow these reactions and adjustments as they happen.