In a highly competitive market, customer experience has never been more important. A great experience is more than just a pretty store or slick website, it’s about every step of the customer journey.
During TheIndustry.fashion LIVE: Customer Experience – making it work for your customers and you, brands and retailers such as Dr Martens, Boden, Aligne, Mint Velvet, River Island, Lululemon, Marc Jacobs, Albaray, Theory, Belstaff and Nudea learnt about how to ensure sure your post-purchase processes are optimised to deliver the best experience for your customer and the best efficiency for you.
Hosted in partnership with supply chain specialists Bleckmann, sponsored by delivery experience platform Ingrid and global native mobile app specialists POQ, the event invited fashion industry professionals to learn from brands, retailers and industry experts from the likes of John Lewis, Jigsaw, Represent, Michael Kors and ME+EM to gain insights into the latest trends and services in e-commerce, from physical retail, delivery and order tracking to returns and refunds, customer engagement tools, and more.
The Sessions
Driving experience, engagement, loyalty and conversion through apps
To kick off the day of insightful panels surrounding the topic of customer experience, the eager crowd heard from POQ’s Chief Revenue Officer Helen Slaven.
POQ is a business that uses a cloud platform to create effective and customised native mobile apps for retailers that are designed to engage customers and sell more. In simple terms, it makes “digital flagships” on mobile phones. The company currently works with E.l.f Cosmetics, Forever New, Hot Topic, True Religion, and more.
But why should brands choose apps as their leading engagement channel and how can they make apps boost the customer experience? According to Slaven, apps have a deeper cut than a mobile web experience. From offering exclusive offers, look books, fresh content, brand stories, and more, they can drive and retain customers. But, apps aren’t a single mission, they’re part of a brand’s ecosystem.
She assured the crowd that creating an app is “not as hard as it looks” and worthwhile when everything we do nowadays is on our phones – from ordering Ubers to shopping. For this reason, along with the fact that 96% of the world’s population has access to smartphones, it makes sense for brands to look at creating apps. It’s the biggest marketing tool a brand can take advantage of. Plus, it isn’t just one generation who are using apps to shop, it spans from Gen Z to Boomers.
However, she explained that with competition on the rise and e-commerce giants such as Shein and Temu bidding for new acquisitions, brands need to target their audience with separate channels – in this case, apps.
“When you bring customers to an app, you’re not sharing them with anyone else like you would be on the web. Your relationship with them becomes a trusted exchange. This allows you to do more with your customer,” Slaven added.
For example, it can be used to drive loyalty. Some brands offer the more customer engagement, the more freebies you unlock. Some offer early access or live streaming of a fashion show for a small cohort of users. An app is how you can deliver this and cement that all-important customer relationship.
Levelling up deliveries and returns
For the second panel of the day, Erik Janssen Steenberg, Business Development Manager at Bleckmann, and Jimmy Charnock, Head of Community at luxury streetwear brand Represent, sat down with TheIndustry.fashion’s Lauretta Roberts to discuss all things deliveries and returns – and how this impacts customer experience.
Logistics provider and returns experts Bleckmann is hyper-focused on the fashion and lifestyle industry. It does “everything that has to do with the physical product” in the supply chain – from the manufacturers to the customers. It unburdens brands so they can focus on growing, which is exactly what Bleckmann did for Represent. It works with Abercrombie, Superdry, Gymshark and, of course, Represent to name a few.
Charnock comically explained that he is part of “the nice part of customer service”. For example, his role takes care of loyal customers, inviting them to events and more.
In terms of customer experience, to enhance loyalty, Represent keeps it fairly simple: shoppers receive a point per pound spent and the higher the points, the higher the discounts. “People with loyalty just want money off, it’s as simple as that”. But on the other, less glamorous side, the brand knows how important it is to keep customers happy from a logistical point of view. Represent is a brand that saw hypergrowth, and thanks to Bleckmann, it continued to deliver great service as it boomed.
“We do drops once a week and if you order on drop night, thanks to Bleckmann, you’ll have it the next day”, added Charnock. Another example is that last Black Friday Represent got everything out in five working days – 800% quicker than its previous logistics partner.
To ensure a smooth partnership, Bleckmann is eager to learn about its brand partners. For example, it realised that Represent’s hoodies were taking up a lot of space in shipping crates, so it created larger cages for the brand behind the scenes at its own cost. “We want to know your business and what it will take to make it successful. Unlike some other companies, we don’t work with off-the-shelf rates,” Steenberg said. They want to know the nitty-gritty, from SKUs to customer data.
“We have a bespoke relationship with Bleckmann, which helps us have a bespoke relationship with our customers,” Chanock concluded.
Panel hosted by Ingrid and Harper
Kicking off with presentations from Elin Hammenfors, Head of Sales UK at Ingrid, and Sarah Young, Co-founder & Partnerships Director at Harper, this session explored how a good delivery and returns strategy can boost profitably for UK retailers and offer a more seamless customer experience.
While 17% of consumers are willing to pay for fast delivery, Hammenfors shared that 26% of consumers choose a slower but more expensive option. Their decision is assumed to be influenced by an underlying reason other than price or speed, such as out-of-home options (like pick-up location/post office, parcel locker or retail store), named day/named time delivery or carrier preference. In fact, 73% of digital consumers have abandoned their cart all together because they did not like the shipping options.
Meanwhile, the highest return rates are seen in verticals where items need to be tried on or seen in person before a final purchasing decision can be made. Trousers, dresses, shirts/blouses and outerwear are the clothing categories with the biggest considerations around size and fit.
To combat this, Young highlights the importance of educating customers on size and fit. “Size and fit is the number one reason for all returns, representing 52% of overall returns. Educating the customer is really important, and this must be prominent on your website for customers to see,” she said. Whilst fit prediction tools work, engagement of these tools is typically quite low. However, product reviews can be helpful – more so for mass market than premium or luxury brands.
Hammenfors and Young were later joined by Kim Jacob, IT Exec/Brand IT Lead at Michael Kors, and Rosie Duffy, Head of Customer Care at premium womenswear brand ME+EM, to continue the conversation.
Jacob explained that Michael Kors is prioritising quick ways to increase profit and sales, emphasising that an omnichannel approach to delivery and returns is integral. “Customers should be able to shop anywhere and get things delivered through a number of options,” he said. Data also plays an important role, helping to identify shopping behaviours.
Duffy agreed, explaining that data provides ME+EM with helpful insights throughout the customer journey. “It helps us to understand why customers are contacting us, what are their pain points and what needs fixing, allowing us to recognise what needs to be improved,” she added.
Leveraging technology and AI to enhance customer experience
For the penultimate session of the day, James Billet, Customer Experience Manager at British womenswear brand Jigsaw, discussed how leveraging technology and artificial intelligence can elevate the customer experience.
Billet joined Jigsaw 13 years ago, working his way up from a store manager to his current role. “Every day is very different and brings a new challenge,” he shared. Earlier this year, the fashion brand decided to switch off customer service calls – a statement that was greeted by an audible gasp in the room – but Billet hailed the success of this decision, thanks to the launch of its AI-powered bot.
“It has reduced tickets by 50%,” Billet emphasised. “We were reaching around 2,000 enquiries a week during peak, which has now been reduced to about 900 because of the autobot. It’s much more efficient for Jigsaw and much more efficient for our customers.”
Dealing with over 50% of enquiries without the need for an agent, the brand’s satisfaction rate has also increased since the launch of its autobot.
It’s also straight forward to set up, according to Billet. “The only thing that takes time is building the articles, so training it to provide an even better customer experience each time,” Billet explains. “I got quite obsessive about it. I even went into the Apple Store to check out the autobot on its phones. I’m an Android user, so I wanted to see how it looked.”
With plans to make it even more intelligent over the next year and beyond, Billet is excited about the possibilities, with plans to make it more than just an administrative process but a value-added service.
Elevating experience and engagement through circular initiatives
Catherine Loader has held various sourcing and sustainable roles at leading retailers, from Debenhams and Beyond Retro to ASOS. Now, as Partner and Sustainability Manager (Circular Economy) at John Lewis, Loader looks after circular design and fashion rental, as well as plastics and packaging across the John Lewis Partnership. During the final session of the day, Loader discussed how circular initiatives are engaging customers at the retailer.
John Lewis launched rental around two years ago, which has been hugely successful at engaging customers. Since launch, the retailer has had 7,000 website visits and 2,000 rentals. In addition, 40% of customers who use the rental services are new to the John Lewis brand.
However, Loader said: “We’ve seen a say-do gap. Customers say they want rental, but engaging in it is a different story. It’s not just at John Lewis, this is industry-wide. It’s important to get rid of all hurdles preventing customers from renting.”
One of its new initiatives is second-hand services. The company launched a Sign of the Times pop-up at Peter Jones in Chelsea and it was so popular, it has made it a permanent concession in its Oxford Circus flagship.
Earlier this year, it also launched its very first circular design collection. The biggest challenge for John Lewis was wanting to share its progress, but in a way that was compliant with rules to ensure the brand wasn’t greenwashing. To be trustworthy to customers, the retailer is diligent with its wording and what it is communicating to shoppers.
By introducing circular initiatives, with the right messaging, retailers are able to engage and retain new, eco-conscious shoppers.
“We’re starting to see a real shift in customer mindset… it’s important for brands to take part in circular initiatives not just because of the environmental impact but also because of new legislation,” Loader concluded.
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