CRM Strategy

The Body Shop Put to the CRM Test

Does the brand’s customer relationship marketing feel as good as their products?

Dafna Sheinberg

Need some ginger scrub, tea tree oil, shea butter, aloe vera gel, or maybe some vanilla pumpkin hand cream? If so, The Body Shop’s got you covered. (eh, it’s a pun!)


But are their basic CRM practices as rosy as their in-store experience?


Today we aim to answer that in our weekly CRM analysis, where we grade a brand’s basic CRM tactics according to the 7 commandments of CRM for a post-COVID world.

 

How do you think they score?

1. Be Transparent 10/10

Uh-huh! The Body Shop displays transparent branding by being upfront and honest with customers. When adding an item to our cart, for instance, here’s what they wrote as an FYI:

 

In fact, all over their website, they aren’t shy to show how the pandemic has affected their business:

And this important delivery update displays their openness and authenticity with customers:

Perhaps there’s more that can be done when it comes to the actual messages, but we love the way they go the extra mile in making sure site visitors get these messages that we give them the perfect 10 here.

2. Incentives and Perks 10/10

We were glad to see that the brand does include offers and promotions on its website. For instance, at the top of their homepage, their “Share the Love” offer is visible. It’s clearly a RAF program, that’s awesome and simple for both sides of the party to use/implement.

In addition, the brand has the following offers on their HP that you simply cannot miss:

  • 25% Off Select Skincare
  • 25% Off Any Makeup Product When You Buy 2 Makeup Brushes
  • $10 Tea Tree Pouch with $20 Purchase

In comparison to the rest of the brands we analyzed In this series, this is easily worthy of another 10 points.

3. Be Relevant 6/10

The Body Shop’s Vanilla Pumpkin Collection will be available this fall right in time for “sweater-weather.” Oh, and not many things are better than pampering yourself throughout the pandemic with their long-list of beauty fixes and self-nurturing essentials. But this is a basic retail tactic.

We have noticed, though, that Digiday Awards recently voted The Body Shop USA the “Best Sustainability Initiative in partnership with Plastics for Change.”

Still, with this commandment, we check if the brand is communicating or showing support for matters that are at the top of mind RN. Most recently, we’ve been checking whether brands talk about BLM or LGBT+ issues, rest of the COVID19 crisis, and we didn’t see The Body Shop mention many of these topics (at least recently in high frequency) on their site or social media accounts.

 

4.  Be Helpful 8/10

In The Body Shop’s own words, “We are a cosmetics brand that believes business can be a force for good and puts people and the planet first. Our products containing ethically-sourced and natural origin ingredients have helped make bodies feel enriched and loved since 1976.”

And, it’s a well-known fact that the brand goes by “green” values and actively campaigns to enrich and support the planet as a whole.

Here’s one of their most recent Instastories, that clearly shows how they’re helpful:

Additionally, we loved their product pages, full of helpful information about ingredients, and tips on how to use and make the most of the product.

They do lose a couple of points here because we could not find when and where they did what many other brands we analyzed have done – which is support and maybe even start initiatives that also include monetary donations. Customers are looking for those things these days when they judge a brand.

5. Realtime Personalization 1/10

Overall, cross and upsell mechanisms seemed completely not personalized, and that’s when we could actually spot them. Any quick remarketing efforts on social media once we left the site were also absent.

6. Master UX 8/10

When scrolling down to a specific product to add it to our cart, we had the option to read real customer reviews – which many brands offer nowadays (but not enough).

We were even more pleased to see this unique Product Q&A action bar that allows customers to either ask a new question, search for questions, and choose a sort order.

 

7. Leverage Social Media 9/10

The brand posts all sorts of content in high frequency on their Twitter account, including beauty tips, new products, self-care motivation, etc.

 The brand definitely has a strong social presence on its Facebook account, too. We liked these tips on how to keep “your home feeling like a sanctuary” during COVID:

On Instagram, the brand has 2.3 million followers on its main account. What’s more, they have several additional accounts to really localize their page for customers/fans.

And to finish things off, this #Wellbeing post is super relevant and sweet for these times:

They miss on the perfect score here cause we didn’t see any cross-channel initiatives.

**

Overall, The Body Shop is getting a 52/70 here (74%), putting them in 6th place, right in the middle of the pack.

In other words, there’s still some work to be done here.

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. The Body Shop 74% 
  7. Gymshark 73% 
  8. Tommy Hilfiger 70% 
  9. Walgreens 70% 
  10. Fiverr 67% 
  11. Next 63% 
  12. Patagonia 61% 
  13. Burberry 60% 
  14. 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: