Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
maisons
often invited them to their homes for meals and festivities. The
clients, on their own part, reciprocated by being loyal to the
maison
and
committed to the designers.
Today, this has changed. As a consequence of the expansion of the luxury
market that now includes international territories and a near-global market,
the majority of today's luxury brands have clients running into hundreds of
thousands, and in some cases millions, of people around the world. You will
agree that it is impossible to know all their names by heart and to invite all
of them to dinner. But this evolution of the luxury market has brought with
it something that didn't exist in the past - technology - which if exploited
appropriately could enable luxury brands to reproduce the intimacy of rela-
tions with clients in days gone by.
To begin with, the technology that supports client data management both
on the Internet and offline should be top-notch and capable of capturing data,
integrating it across channels and locations, streamlining it in a way that clients
may easily be found and pulling its main elements together for personalized
offerings and experiences. The beauty of technology is that it provides infinite
opportunities to capture client data, monitor their shopping habits and tai-
lor specific offerings to them. If effectively applied, technological support can
be a real stepping stone for brands in their quest for a substantial mind-share of
luxury clients. How can this be achieved? Here are a few tips and points:
•
Client management programs don't begin and end with responding to
customer queries and ensuring that shoppers receive adequate advice.
It includes an integrated approach to guarantee that the experience that
clients have with the brand is enriching, uniform and coherent across
every touch-point, whether by telephone or email and through the website
or physical location.
•
Managing clients online is not only a question of sending email news-
letters as frequently as possible - no matter how interesting it is and the
number of links it has; neither is it about monitoring website and shop-
ping traffic. It also has to do with ensuring that clients visiting the website
do not feel the lack of human presence. This may be achieved by incorpo-
rating elements that lead to immediate access to client managers through
instant dialogue tools such as “click to call” and “client call back”. These
tools should be made available for clients in different world regions.
•
Integrating online and offline client management systems is a must. As
highlighted throughout this topic online shoppers also experience luxury
brands in the physical world on many levels and they seek coherence in
these experiences. This can only be provided if the client is recognized,
remembered and served in the way he deserves across every touch-point
with the brand.
•
Luxury brands have always refused to adopt Fidelity Cards, Affinity
Cards and other forms of reward programs, maintaining that this removes
