Intimate Relationships in Bloom

1-800-FLOWERS.COM sees revenue hikes after implementing SAS® CRM solution

By marketing convenience in addition to the variety of gifts it sells, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM is always ahead of the competition – maybe even its customers. In a move to expand the business from 14 flower shops in New York City in the 1970s, the retailer's CEO Jim McCann acquired the 1-800-FLOWERS.COM moniker in the 1980s to open his telephone lines for 'round-the-clock ordering from anywhere in the world.

Customer Success Video

Check out this video to learn more about 1-800-FLOWERS.COM and its successes with SAS. 

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Customer ViewPoint
You have questions; our customers have answers. Check out this video Q & A.

Christopher G. McCann
President,
1-800-FLOWERS.COM

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Bill Carson
Vice President of Application Solutions,
1-800-FLOWERS.COM

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Aaron Cano
Director of Database Marketing,
1-800-FLOWERS.COM

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By 1992, before many companies had even heard of the Internet, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM already had an online presence. McCann initiated full-fledged e-commerce by 1995 in anticipation of the coming Internet boom. And now, in the early 2000s, McCann says 1-800-FLOWERS.COM is again transforming itself, this time from a company that's based on operational excellence to one rooted in intimate knowledge of its customers. 1-800-FLOWERS.COM is achieving that transition with SAS Customer Relationship Management Solutions (CRM).

"In the early days, our success was based on convenience, reliability and 24-hour-a-day accessibility," says Chris McCann, President and brother of the CEO. "Nowadays, everybody's in the ship-to business, everybody's available 24/7. The foundations of our early success have become a commodity. In order to retain our competitive advantage, we have to migrate toward becoming a customer-intimate company."

Building Solid Relationships
At 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, SAS spans the entire decision-support process for managing customer relationships. Collecting data at all customer contact points, the company turns that data into knowledge for understanding and anticipating customer behavior, meeting customer needs, building more profitable customer relationships and gaining a holistic view of a customer's lifetime value.

In short, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM relies on SAS to turn brand loyalty into personal relationships with 10 million customers. Using SAS Enterprise Miner, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM sifts through data to discover trends, explain outcomes and predict results so that the company can increase response rates and identify profitable customers.

"Our rationale for our CRM effort is to build loyalty," Chris McCann explains. He adds that while cross-selling and campaign management are important features, the ultimate goal is to make sure that when a customer wants to buy, he or she continues to buy from 1-800-FLOWERS.COM and cannot be captured by a competitor's marketing. "To build that kind of loyalty, you have to know your customers and build a solid relationship with each one of them," says McCann. "That's where SAS comes in."

Identifying Each Customer
At 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, successful CRM isn't just about getting customers to buy more. It's about making sure that when they decide to purchase a gift online or by phone, they "don't think of going anywhere else but to you," says Aaron Cano, Director of Database Marketing at 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. "You earn that loyalty through the quality of relationship you offer them," he adds. "And not every customer wants the same relationship. Some want you to be more involved with them than others; some will give you different levels of permission on how to contact them. At the end of the day, you have many different customers, and SAS helps us identify who they are and how they would like to be treated."

For example, one customer might shop once a year to purchase roses on Valentine's Day. Odds are, that customer doesn't want any additional marketing contact. Another customer might purchase gifts for several friends and relatives for occasions throughout the year, and thus might be responsive to more frequent contact and special offers. Either way, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM can recommend gifts for individual recipients based on profiles they put together with input from the customer.

Aaron Cano, Director of Database Marketing

"We plan our campaigns based on that intelligence," Cano explains. "Some customers like for us to call them or e-mail them once a month to let them know about different occasions coming up. So they'll register specific dates with us and ask for reminders. They might not always buy from us, but they do want us to remind them of the occasion, which certainly increases the chances that they will make a purchase."

Such intense focus is paying off – even during a tough economic environment for retail. In the third quarter of fiscal 2003, the company reported revenues of $124.1 million, up 7.5 percent over the same period in 2002. Online revenues jumped 13.6 percent.

"Many factors contributed to our recent revenue growth, and our use of SAS is among them," Chris McCann says. "Because SAS is giving us access to better customer information, we've reduced the amount of time we need to spend on the phone with our customers, which makes better use of their time and ours. As a result, we're saving money and increasing customer loyalty. In fact, while using SAS, we've increased customer retention by more than 15 percent."

Bill Carson, Vice President of Application Solutions

Bill Carson, Vice President of Application Solutions at 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, says the retailer turned to SAS for CRM after it realized that all the operational data it was collecting offered strategic value beyond ensuring that transactions worked properly.

"When we began looking at software to use as our primary analytical tool, some of our IT and marketing people were already using SAS," Carson recalls. "Every time we would look at something new, one of them would say, 'We don't need it. SAS already does that.' Pretty soon, we got the idea. Our internal users of SAS – our power users – were very happy with SAS as a solution provider."

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