CRM Strategy

NEXT: Next to Take PostFunnel’s CRM Test

The UK Fashion brand is known for its outstanding design, great quality, and good value. Can the same be said about their basic CRM tactics?

Dafna Sheinberg

For the past 30 years, Next has been one of Britain’s most popular clothing, footwear, and home products retailers, “acclaimed for its mastery of classic contemporary style evidenced,” – to use their own words.

In this week’s CRM analysis, we’ll put the U.K. fashion retailer to our quick CRM test and share their score with you at the end, so you could also see how they stack against other brands we tested.

1. Be Transparent 10/10

At the beginning of the month, The Guardian reported that “Next, ASOS, and Amazon have decided to pull all Boohoo clothing from sale due to growing anger over workers’ pay and conditions.”

Next said it won’t ignore allegations that some factories that sell clothes to Boohoo pay as little as £3.50 an hour and fail to take protective measures against coronavirus.

“We are not pre-judging the outcome of this process and no final decision has been made but that Boohoo items would be suspended in the meantime,” Next said.

This indeed is a great way to show the world your values and what you stand for.

Next, we would like to recognize Next’s “daily order limits” on their website.

This super transparent, honest move shows customers when they will not continue to take orders that day as their worker’s safety is important to them above all. (Even more so than making additional sales)

“We’re limiting the number of warehouse colleagues working at any time, as a result, we are limiting the number of customer orders that we can take each day.” This is an example of how just by being transparent, you can turn a negative to a positive.

 

Next is giving the impression that they are doing everything in their power to maintain the health and safety of their customers and employees.

Limited store capacity, sanitizing stations, 2-meter markings, card payments and protective screens, contactless returns and so many more safety measures are taken by the retailer in their stores:

2. Give Discounts 3/10

No discounts are on offer at this time and it’s quite disappointing.

Regardless of these difficult circumstances, being rewarded for loyalty by means of a promotional offer or visible bonus code are CRM basics. When a brand acknowledges the customer, whether they’re new or not, it provides them with a great experience – they’ll surely remember.

There is however a Clearance Section on Next’s website:

 

The text reads, “Please note: due to high demand and our commitment to ensuring the health and safety of our colleagues and customers, our clearance deliveries may take a little longer than usual.”

We found it interesting that the discounted items would take longer to ship and receive, though.

There are some promotions included in their various loyalty and payment options (details below).

3. Be Relevant 8/10

After reviewing numerous brands’ websites, we were surprised to see a COVID link banner placed so low on Next’s homepage. About four scrolls down, we were prompted with the following banner:

It does lead to a fantastic webpage dedicated to shopping safely with Next and COVID-19 updates. When entering the link, the text reads:

“As we adjust to a new normal, we’ve made some changes to help protect our colleagues and customers when shopping online and in-store. This guide is to help you understand the changes we have made and answer any questions you may have.”

Good to know, but why make us scroll practically to the bottom of the homepage to find this very relevant and helpful information?

As Optimove researchers explained a few months back, skincare and cosmetics brands have been performing exceptionally well at the beginning of the pandemic when most countries were shut down under quarantine. Perhaps pampering yourself with beauty masks when stuck at home or putting some makeup on before Zoom meetings makes us feel somewhat normal again.

And so Next did adapt to the new reality in that sense by posting relevant “beauty essentials” on the company’s homepage and positioning it just one scroll down:

4. Be Helpful 7/10

The blue Next Credit banner right at the top of the homepage provides shoppers with credit options. We loved the “shop now, play later” option as we have mentioned on numerous occasions and in our opinion it’s almost critical for times like this when consumers are extra low on cash.

There are other benefits here including the option to use your Nextpay account instore, which is also great for the omnichannel experience. Other benefits that come with it include £10 off your first credit purchase and more:

We also noticed VIP sales taking place – but were sad to see that these are not inclusive to all customers. Definitely not a good way to attain and later retain new customers.

5. Real-time Personalization 1/10

We weren’t retargeted in realtime after adding a black All Saints blazer to our cart. Nor were any similar item suggestions displayed to us when going back to the homepage of their website.

However, when scrolling all the way down the company’s homepage, a very small image of our recently viewed item was displayed at the bottom:

What we found noteworthy here is the fact that neither the brand (All Saints), shopping category (women), nor type of clothing (jacket) was shown to us throughout the rest of our customer journey. Quite surprising for a company like Next who should have the capability to retarget customers in this basic way.

After leaving the website, we didn’t see any sponsored advertisements on our social media account nor when browsing the net. Not instantly at least.

In sum, at PostFunnel we truly believe that personalization sits at the heart of CRM marketing and that every brand needs to master it in one way or another. Too bad, Next – better luck next time!

6. Master UX 9/10

Our overall user experience with the brand was good. It was very easy to find what we were looking for and there’s an abundance of brands, collections, and categories to scroll through.

It was easy to add items to our cart, remove them, and proceed to check out.

The Contact Us page is super helpful as you can speak with a representative both via chat and phone. In addition, Next provides you with direct numbers to contact according to the department you require assistance in:

7. Leverage Social Media 6/10

Not much activity on their Twitter account. And unfortunately, we did see numerous posts along the lines of the following:

Definitely, a lot more useful and timely content is posted to their Facebook page, and at higher frequency.

See an example below:

Finally, on Instagram, they launched a #StayInWithNext campaign at the start of coronavirus crisis, with so much daily content to digest – there’s something for everyone! And they use the Story feature to highlight it:

 

Overall, Next is getting a 44/70 here (63%).

Which puts them in the bottom half of the nine brands we examined to date. The points deducted on the Discounts Commandment and no personalization really hurt their rankings.

  1. Petco 90%
  2. Uniqlo 86%
  3. Best Buy 78%
  4. Etsy 76%
  5. Tommy Hilfiger 70%
  6. Walgreens 70%
  7. Fiverr 67%
  8. Next 63%
  9. Patagonia 61%

Watch this space for more brand analyses coming your way.

Meanwhile, check out some previous ones: