Sharing data can benefit both retailer and customer

Customer data has long been the lifeblood of many organisations With the rise of the connected consumer, retailers need to work harder to attract, retain and engage customers in order to get this precious data

Fionna Ronnie, head of customer capability at The Foschini Group (TFG), says that increasingly, customers are prepared to share their data if they consider the value exchange to be sufficient Customers join loyalty programmes understanding what is at play: you give me something that I deem is valuable in exchange for my data

With more than 29-million registered customers, TFG has been growing its loyalty programme, TFG Rewards, by harvesting and using transactional data Our Rewards objective is to create personalised customer experiences that influence consumer behaviour and reward our shoppers, says Ronnie Leveraging data, we really get to know our customers; we listen to them and we deliver on their needs Our approach is to provide the best customer outcomes by putting data and analytics at the heart of decisionmaking ”

Ronnie points out that good customers buy from you, but loyal ones keep coming back and encourage other shoppers to do the same

“Customer data is what gets you out of the starting block Harvesting that data enables you to sprint past your competitors, creating personalised offers and content in the right place at the right time,” she says

TFG’s loyalty programme is paying off for the retailer, increasing shopper frequency by more than 64%, average profit per transaction by more than 45% and the average transaction value or basket size by more than 47%, and strengthening customer loyalty by more than 61%

The programme is also delivering valuable insights on shopper behaviour, including what customers are buying, when they are buying and whether they are buying both sale and non-sale items, says Ronnie The loyalty insights journey is at play throughout the customer lifecycle, she explains The programme enables a constant feedback loop, delivering deeper insights and optimisation across both physical and digital channels These insights are then put into action through intelligent decisioning, with segmentation and next-best offers crafted to entice and offer value to customers Campaigns are then modelled using this data and seamlessly executed to the customer’s channel of choice, creating an omnichannel experience ”

She is the first to concede, however, that loyalty management is a journey rather