Chico’s FAS, Inc. (NYSE: CHS), a leading omnichannel specialty retailer for women that was recently named ‘Best Online Company’ by Newsweek, is accelerating its digital transformation and enhancing its position as a customer-first company. The company is innovating the customer experience to drive greater digital sales across its Chico’s, White House Black Market and Soma brands.
In October, the company invested in new strategic relationships with leading technology companies, including Salesforce, Afterpay and Contentstack to modernize and personalize the digital experience for its customers. In the coming months, these collaborations are expected to leverage customer relationships to maximize marketing campaigns; fuel customer acquisition; and establish a single 360-degree view of customer data to create relevant communication and a personalized customer experience.
“Customers’ behaviors are changing, and we have developed a customer-first model where the customer is the channel. As we innovate how we seamlessly engage with and serve her, we will continue to undergo continuous optimization of the digital experience across all of our brands to forge deeper relationships, accelerate growth, drive greater profitable sales and gain market share,” said Molly Langenstein, Chief Executive Officer and President, Chico’s FAS.
One Digital Platform to Create a Seamless Customer Experience
Chico’s FAS is collaborating with Salesforce, a leading customer relationship management (CRM) provider, to modernize its marketing platform and deliver personalized customer engagement at scale. As a customer-first and customer-obsessed organization, Chico’s FAS is unlocking its ability to deliver lifecycle marketing using predictive intelligence to optimize messaging to each customer across all channels. Chico’s FAS is developing a single platform with a unified view of its customers through robust customer data that has been collected for more than three decades. This includes leveraging Chico’s FAS loyalty program, which has some of the highest participation rates in retail.
Buy Now, Pay Later
This holiday season, customers will have a new way to shop the company’s online boutiques, enjoy her purchases now and pay for them later with interest-free installments. Beginning Oct. 28, customers will have the option to use Afterpay to purchase the latest fashions from all three brands. Chico’s FAS commitment to speed and innovation resulted the implementation of this new customer service offering in just eight weeks.
Evolving the Personalized Shopping Experience
For more than three decades, millions of loyal customers have shopped Chico’s FAS brands for the one-on-one relationships they’ve established with stylists and the personalized experience they consistently receive during each interaction. Through Chico’s FAS partnership with Contentstack, the company is further building upon its foundation for delivering personalized content to customers based upon personal preference, region and weather.
“As we enhance our position as a customer-first company, organizational agility and speed-to-market are top priorities. Our teams have come together to accelerate critical areas of our digital transformation in months instead of years,” said Laura Loughran, Senior Vice President of Technology, Chico’s FAS. “As the customer continues to evolve her shopping habits, we will expand our digital services to seamlessly personalize her shopping journey at each of our brands to maximize Customer Lifetime Value. This will be critical to meeting the needs of both our loyal customers today and the increasing number of new customers that join our community.”
