The search for the perfect bag

BY CHRISTIAN COLMER

(Published in The Produktkulturmagazin issue 2 2016)

With the right bag you can change your outfit – just like shoes. That's why bags are women’s favourite fashion accessory. However many bags there may be in the wardrobe, few ever reach the acclaimed position of becoming a personal favourite. Simone Wiechert, founder and operator of Lieblingstasche.de, came to the same conclusion when she had to say “Farewell” to her rather down-at-heel companion. She searched online for a replacement but to no avail. In her eyes all web-based offers for bags and accessories appeared equally loveless and interchangeable. And what ever happened to service? She decided to put her own ideas into a customer-friendly bag shop, which in 2010 was ready for its first style-conscious buyers.

Lieblingstasche stands for class not mass and its website is a real shopping experience. Wiechert’s idea has gone down well. Over 10,000 customers have rated the shop as “Very Good” and it has Google and Trusted Shops certificates. In the year of its launch, its appealing design and user-friendly navigation won several awards. In 2012, the company was nominated for the Internet World Business Shop Award. In 2014 and for two consecutive years, it received credit as “Top Shop” with magazine Computer Bild. 

Ultimately an idea needs intelligent, customer-sensitive IT and marketing solutions to take up the fight against the shopping giants of the internet. Indeed it is a challenge to transfer shopping experience and personal service to the online world. Regardless of the channel, a positive and individual shopping experience is becoming more and more important. Lieblingstasche wanted to stir emotion as part of their sales approach and were looking for a customer relationship management that met their very own expectations. “At first we used only rudimentary e-mail marketing, but we quickly found out that it was not enough to turn bag lovers into buyers. We wanted a complete solution which accompanied the entire customer journey on a level as emotional as possible – including analysis and individual customer approach,” explains CEO Sven Wiechert. “To us usability, clarity and privacy are also important.” That is how after the start-up of the online shop ProCampaign got into the game: a web-based customer engagement, CRM and marketing tool. The platform combines e-mail, messaging and social media as well as uniting marketing campaigns and customer loyalty activities. “With Consultix and ProCampaign, we have found a strong partner who masters the emotional needs of the customer experience within a single system which is ideal for us,” says Sven Wiechert.

The emotional appeal and support of the multichannel journey are key when it comes to brand building in e-commerce. The advantages with ProCampaign: the secure customer engagement hub is quickly set up and ready to use immediately. Intuitive to work with, the solution requires little training time. Its automated yet highly personalised customer approach enabled Lieblingstasche to set up both individual and efficient digital marketing and customer service. The interface to the Oxide shop system worked smoothly and a separate solution for triggered e-mails used previously became wholly superfluous.

As a hub, ProCampaign offers flexible interfaces to e-commerce, enterprise resource planning and many other systems, including SAP. Processes which already work well will remain and are integrated, and customer profiles are centralised. This enables companies to identify customers’ needs quickly. Merging the systems reduces the costs of data management considerably.

“Knowledge about customers’ needs and desires is key in digital marketing and customer relationship management,” says Sven Wiechert. “At Lieblingstasche we are particularly sensitive to this. The ProCampaign platform opens up countless possibilities to upgrade our e-commerce. Up to now we have defined more than twenty different workflows with ProCampaign. So we can now precisely accompany our customers throughout the entire customer experience.” For example: during the workflow the company regularly sent out automated yet individualised e-newsletters to its clientele according to specific profile data. This personal approach is an important success factor which can also be found in other ProCampaign CRM and marketing activities, such as sending out individual coupon codes on customers’ birthdays.

“With ProCampaign, Lieblingstasche now controls many marketing activities with one system. This Software as a service integrates customer lifecycle management, CRM, digital marketing and commerce. The platform centralises all customer profiles and enriches it with every interaction. This strengthens brand loyalty,” explains Andres Dickehut, CEO of marketing and IT service provider Consultix. Leading global brands thus already manage over fifty million consumer profiles in over eighty countries. The platform’s strengths are obvious whenever brands communicate with their customers. From a technological perspective, ProCampaign offers everything from analysis and enrichment of customer data across all the processes of the customer journey to messaging, e-mail, social media, a next best offer and reporting – an integrated and flexible solution with a central profile database.

The benefits of linking customer profiles and personalised marketing interactions soon became apparent to Lieblingstasche: customers seem to appreciate of the individual and emotional appeal; sales and customer satisfaction both increased. 10,000 ratings as “Very Good” among others with Trusted Shops speak for themselves. Lieblingstasche was ultimately able to increase its sales by 30 percent and significantly boost its conversion rate. Personalised marketing campaigns and and their analysis now need far less work. 

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VENDOR

Consultix offers marketing and IT services for brands in over eighty countries. Its flagship is ProCampaign, a secure customer engagement hub. Its Software as a Service integrates digital marketing, customer lifecycle management, CRM and e-commerce.

Consultix GmbH
sales@procampaign.com
procampaign.com 

CUSTOMER

Lieblingstasche
marketing@lieblingstasche.de
lieblingstasche.de

Picture credits © Erol Ahmed