A customer-centric approach is the key for future success at women’s retailer Christopher & Banks. Placing the customer first is at the core of the company’s customer engagement and customer loyalty efforts.
Despite an 11% sales decline in the first quarter, Christopher & Banks CEO LuAnn Via said during Tuesday’s earnings conference call that the company continues to make progress on its strategic initiatives.
“We are on track with our Customer First project, upgrading our CRM, POS, order management, and web platforms,” Via said, according to Seeking Alpha. “These are all designed to enable us to optimize our customers’ experience across all touch points. The overall benefits of this strategy are expected to be realized beginning in mid-2016. We have also taken steps to enhance our customer’s overall shopping experience, with new fixturing that enables us to maximize floor capacity and create better visibility around our product offerings. Additional displays and props give us more flexibility to showcase key items and trends.”
Via said that the company’s Retail Business Intelligence tool has provided the means to gain a deeper understanding of products and store performance.
“We started with pushing more goods to our online business and saw immediate results producing double-digit sales improvement on a consistent basis,” Via explained. “Within brick-and-mortar, we are reallocating new goods before they leave the warehouse and have moved a significant level of products between stores as well as to the online channel based on need.”
What’s more, the company’s omnichannel initiative remains the top priority.
“We continue to see opportunity for accelerated growth in our ecommerce business attributable to site enhancements as well as more effective digital marketing,” Via said. “In addition, we are balancing inventory by category and offering ecommerce exclusive styles and colors. Later this year, we will be implementing a new email provider that in conjunction with our operated CRM system will enable improved campaign management. Under our Customer First initiative, we are taking a hard look at all of our customer touch points.”
The Christopher & Banks Friendship Rewards Loyalty Program is a highly effective vehicle for capturing customer data and driving customer engagement, Via said.
“We are rolling out a refreshed program with the goal of offering a more effective and personalized reward system that is differentiated by level of loyalty and provide enhanced benefits,” Via explained.