New Balance CEO: We Want to Deal With Customers 1-to-1

Rob DeMartini, President and Chief Executive Officer of New Balance, Inc. told Loyalty360 that his company plans to launch its first systemwide loyalty program early next year.

While he couldn’t provide any details on the program yet, DeMartini participated in an engaging Q&A with Loyalty360.

Can you offer our audience a high level overview of your customer philosophy and share how this perspective helps drive more effective engagement and better marketing outcomes?  

We want to deal with all our consumers 1-to-1, put them in the right product for their sports usage, and ensure they come back because they trust both the product and the guidance they receive from us.

How does New Balance stay on top of rapidly changing technologies, and implementing certain ones into your business model?

We try and stay connected with “omni-channel” trends and stay close to top performing retailers and wholesalers to learn from the exciting work in this area. The pace of change has never been faster.

“Stride”-ing Rite Past 2 Million Loyalty Program Members

How do you deal with customer data now, as far as collecting, analyzing, and gaining actionable insights?

Today we store customer data in too many places and lack a comprehensive CRM view of each consumer. We are working hard to change that in the next 12 months.

How do you define loyalty, what does it mean to your organization, and how has it changed in recent years? How has the strategy and focus changed in recent years?

We define loyalty as customers who buy at least twice during a 12-month period. This measure has been consistent but changes in recent years have been centered around us knowing consumers at an individual level and tracking their purchases (and loyalty) in a much more individual way.

Foot Locker Strategy Sets Strong Pace for Customer Satisfaction

What does Customer Experience / Customer Engagement mean to your organization, how has it changed over recent years or since you have been on the job?

Customer Experience (Engagement in our language) now sits at the center of Store and Website Design as well as all consumer marketing. This is new this year. We are trying to connect every department (beyond Product Creation) that touches the consumer experience and centralize their mission and vision.

What are the biggest challenges you see as a marketer in the next two years?

Dealing with the amount of consumer information and putting the data to work in a way that increases consumer engagement and drives sustainable business results.

Recent Content

Membership and Pricing

Videos and podcasts

Membership and Pricing