Mahesh Sharma | July 08, 2008
case study | Spotlight
FABRIC store Spotlight found its VIP loyalty program exploding a few years ago, which was great for business but put major pressure on its information systems.
Lynette Jenkins says the mailing list grew from 5000 to 2 million in 10 years
At that point the company was still manually entering its information into the database for all its customers.
This flood of new information was putting the system under increasing pressure and intensifying problems with manual entry errors.
Aside from the work required to fix these, sales brochures and special offer mailouts weren't arriving in time, so Spotlight was neglecting some of its best customers.
It needed to clean up its database act and keep it clean, as well as have a system that would be able to seamlessly mail out the information.
Using QAS Pro software to streamline mailings to customers cut the time needed to send out catalogues by a day in some cases, customer service manager Lynette Jenkins says.
"We find the people shopping in our stores are the ones who get our catalogues regularly," Jenkins says.
"We have a number of rural customers on our database that get it every time, so they know what's in store when they go into the city and do their big shop.
"Making sure they get their catalogues on time is the big part QAS has played.
"We work with Australia Post to lodge them on time, but because we use QAS they're in the best format to ensure they get out there as quickly as possible."
The software also increases efficiency by identifying incorrectly entered information at every interaction with the customer on the phone, internet or in store.
"For customers we were keying that into our database, which is internally built," Jenkins says.
"VIP grew from a small system, and we were building on top of that. QAS Pro makes sure we get the best information in there and we also use QAS Batch, which goes over the data and makes sure it's the same and in the best format."
The system also enabled a seamless reissue of loyalty cards to 2 million VIP customers.
"In a matter of weeks we've given out three quarters of a million replacement cards, so there's a lot of active members out there.
"When people have gone into stores and done that card replacement, we've run their details back through QAS to ensure it is as valid as it can be, so it has played that role. We continue to use and validate it."
Because of the customers' love of snail mail, especially among the 1.35 million based in rural communities, Spotlight couldn't just move to a web system.
"The people in rural areas rely only on the VIP mailings.
"They shop at home and call in over the phone."
An online expansion isn't on the cards at this stage, but Jenkins says the databases are now up to scratch, so they can easily be used when the time comes.
THE PROBLEM
Spotlight's VIP program membership had exploded, putting pressure on its database, and information was cluttered and dirty.
THE PROCESS
Spotlight installed software that cleaned up the database and was able to maintain database integrity.
THE RESULT
It is confident of an accurate mailing list because its database is up to date.