C
anadian clothing retailer Laura found a new school solution to the age-old question of how to offer a better personalized service.
Starting in 2016, Laura completely overhauled the way they did things behind the scenes. Scribbled notes in black books – once the norm among the company’s 1,500 nationwide associates who work in the stores – were replaced with a deployment of iPads loaded with a custom iOS field sales app.
In addition to using the iOS app as a communication hub to update their associates on all marketing and product updates, their weekly markdowns formerly implemented using 1980s barcode scanners are now being done using iPads. It’s allowed the retailer to save significant time in its stores, countrywide.
These changes could’ve been costly and arduous to make, while alienating their longtime associates used to doing things a certain way.
But in the end, the transition went incredibly smoothly and Laura, in business since 1930, now believes they’ve got a technological leg up in the highly competitive clothing retail industry.
The iOS solution on iPad that has become the standard among their employees was created using technology by Montreal-area company Beehivr. Founder Jean-Philippe Laforge wanted to create a sales platform for companies looking to empower their sales teams and build relationships with their customers.
“In a couple of hours, a company can assemble all its marketing assets in one app that can be further enhanced by connecting to powerful modules,” Laforge explained. “For years, people have been using the same tools: paper brochures, PDFs, presentations, videos. But even these formats are 30 years old.”
Laura’s iOS field sales app is used primarily for what is called “clienteling,” which encompasses everything a company does to nurture stronger relationships with clients.
“What’s exciting about our internal iOS app for retail employees is that Laura has always had a really deep relationship with the customer,” said Ian Richards, vice-president of digital marketing and CRM (customer relationship management) at Laura. “Keeping notes on your customers in a black book was great 15 years ago, but when you think about today and the vast amount of data available, it was a restrictive system.”
The iOS app on iPad is used by Laura’s associates for just about everything. The app has customer data, shopping and browsing info on 2 million customers, serves as a communications hub with pretty much every department in the company, and can be used to make pricing adjustments. Laura is also rolling out a new feature that will allow associates to send personalized communications to their clients by email or text message.
Even Laura’s telemarketing process has had a data-centric update: associates will receive calling lists on their iPad of customers that are due for a visit, and can use artificial intelligence to make personalized clothing recommendations for each customer.
“It’s about being able to truly deliver personalized service and one-to-one communication,” Richards added.
We want to empower our associates with rich customer data, to help better understand each customer’s needs and give them the tools to be able to communicate in a meaningful and relevant way. We feel if we can get the right message out at the right time, it will enable us to build and maintain a healthy relationship with our customers.
“We want to empower our associates with rich customer data, to help better understand each customer’s needs and give them the tools to be able to communicate in a meaningful and relevant way. We feel if we can get the right message out at the right time, it will enable us to build and maintain a healthy relationship with our customers.”
Laura originally reached out to Beehivr in March 2016 after learning it was a member of the Apple Mobility Partner Program. By November of that year, the first iteration of the platform was ready to be rolled out into stores.
“We didn’t know how our associates would react to it at first,” said Martin Thibodeau, vice-president of Information Technologies at Laura. “But a lot of our associates were already using their own personal social media accounts and smartphones to communicate with their customers, so we just gave them an official platform to do it.”
Laforge said coming up with a simple, intuitive interface is key when it comes to creating a useful app.
“One of the greatest qualities of iPad is that, by design, it can’t be complicated,” Laforge said. “There’s no mouse or keyboard – everything is at your fingertips. In addition, iOS provides an amazing user experience while ensuring security and easiness of deployment.”
Although Beehivr counts a number of businesses – both retail and non-retail – as clients, the core of their platform remains consistent.
“We’re trying to change how meetings are happening between sales professionals and clients,” Laforge said. “There’s a specific moment when you’re meeting a client, and that’s what our app is for. We can configure just about anything, but what stays the same is transforming marketing assets and business processes into one app, pushing content remotely, and gathering data from all these iPads.”
For Laura, modernizing has meant being more efficient with how they communicate, and reinforcing their values of having deep relationships with their customers.
“It’s about bringing the black book into the digital age,” Richards said. Laforge concurred: “We’re not trying to transform the end goal for these companies. We’re trying to change the way they get there.”