L&T and WOLFF DMM
Customer data is now part of decision making processes in almost all relevant areas
Background
Lengermann & Trieschmann (L&T) is a department store in Osnabrück, Lower Saxony, Germany, family-run and established in 1910. There are over five million visitors a year to the 200,000 square foot department store. L&T stands for well-made inner-city retail and strongly believes that the market place is crucial for their customers. The whole business relies on brick-and-mortar retailing with the strong intention to delight and entertain their customers. Back in 2010, the loyalty program "L&T Club" was launched. Today, over 65% of all purchases are made by using the club card. Leveraging this success was the starting point for L&T introducing Apteco marketing software in 2015.
Ten years on, L&T began to rethink the L&T Club. This included more customer thought, individual benefits, status level and the "show your card" scheme. The process of content development was well supported with Apteco's FastStats data analysis functionality and it quickly became clear that the necessary selections and automations were also fully covered by Apteco software.
The main challenges were data quality, management of consent information, a lack of flexibility in the POS system and a significantly increased requirement for timely evaluation of measures. Alongside these challenges, the Covid-19 pandemic meant that digital communication became even more important for L&T.
The heart of CRM activities is with approximately 130,000 registered L&T Club members and continues to grow steadily with around 12,000 new club members per year. The focus of this customer story is the integration of customer knowledge into as many areas of the company as possible based on Apteco software, with purchasing behaviour now a key source of information at L&T.
The Apteco Solution
Outside of marketing and CRM, customer and campaign information had little visibility. Today, customer data is part of decision-making processes in almost all relevant areas at L&T. An important step towards becoming a customer-centric company!
Since its introduction to L&T in 2015, their Apteco FastStats system has become the core tool for analysis and selection in the marketing team. Until the Covid-19 pandemic, email newsletters and over 60 print mailings were created annually and adhoc analysis was used to evaluate campaign success and customer behaviour. At the end of 2019, the decision was made that the L&T Club needed to be strategically rethought after ten years. The CRM 2.0 project was launched and the cornerstones developed with customer benefits at the centre of it. Personal benefits - based on purchasing behaviour - needed to become tangible for the customer and a status level should be introduced for particularly good customers. The measures were to enable very targeted and selective up-selling and cross-selling. More personalised goodwill coupons and discounts were introduced. By summer 2020, the strategy was developed and the launch of the new L&T Club 2.0 was scheduled for January 2021. A large number of existing analyses in marketing / CRM were replaced by Apteco Orbit interactive dashboards, so that information can be accessed on a daily basis and by the management team at any time for quick decision making.
Within six months, this transformation was achieved. Customer data is now very present in the company and decision-making processes are changing. The next steps will focus on marketing again and we will work on behavioural modelling and multi-channel communication.
Gernot Feltin, Head of WDMM Solutions, WOLFF DMM
Gernot Feltin, Head of WDMM Solutions, WOLFF DMM
The impact on the business
Knowledge about the customer has left the realm of marketing and CRM, and customer data is now part of decision making processes in almost all relevant areas at L&T.
A customer information sheet is available to all customer service representatives, displaying relevant customer data for a truly personalised experience.
Regular communications and targeting rules are automated via Apteco PeopleStage, bringing significant relief to the team by eliminating manual selections.
Consent and status fields have been cleansed and there is a reduction in data complexity. All relevant data-fields are monitored using Apteco Orbit dashboards.
Digital processes have been transformed to manage younger target groups who are influenced online, and also to analyse established regular customers who buy both on and offline.
The management team has access to KPI data at any time and on a daily basis via Apteco Orbit dashboards, allowing precise evaluation of success.
In what feels like at least every second meeting, I only call up dashboards and I'm not the only one who is thrilled! It really is an incredible work facilitator and, above all, also a visual and quite easy to understand view.
Stefanie Wendlinger, head of event management, marketing and CRM, L&T
Stefanie Wendlinger, head of event management, marketing and CRM, L&T