fashion and beauty customer obsession cheat guide

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Fashion and Beauty Customer Obsession Cheat GuideA look at the situation, challenges and opportunities for customer obsession in the Fashion and Beauty Industry. With insights from a survey conducted by Forrester Consulting and expert opinions from across the sector.

Fashion and Beauty Customer Obsession Cheat Guide 2

Situation: Why does the Fashion and Beauty Industry need to become customer-obsessed?

As a Fashion and Beauty retailer, if your business has survived COVID-19 and the ‘Death of the High Street’ - what’s your next move to ensure further success? Times have changed, and customer strategies that once worked to overcome past challenges won’t cut it in today’s world as we enter a realm of higher demand for digitalisation, brand convenience and customer frugality. Forget customer-centricity; retailers now need to adopt a new core principle and culture throughout their business to ensure success—customer obsession.

With a plethora of online and in-store outlets now available for customers to shop at, to win market share, Fashion and Beauty retailers must adopt a customer-obsessed strategy and prioritise its implementation over the coming years. But, customer obsession needs implementation across the entirety of the business, and definitions often differ across industries and departments.

Data from a Forrester study commissioned by Critizr reveals how 261 retailers define ‘customer obsessed’ for their organisation.

Critizr co-founder and CEO Nicolas Hammer explains customer obsession in his own words:

“This is not about considering customers’ needs. It’s about placing them at the heart of all decisions and actions. It’s worth remembering that without customers, there is no business. They need to be listened to at all levels of the company, understood and taken into account in the evolution and improvement of every process, service and product.”

Base: 261 decision-makers responsible for CX strategy at their organization Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Critizr, May 2021

How would you best define what ‘customer obsessed’ means for your organization?

HQ workers Customer-facing workers

A customer-obsessed enterprise enables firms to analyze customer behavior with the use of data to drive acquisition, retention, cross-sell/upsell, and targeted marketing campaigns.

47%56%

A customer-obsessed enterprise focuses its strategy, operations, and budget to enhance its knowledge of and engagement with customers.

33%27%

Documents that visually illustrate customers’ processes, needs, and perceptions throughout their relationships with a company.

11%8%

A system of shared values and behaviors that focus employee activity on improving the customer experience.

9%9%


Pimkie1

Boots2

The Fashion and Beauty Improvement Customer Obsession Leaders Customer obsession leaders are chosen by Critizr based on a range of customer-focused initiatives and technologies to enhance the customer experience.

John Lewis3


“For us, customer excellence is the result of both listening and acting. By organising ourselves at the head office around listening to customers and giving our in-store teams the means to converse with their customers, we intend to solve all the problems identified thanks to the solution”. Hélène Moittié, Former head of Customer Excellence at Pimkie (1)

Pimkie has also created the new position of Customer Experience Manager, working in close collaboration with the Customer Research and Knowledge Manager to identify the topics raised by customers that need the most attention.

Since 2019, European Women’s fashion retailer Pimkie has driven customer obsession by investing in their customer listening management. Store managers and salespeople in nearly 600 Pimkie stores listen and respond to customer feedback and reviews, understand the levers of CX improvement, take action and champion the customers.

Patrick Van Der Linden, CCO at Pimkie, has been at the forefront of driving Pimkie’s “customer-obsessed” strategy, which puts feedback from the customer as its centre.

Customer Obsession checklist:

Listens to customers

Take actions based on real-time feedback

Customer-focused job roles and dedicated panel

“We look at the different elements of the customer journey and find out where the big detractors are. If we find points where things are not working properly, we have a customer experience panel inside the company from different areas, and they try to resolve it as quickly as possible. So getting customer feedback is key.” (2)

1. https://business.critizr.com/en/blog/case-study/pimkie-relies-on-critizr-to-optimise-the-customer-experience-in-store 2. https://www.theindustry.fashion/podcast-stores-the-next-generation-pimkie/?__hstc=&__hssc=&hsCtaTracking=96692bb3-6750-47f1-be2d-9dc4d025e4ac%7Cbf1bdb34-87bc-4d46-9724-b640da764c2a


They’ve also invested in local high streets with the rollout of 30 new beauty halls in stores, offering customers a flagship beauty experience in their local store and access to hundreds more brands via next day click and collect from their website.

“While our online sales continue to grow, the in-store experience is still hugely important, which is why we have continued to invest in our new-look beauty halls throughout the pandemic and beyond.” Said Seb James, CEO, Boots UK. (1)

They’ve also recently partnered with Deliveroo to offer more than 400 Boots products on-demand, delivering them in as

Boots is the largest pharmacy-led health and beauty chain in the UK. Offering much more than just beauty products, they’re at the top of their game when it comes to focusing on the customer and in-store experience.

Their in-store services include pharmacy and prescriptions, eye-tests, photo printing and makeup counters and recently launched their ‘store of the future’ showcasing a selection of environmentally responsible features that give customers the chance to make sustainable shopping decisions.

little as 20 minutes. Showcasing their agility to adapt to increased customer demands during the pandemic.

Their highly successful Boots Advantage Card is over 23 years old and one of the largest in the UK, with over 14.6 million users.

The card’s customer spending data allows Boots to provide members with personalised offers, in-store appointment bookings, and prescription management services.

In 2019, Boots increased its ranking in the UK Customer Satisfaction Index, improving its overall score by 3.3 points and jumping 80 places to finish 19th in the overall rankings.

1. https://www.boots-uk.com/newsroom/news/boots-uk-invests-in-local-high-streets-with-the-launch-of-30-new-beauty-halls/


Enhanced in-store experiences and delivery

Multi store format footprint

Successful loyalty scheme


John Lewis also rated highest in the UK Customer Satisfaction Index July 2020 (2), measured on customer experience metrics such as NPS, trust, recommendation, complaint handling, channel usage and satisfaction, earning an overall score of 85.3.

They’ve recently implemented initiatives around sustainability such as new refillable products to reduce waste and helping customers dispense of hard to recycle flexible plastic and beauty product packaging. These initiatives have been fuelled by increased customer demand for sustainability and also reward customers for contributing - offering £10 off their next beauty purchase when returning five items of packaging.

Department store John Lewis is a customer favourite and was voted second on the ‘best clothes and accessory shops’ Which? Survey. (1) Scoring 4 out of 5 stars for both customer service and in-store experience with an overall customer score of 79%.

John Lewis has invested further in their in-store experience and introduced services such as children’s feet measuring for shoes, tech support desks and next day click and collect services.

Perhaps most importantly, when it comes to customer obsession, John lewis has recognised the vital role its staff play. They are the UK’s largest employee-owned business after its founder, John Spedan Lewis, began experimenting with a better way of doing business over 100 years ago.

He wanted to include staff in decision making and enable them to input how the business should be run. You could argue this move was massively ahead of its time, and the business model continues to run today.


Highly rated customer service

Innovating in sustainability and in-store experiences

Trust in the workforce


Challenge: Accessibility of the right technologies to enable customer-obsession

Customer obsession is a long-term competitive strategy that’s reliant on the ability to listen and react to the voice of the customer in real-time. However, do Fashion and Beauty retailers and other brands generally have the resources available and technology implemented to achieve this?

Our customer obsession ’leaders’ illustrated some of the Fashion and Beauty retailers who are listening to customers in real-time; however, data from the ‘Going Beyond CX’ study conducted by Forrester shows this is not necessarily the case across the retail industry. A shocking 39% of HQ workers and 38% of customer-facing workers cited that they do not listen to the customer in real-time. Around half of the respondents also stated that they are listening to customers but cannot act in real-time, suggesting they don’t have access to appropriate resources and technologies to achieve this.

“Now more than ever, brands and retailers must be obsessed with their customers. In recent years, we’ve had the decline of the physical store (as we know it), which was accelerated beyond measure due to a global pandemic and various lockdowns. Retailers must capture as much data and consumer behaviour insights to keep their customers coming back into store and online. We can no longer expect the customers to behave how we want them to; they will educate us on how and when they want to shop, whether that’s on mobile, via App, in-store, via a marketplace – let’s go where they are!” Antony Hawman, Co-founder, TheIndustry.Fashion.


We react to the voice of the customer in real time.

We listen to the voice of the customer in real time but cannot act in real time.

We do not listen to the voice of the customer in real time.

Our current technology stack doesn’t meet our needs for real-time data access and insights.

77%

53%

39%

56%

70%

48%

38%

63%

Which of the following statements do you most agree with?



Opportunity: What does the future of customer obsession look like in the Fashion and Beauty sector?

As we look to the future of a customer-obsessed Grocery sector, what exactly will this look like and what can we expect?

An increase in niche customer-focused roles, particularly around Data, Insights and loyalty. Job titles such as ‘Head of Customer Happiness’ and ‘Head of Customer First’ will continue to grow.

Frontline teams will have more training and autonomy over their store to customer relationships, becoming more empowered to deliver exceptional experiences.

Introduction of new technologies to enable conversational commerce at ground level and increase proximity between brands and customers.

A shift in dynamic from ‘HQ - down’ to ‘ground-up’ in customer communications and insights.

“Bound by brand, product and image, the fashion industry has probably struggled more than most to pivot to customer centricity. Add in the challenges of an increasingly “conscious” and aware consumer and things get even more complicated. Tomorrow’s most powerful fashion and beauty brands will be those who invite consumers into their worlds building authentically personal and local relationships that stretch across all channels.”Peter Cross, Consumer expert and retail consultant.


90% Improve our products or services

90% Grow revenue

89% Improve the experience of our customers

87% Improve our ability to innovate

85% Proximity between brands and their customers

Which of the following initiatives are likely to be your organization’s top business priorities over the next 12 months?



Pimkie’s store managers and salespeople view the ratings and reviews from customers on their mobile phones and checkouts daily and respond directly to them. Making them more of customer satisfaction indicators and aware of the need to prioritise customer satisfaction.

At the same time, the brand also collects spontaneous reviews posted on the Google My Business (GMB) pages of each store and invites its customers to express their views on their experience by deploying POS in-store.

Today the Critizr solution is connected to nearly 600 Pimkie stores in 6 countries and 6 e-commerce sites.

European women’s fashion retailer Pimkie adopted the Critizr solution to listen to their customers at every stage of the customer journey. The initiative allows them to better track customer satisfaction and take actions to improve the customer experience.

To ensure a seamless customer experience, the company has set up a system for soliciting the opinions of its customers, whatever their experience: post-purchase in-store or via the brand’s e-commerce site, post-delivery, or after-sales interaction.

“At Pimkie, we have always listened to our customers, but the process is irregular. This time, we have entered a new dimension. We were looking for a partner who could take us further by allowing us to listen to our customers at every point along the way. Faster too: Critizr deployed its solution in record time” , comments Hélène Moittié, Head of Customer Excellence at Pimkie.

Pimkie relies on Critizr to optimise the customer experience in-store.


“For us, customer excellence is the result of both listening and acting. Everything that Critizr enables us to collect is intended to be analysed to propose highly personalised courses of action to our customers. By organising ourselves at the head office around listening to customers and giving our in-store teams the means to converse with their customers, we intend to solve all the problems identified thanks to the solution”, adds Hélène Moittié.

Fashion and Beauty Customer Obsession Cheat Guide

Customer Obsession is a competitive differentiator which can make all the difference between Fashion and Beauty brands being average and exceptional.

As we’ve seen from Pimkie, Boots and John Lewis, investing in-store teams and customer interaction technologies brings excellent advantages and drives a customer-obsessed culture.

Without the right resources and technologies in place, true customer obsession cannot be achieved.

Statistics taken from the ‘Going Beyond CX: How Understanding Customer Obsession Ensures Success.’ Forrester research commissioned by Critizr.

Key takeaways:

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Founded in 2012, the Critizr platform is used in 25 countries by more than 120 of Europe’s biggest companies across 20 different sectors, including retail, banking, travel, entertainment and hospitality.

The platform transforms how businesses listen to and understand their customers, empowering over 60,000 professionals to ensure that every customer interaction counts.

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