How Deep Is Charles & Keith’s Love for Its Customers?

We put the internationally renowned, yet unbelievably affordable brand to the CRM test. Check how they score and rank against other fashion brands!

Adebisi Adewusi

July 28, 2021

Welcome to PostFunnel’s 50^th episode of the 7 CRM Commandment Series.

Charles & Keith is a fast-fashion retailer of stylish footwear and accessories catered to modern women.

How do you think the Singaporean trendy label scores when it comes to CRM practices?

1. Be Transparent 3/10

When checking for news and public announcements from Charles & Keith, we saw a short news story about the brand’s Eid Al Adha 2021 collection. Beyond this, Charles & Keith doesn’t share regular updates about the brand and its internal workings. The last press release/ piece of news we found on the parent company website was from March.

In a world where customers actively look for insights into a company before choosing to buy from them, sharing information about internal happenings is key to building trust. For Charles & Keith’s “quiet nature” they lose points on our transparency meter.

2. Incentives and Perks 10/10

To celebrate the 4th of July weekend, we were welcomed with a 15% off discount.

Other perks we were offered include:

Free Standard Shipping on orders over US$99.
10% off our first order when we sign up for Charles & Keith’s newsletter.
10% off our next order over $100 when we refer a friend.

We also noticed a sale section-which is great for customers looking for a bargain.

Discounts and perks were properly communicated to us throughout the customer journey. For giving us many ways to save some money, Charles & Keith gets 10/10!

3. Be Relevant 6/10

Charles & Keith has a “Purpose Collection” category for customers who want to shop sustainably or support a cause with their purchase. With sustainability being top of the agenda for many environmentally conscious customers, having a “Purpose Collection” category can help Charles & Keith build a strong relationship with them.

Browsing around Charles & Keith’s website, we saw a COVID-19 update page and noticed a fair social representation in their choice of imagery when promoting products.

However, Charles & Keith doesn’t offer curbside pickups, click & collect or BOPIS on its website. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed normal shopping behavior and increased the demand for contactless delivery. This behavior isn’t likely to change soon. It costs them a few points.

4. Be Helpful 10/10

It appears that Charles & Keith is doing quite a bit to help its community. The brand supports causes such as gender equality and women’s empowerment. On International Women’s Day 2021, Charles & Keith said it would donate part of the proceeds collected in the month of March from its digital flagship store to The Asia Foundation.

In addition, Charles & Keith partner with WOVEN, a Philippine-based social enterprise that uplifts the local weaving communities and economically empowers women through the production and sales of their woven handicrafts.

Furthermore, 20% of net sales from WOVEN goes towards supporting local weavers.

Today’s customers are looking beyond price and quality when making repeat purchases with a brand. It’s great to see Charles & Keith walking their talk when it comes to supporting causes. For this, they get a perfect 10.

5. Realtime Personalization 3/10

When creating our account, Charles & Keith allowed us to select our favorite category and color preferences for a more personalized shopping experience. However, none of the products recommended to us matched our preferences.

In addition, the brand made no realtime personalization efforts. Going back to the brand’s HP after adding a handbag to our cart, the HP wasn’t personalized to reflect our previous onsite search and browsing behavior.

Apart from showing us items we might like – which we found generic, no other cross-selling or up-selling techniques were implemented. Also, we weren’t retargeted with sponsored ads or items left in our cart on social media.

In all, we expected a more personalized shopping experience since we supplied some data about our preferences. So, we have to chop off some points here.

TIP: As brands compete for consumer attention in a crowded digital landscape, personalizing the customer experience at each touchpoint is key to increasing conversions, building customer loyalty, and creating long-lasting customer relationships. This is why offering tailored product recommendations and insights by changing website content that’s in line with a customer’s profile is crucial to your CRM success.

6. Master UX 7/10

Generally, Charles & Keith’s website was easy to navigate, the look and feel were consistent, and checkout was a breeze.

Charles & Keith’s FAQ section is large and grouped by topic. This made it easy for us to scan the FAQs and find the information we needed.

We noticed that we couldn’t find reviews on the product page to help us understand more about the quality and use of the product we viewed.

Reviews are an important aspect of the shopping experience as they help answer questions or address concerns that customers may have about a product. It’s basic. It’s a must. And it costs them a few points here, as well.

7. Leverage Social Media 9/10

Charles & Keith has an active social media presence and a solid social media following. The brand has 1.5 million followers on Instagram, 13.4k followers on Twitter, and 2.2 million likes on Facebook.

Aside from its official Instagram channel, Charles & Keith has country-specific handles for Taiwan, Thailand, and Japan. The brand’s Instagram feed is perfectly curated, projecting an extremely fashion-forward image. Though posts are mostly promotional, they’re showcased by a mix of models and influencers.

Charles & Keith encourages customers to tag them in their Instagram photos and use the hashtag #ImwithCharlesKeith for a chance to be featured on their official Instagram page. This drives engagement and is excellent for community building.

On Facebook, we see a healthy mix of promotional posts and polls. Great for customer engagement!

We like how Charles & Keith uses Facebook polls to provide its audience with an interactive experience and build more personable relationships.

Finally, the Charles & Keith Twitter page is made up of promotional posts, short videos, and polls. Therefore, Charles & Keith uses social media well and does a great job at leveraging visual content and branded hashtags to catch its audience’s attention.

Overall, Charles & Keith is getting a 48/70 here (68%) placing them in 36^th place. The brand falls short in transparency and personalization. But there’s still hope! Adopting realtime personalized marketing techniques can take Charles & Keith’s CRM results to a star level.

Here are the full rankings of all the brands we analyzed to date:

We publish a new analysis every other week, so watch this space for more brand analyses coming your way!