CRM Strategy

Is COS Following CRM Best Practices for the New Normal?

We checked whether the brand's relationship marketing tactics were "inspired by art and design" as their clothing is. Check how they rank against the rest

Dafna Sheinberg

Welcome to our weekly CRM analysis, where we grade a major brand’s basic CRM tactics by the 7 commandments of CRM for a world post the corona-outbreak, as we gathered and defined them here.

 

And this week, we looked into COS, the contemporary fashion brand offering reinvented classics and wardrobe essentials. In their own words, they offer “Modern, functional, considered design for women, men and kids.”

 

Scroll all the way down for the full rankings at the bottom.

1. Be Transparent 10/10

For those of you who might not know, COS is owned by the Swedish retail giant, Hennes & Mauritz. You know them by their initials. In the news, MarketWatch recently reported that they would cut up to 20% of head office staff from its COS brand. So, this brand has been dramatically affected by everything that’s going on.

 

“We have proposed several changes to our London head office and Europe region organization,” said the COS spokesman.

 

“We are making new roles available whilst also removing and diminishing select roles. Our aim is to find a suitable alternative role within the brand for as many affected colleagues as possible and have a thorough consultation process in place.”

 

We find these statements very open. The fact that they’re announcing this to the public credits them as trustworthy in our eyes, at least.

 

Their site isn’t giving away much, though, so they are losing a few points here.

2. Incentives and Perks 6/10

The very first banner, with such prominent placing at the top of the company’s homepage, is this sweet offer:

At PostFunnel, we love discounts and offers that make sense, especially at these times. Receiving a welcome offer for new customers is solid – in general, not only during COVID times.

 

Throughout the rest of the customer journey, we weren’t offered any additional incentives or perks, however.

3. Be Relevant 8/10

As for the brand’s website, when scrolling down to the bottom of the homepage, we saw this message:

A LITTLE BIT OF GOOD NEWS: SOME OF OUR STORES HAVE REOPENED. FIND OUT MORE

Which redirects you to their store reopening safety page. It is divided per country and details which store locations have opened, their new working hours, certain safety precautions that are taken, etc. – all very relevant to these times and essential to get out in the open. Here’s the message:

4. Be Helpful 2/10

In some of our latest analyses, we’ve seen brands like Gymshark, Lowe’s, and Petco helping out and giving back to society. Whether through a donation to an organization, response to communities in need, or simply showing support for a certain cause.

 

Unfortunately, COS hasn’t been following through on this commandment. However, we will still give the brand a couple of points here because they are owned by H&M, who has been checking all the boxes since April – donating, discounting, helping out, and paving the way for the rest.

 5. Realtime Personalization 3/10

After adding items to our cart and going back to the brand’s homepage, we were happy to see them interested in knowing our gender, hopefully, to target us throughout our shopping journey.

However, we deducted points here because after choosing our gender, the same banner kept appearing.

Also, when getting off the site and onto our social media accounts – we didn’t see any sponsored ads from the brand.

6. Master UX 10/10

In general, we had a good experience with the brand. The entire style, look and feel of the site is clean and neat with subtle colors. Further promoting minimalism for the brand’s simplicity.

 

We loved the exposed filter that allows the customer to specify the exact item they are searching for and narrow down the options:

When adding an item to our bag, we were happy to see their “Style with these” item suggestions to make the perfect outfit (also pushing sales on their end) as well as the “You may also like” feature:

 

7. Leverage Social Media 6/10

As with every analysis, we look at the following three social media pages of the brand and assess them: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

 

On Facebook, we liked their “COS Moments​” series, featuring a guest who provides expert-tips on a particular issue.

We also liked their inspirational content, where they feature an artistic post taken from around the world, with a short description on it:

Their Instagram account boasts 2 million followers. They post in high frequency (seems like twice a day!) and use the Instastory feature. It seems as if they’re mainly using the platform to promote their “Summer Comfort” line currently.

 

Another way COS smartly uses the platform is with “COS by you,” where they ask customers to take pictures of themselves styling outfits and tag them on Instagram wearing it. It’s fun and engaging.

 

Though the brand has an existing Twitter account, it is absolutely inactive without any tweets.

But looking at their entire social media strategy, we couldn’t put the finger on any cross-platform, innovative, or inspiring initiatives.

**

Overall, COS is getting a 40/70 here (57%), putting them last amongst the 13 brands we analyzed so far.

We would say there some work to be done here to adjust to the New Normal. Luckily, we know some good people who can always help take your CRM to the next level.

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

 

  1. Lowe’s 90%
  2. Petco 90%
  3. Uniqlo 86%
  4. Best Buy 78%
  5. Etsy 76%
  6. Gymshark 73%
  7. Tommy Hilfiger 70%
  8. Walgreens 70%
  9. Fiverr 67%
  10. Next 63%
  11. Patagonia 61%
  12. Burberry 60%
  13. COS 57%

 

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

Meanwhile, check out the previous ones: