Women’s apparel, jewelry, and accessories merchant Coldwater Creek and Alliance Data Systems Corp., a provider of loyalty and marketing solutions, have reached a new long-term deal to expand Coldwater Creek's co-branded credit card program and launch a Coldwater Creek private label credit card program.
Alliance Data will provide end-to-end proprietary credit card services from account acquisition to multichannel marketing and customer service for Coldwater Creek. Alliance Data plans to acquire the existing co-brand credit card portfolio at a future date from the current issuer. The agreement calls for Coldwater Creek to use Alliance Data's Retail Services business.
“We strongly believe the partnership with Alliance Data will increase our customers’ brand engagement as well as provide new customers an entree into what makes Coldwater Creek special – a full brand experience,” Lyn Walter, Divisional Vice President, Investor Relations, Coldwater Creek, told Loyalty 360.
Walther said the long-term partnership with Alliance Data arose because a core strategic initiative for Coldwater Creek is to “more deeply engage our customers and attract new ones. Expanding our loyalty program is one of the vital components to achieve those goals.”
By expanding its offering of card products to include a Coldwater Creek Private Label Card, as well as fully integrating the card program with “our amazingly successful loyalty program, Coldwater Creek Rewards,” Walther said: “We will further enhance our customer's shopping experience and strengthen our brand loyalty. We chose to work with Alliance Data because of its extensive experience in the retail sector and its strong analytical and multichannel marketing capabilities. This partnership will continue to provide our customers with new and exciting ways to experience our brand and enjoy our products.”
As part of the launch of the new Coldwater Creek Rewards platform, Alliance Data will introduce new tools and technologies allowing unique communications with Coldwater Creek's valued customers, fully leveraging a multichannel approach to drive a relevant cardholder experience. These capabilities are designed to increase customer loyalty, enhance the shopping experience, and ultimately drive incremental sales for the brand. Coldwater Creek will also leverage the data assets of Epsilon, another Alliance Data company, in support of the company's prospect marketing efforts to drive customer acquisition.
From a customer's perspective, Walther said, it should be a seamless transition for current cardholders.
“The addition of the private label card will provide our loyalty members additional flexibility so that they can choose from several different credit card options when shopping our stores,” she explained.
Walther said the new Coldwater Creek Rewards program launched in early 2012 and the company has been extremely pleased with both the positive customer reaction as well as the great customer feedback.
“By rewarding customers with special programs and offers, such as private sale events and sneak peeks into upcoming product offerings, we find she is significantly more engaged with our brand – in every channel – in our stores, online, via mobile devices and in social media,” Walther said. “With expansion of this engagement, we find customers are more satisfied, spend more, and shop more often across all of our channels.”