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PDFCustomer Success | Chico's drives campaign success with SAS® OnDemand: Marketing AutomationWomen’s specialty retailer Chico’s FAS Inc. drives same-store sales with fewer markdowns, thanks to help from SAS OnDemand: Marketing Automation. With the SAS solution, Chico's is better able to target promotions to its middle-to-high income female clientele, dramatically reducing the time needed to produce campaigns.  Check out this video to learn more about Chicos and its successes with SAS.(Runtime: 6 mins, 45 secs) You have questions; our customers have answers. Check out this video Q&A.  Gary King CIO & Executive VP  Stephen Carvelli VP, e-commerce and CRM  Barb BuettinDirector, CRM-Enterprise Information Management (Requires Windows Media Player 6.4.7 or higher) Chico's, based in Fort Myers, FL, operates more than 1,000 boutiques throughout the US, US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico under the Chico's, White House | Black Market and Soma brands. Boutiques feature chic jackets, sophisticated tops, elegant dresses, jewelry and more. The company also markets to consumers through catalog and online channels. The recent recession presented many challenges to retailers, including Chico's. Yet Chico's also knew it had a treasure trove of customer information, and company executives knew that to use this information wisely, they needed to put it in the hands of the business decision makers. However, this proved to be difficult. The data was not aggregated across brands, the company couldn't manage large volumes of data, and customer modeling was being done externally with models out of date by the time they were returned to the company. The in-house processes were labor-intensive, and the company couldn't change direction midpromotion. Marketers relied more on intuition than solid information about their customers and what motivated them to buy clothing.
"The information wasn't in the hands of marketing,'' says Barb Buettin, Director, CRM-Enterprise Information Management. "We couldn't automate processes, there were a lot of operational inefficiencies, it was inflexible and we were using low-level tools. It led us to look at different ways to operate our campaign management," explains Chief Information Officer Gary King. Chico's has seen positive results since choosing SAS. "The difference for the campaign team is night and day," says King. "We are able to turn around programs much more quickly. A campaign takes four days to pull together versus 30 days prior to using SAS. This has allowed the team to create more targeted campaigns." Why SAS®? “There are a lot of products that execute campaigns. To me the integration and ease of use of the SAS solution was the edge,’’ Buettin says. SAS OnDemand: Marketing Automation is an enterprise hosted solution that allows marketers to plan, test and execute marketing campaigns of any size or level of complexity. The solution includes a full set of predictive analytics and data mining tools. Chico's soon saw validation for its SAS decision – ease of use became apparent in speed to results. "It usually takes about six months to stabilize a system. It took two months with SAS,'' Buettin says. The speed allowed Chico's to use SAS to help plan its holiday promotions. That same quarter the company reported a $17 million profit, versus a loss of $42 million in the same quarter the previous year.
The work is being done by marketing managers and business analysts, not programmers or statisticians. "SAS is sophisticated, yet relatively easy to use. A lay businessperson can use the software relatively quickly,'' King says. Future plans For now, though, the impact of the analysis Chico's has derived from SAS has delighted executives. As Buettin explains: "We were in a meeting with the president of a brand and the senior vice president of merchandising, and they wanted to hug the marketing manager." ""Our executives are so excited about the insights they are gaining about the customer, where she shops and the department that brought her into the brand. It was an incredible moment to partner with the marketing managers and watch the work come to life," Buettin says.
The results illustrated in this article are specific to the particular situations, business models, data input, and computing environments described herein. Each SAS customer’s experience is unique based on business and technical variables and all statements must be considered non-typical. Actual savings, results, and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual customer configurations and conditions. SAS does not guarantee or represent that every customer will achieve similar results. The only warranties for SAS products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements in the written agreement for such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Customers have shared their successes with SAS as part of an agreed-upon contractual exchange or project success summarization following a successful implementation of SAS software. Brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright © SAS Institute Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
Gary King, Chief Information Officer Chico'sBusiness Issue:
Reduce the time it takes to create marketing campaigns, derive a single view of the customer across multiple brands, and gain insights into strategy and segmentation. Solution:
SAS OnDemand: Marketing Automation Benefits:
Models that once took 30 days to turn around externally now take a fraction of the time. Tripled the lift on a campaign to bring back lapsed customers. Insight gained on customers who shop multiple Chico's brands resulted in more successful cross-promotion. “"We are able to turn around programs much more quickly. A campaign takes four days to pull together versus 30 days prior to using SAS. This has allowed the team to create more targeted campaigns."” Gary King Chief Information Officer Read more:
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They are currently looking at using SAS for more predictive modeling, particularly around customer Web browsing and aligning marketing with inventory allocated at stores. With the profiling they've done they have seen that there are clusters of stores in certain regions that do significantly better than other stores at selling certain products. This opens up an opportunity for them to do a better job of allocating their product in certain stores.
