How Eye-Catching Is WALDO’s CRM Strategy?

We analyzed the basic CRM tactics of this eyecare brand. Check how they score and rank

September 9, 2021

We take a look at Waldo’s basic CRM tactics. Check how they rank against brands we graded so far!

Waldo is a direct-to-consumer contact lens subscription and eyecare brand. Can you guess how the DTC brand scores when it comes to CRM?

Here’s our analysis according to our 7 commandments of basic CRM tactics.

1. Be Transparent 10/10

We found a recent podcast where Ashleigh Hinde, the Founder and CEO of Waldo Contacts, talked about her entrepreneurship journey, Waldo’s move into the blue light glasses market, as well as the brand’s growth and expansion plans.

In addition, Waldo shows customers the faces behind the brand via Instagram stories.

In today’s era of distrust, transparency is key to building a lasting relationship with customers. So brands have to be open, straightforward, and accessible to internal and external stakeholders.

Waldo gets an ‘A’ for being LOUD about its inner works.

2. Perks and Incentives 7/10

When we arrived at Waldo’s website, we immediately saw a 15% offer on the HP.

We learned customers could get free shipping for orders over $20 – which is pretty standard nowadays.

In addition, once customers order a subscription, they become members of Club Waldo, which means they get to enjoy several exclusive benefits.

We didn’t know about Club Waldo until we read the FAQ page. So a lot of potential customers might miss it too. In our opinion, Waldo should consider communicating its membership program Club Waldo early in the customer journey. For instance, information about Club Waldo can be placed at the bottom of every page on the site.

While Waldo offers a couple of incentives and perks, we’d have liked to see bonuses or discounts for making a first-time purchase or signing up to the brand’s newsletter. Using perks to encourage a second purchase is a must CRM move.

3. Be Relevant 7/10

Waldo’s HP gives off a playful vibe and the copy lets us know it’s summer – so we need to care for our eyes.

Waldo offers an affordable subscription model for daily contact lenses. This direct-to-consumer model appeals to appeals to today’s customer’s need for convenience.

Waldo’s website also has a virtual try-on tool that allows customers to try on glasses from home. This use of augmented reality blurs the gap between virtual and physical shopping.

While Waldo does a great job of being relevant, we deducted a couple of points because we didn’t see any information regarding how Waldo responded or is responding to COVID-19 or other issues that affect their customers’ lives right now.

4. Be Helpful 10/10

Customers aren’t just making decisions based on product selection or price. They’re making purchases based on how brands support their communities and social causes. Let’s see how Waldo’s doing when it comes to philanthropy.

Waldo partners with Sightsavers to end avoidable blindness with its ‘Buy One, Give Vision’ campaign.

Waldo aims to be able to donate $4,500,000 USD to the program by the end of 2025.

We like how Waldo communicates its give-back initiative on its website, social media, and product page. When viewing a product, the ‘Buy One, Give Vision’ banner is visible and lets us know your purchase will fund life-changing sight correcting procedures.

5. RealTime Personalization 2/10

To test Waldo’s realtime personalization abilities, we added a pair of Nikka glasses to our cart. Sadly, Waldo treated us like a number rather than a person. There was nothing personalized about the shopping experience. The HP didn’t change from generic content or imagery to something related to what was in our cart. Moving around the site, we didn’t notice any form of customization or personalization.

On up-selling and cross-selling, we were offered a bottle of hydration drops at checkout. We didn’t find this offer relevant.

Finally, after leaving Waldo’s website, we weren’t retargeted with sponsored ads or items in our cart on social media.

There’s a lot of room for Waldo to provide unique and relevant experiences to customers. For instance, Waldo can tailor its homepage in realtime based on interest and behavioral cues to make it more relevant to customers. Such personalized experience is key in getting visitor to buy with you, and then come back for more.

6. Master UX 6/10

Navigating through the different categories on Waldo’s website was easy. The product page is functional with descriptions, but we didn’t see user reviews and ratings 🙁

Waldo’s product list doesn’t have filter options. This made it difficult for us to find relevant products quickly.

On the other hand, Waldo’s virtual try-on function was easy to use and gave us an idea of how our new glasses would look.

In addition, the FAQ page is uniform and easy to scan. In all Waldo’s website user experience is a little bit outdated.

7. Leverage Social Media 5/10

Waldo has a modest social media following, with 11.2k followers on Instagram, a little over 500 on Twitter, and almost 19K likes on Facebook.

On Instagram, Waldo posts in high frequency and makes good use of Instagram stories. The brand’s Instagram feed is made up of promotional posts and a couple of user-generated content.

Waldo doesn’t post frequently on Facebook. While the brand has a post for September 1, the last post before that was on August 11.

Waldo has a Twitter account that isn’t very active. While the brand has a post for September 1, the last post before that was on July 22.

Waldo’s social media strategy and execution are not the best we’ve seen. There’s no point in having a social media page if you’re not going to be active. We recommend posting platform-specific content at least once a couple of times per week using a scheduling tool – as a start.

So how does Waldo’s CRM look? Waldo is getting a 47/70 here (67%) – enough for a tie at 42nd of out the 56 brands we analyzed so far.

From our view, Waldo could use some CRM help. The brand falls super short in realtime personalization and social media.

Quick realtime personalization tip for Waldo: Leverage customer data to create a realtime personalized website experience for each visitor, deliver 1-to-1 recommendations and next best offers across your website.

Find out more about how to unlock realtime personalization at scale here.