How Sears is Unlocking the Door to True Customer Loyalty

Want to win your customers’ loyalty? It is going to take more than smiling.

Make no mistake—all customer service representatives must assure they are cordial in dealing with customers, but in a marketplace exposed to customer-centric concepts like Amazon’s product recommendation system, politeness is not the key to building meaningful customer relationships in the retail space.

That label, instead, belongs to experience initiatives that recognize the customer as an individual and build around those individuals’ unique preferences and shopping habits.

"We all as consumers want to be treated as individuals more and more, and individualization of offers and merchandising is key in retail today," explains Phil Shelley, chief technology officer at Sears and a keynote speaker at the 2012 Big Data Business Forum, November 12-14, 2012.

But how do organizations get there? Customer experience strategies built around simple concepts like smiling and relaxed return policies are easy to theorize and execute, but when it comes to delivering a personalized experience, precision and accuracy matter. This is not a task of the "trial and error" or "set it and forget it" variety; it is one that requires a perpetual commitment to understanding and predicting a customer’s behavior…in real time.

For businesses serving hundreds, thousands or even millions of customers, succeeding with such a strategy requires more than deciding to adopt this form of customer-centricity. It instead commands an effort to expertly leverage Big Data.

Shelley explains, "Today, on a massive scale with tens of millions of customers it is now possible to get down to individual offers and loyalty-based incentives which previously were almost impossible to do. We offer online, mobile and in-store."

As immensely valuable as that opportunity sounds, this is not the first Big Data rodeo for many customer management professionals. With customers sharing more and more data as they connect with brands at more and more touch points, the potential to parlay that information into more desirable experiences and, ultimately, more desirable business outcomes is hardly undocumented.

Decidedly less documented, however, are the strategies for managing and acting on these customer insights, and in this exclusive Customer Management IQ podcast, Shelley reveals some of the creative ways Sears is transforming data into real customer loyalty and business results. He also sheds light on the challenges and pitfalls to mirroring his success, providing a legitimate glimpse into how retailers must approach the notion of customer-centricity in 2012.

And if this topic is of interest, you'll want to join Phil, and an all-star cast of speakers from such powerhouses as Orbitz, Verizon, The Gap, eBay and JP Morgan, at the 2012 Big Data Business Forum.

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