Retailers need to keep up with the multi-channel needs of today’s shoppers by providing personalized and engaging experiences. Flash sale retailer HauteLook has partnered with RightNow to amp up its customer experience by implementing the cloud-based RightNow CX suite.
Since its inception in 2007, HauteLook has been a provider of clothing and accessories for men, women, and children, as well as beauty supplies and home goods through a 48-hour sale event format. Recently, the retailer also launched a monthly shoe membership site, Sole Society. Through the flash sale model, HauteLook offers shoppers up to 75% discounts on designer products and high-end travel packages.
“By providing exceptional support and shopping experiences, HauteLook will increase loyalty, which ultimately increases sales,” Suzy Meriwether, Retail Marketing Director for RightNow, told Retail TouchPoints. “RightNow will continue to grow with this hot flash-retail brand. Because the solution is delivered via the cloud, HauteLook can easily scale its use of RightNow, without additional IT infrastructure costs, to meet the demands of popular sales events or the holiday shopping season.”
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With the new solution, HauteLook is revamping its contact center to quickly and consistently respond to member questions and concerns through their channel of choice, be it via phone, email, live chat, or social media.
“Retailers have to be available to address customers across all of the modern channels, while having a view of whether they previously submitted an email or sent a concerned Tweet to ensure a positive, seamless customer experience,” Meriwether said. “With a ‘flash sale,’ customers are making ‘flash decisions’ and need fast answers to any questions they may have — about the product, return policies, or shipping. This is even more key over the holidays as people are buying gifts for others. These questions may come in via email, chat, phone or other social channels.”
Chris Purpura, Director of Member Care for HauteLook, told Retail TouchPoints that he believes this multi-channel strategy will help the retailer enhance current, and new, consumer relationships.
“People have more options at their fingertips than ever before,” Purpura said. “Smartphones, laptops, tablets — these tools are becoming a major part of everyday life. If our business limits all of these exciting new tools by not allowing our members to communicate with us the way that they want to, their overall experience is ultimately impacted.”
Chat Capabilities Increase Loyalty and Relationships
To accurately manage relationships with HauteLook’s 40,000 members, the retailer’s member care service agents have adopted the RightNow Dynamic Agent Desktop. The solution is fully integrated with Hautelook’s e-Commerce program to help give associates a 360-degree view of member browsing behavior and purchase history to help track, assign and manage requests through one source. Through RightNow’s Chat platform, shoppers also can immediately speak with an agent to address complaints or ask questions before making a purchase.
“Retailers are now intelligently incorporating chat into different interactions with customers. It’s no longer about pushing the sale, but offering expert advice at the perfect time, and engaging the customer in a helpful dialogue,” Meriwether noted.
The solution also is designed to optimize chat efficiencies and allow member services to manage up to four chat sessions at a time. Purpura noted the new chat capabilities will help guide and reassure shoppers to make that final purchase.
“[With chat] our members are excited to be on our site every day, and they are discovering fantastic bargains, but sometimes they have questions about sizing, color, or they just want another opinion,” Purpura said. “Live chat allows members to get that support from us without ever having to disengage from HauteLook.”
Currently, the retailer is driving sales by converting 13.5% of all chat sessions into new purchases, according to a press release.
Included in the new customer experience program is a feedback management solution, which is designed to take comments and criticisms from any channel, and share customer insight with organization personnel and brand partners to efficiently solve problems.
“Let’s say a person has a problem and posts it on Facebook,” Meriwether said. “Imagine the impact to a brand if this is posted, a few days go by with 100,000 eyes reading it, and no response…Retailers can now easily identify a social comment and quickly take action to respond and resolve the issue. If Facebook fans see the retailer swiftly responding to posts, they are building stronger brand identity and loyalty.”
Purpura also discussed the importance of the customer experience in improving loyalty and furthering company growth. With RightNow, he expects the HauteLook experience to improve exponentially by logging email and chat interactions, as well as phone contacts to better represent the “Voice of the Customer.”
“Our biggest focus in Member Care has to be all about protecting the member experience,” Purpura said. “If a member has to reach out to us for any issue or question, our response will impact how they feel about our entire business…I use [data] information to understand what products, policies or site features our members are struggling with. We share this information with each department within our organization so that the members can help us to improve their HauteLook experience.”
