Debenhams boosts personal shopping appointments by 25%

Debenhams is a leading international department store with a proud British heritage currently trading in 240 stores across 27 countries.

Debenhams uses JRNI, formerly BookingBug, to power an appointment scheduling solution that enables customers to book personal shopper appointments in 88 key stores.

Debenhams has worked hard to offer an industry-leading personal shopping service for over twenty years. Due to the high quality of the service, Debenhams noticed that existing customers who used it became more loyal, and made more regular purchases with higher value baskets. However, awareness and new user growth were extremely low.

It became clear that the user experience to book the service was actually holding it back from wider adoption.

Donna Hudson, Senior Marketing Coordinator at Debenhams explains: “The customers who regularly used our personal shopping service knew it was a great experience, but because the booking system didn’t reflect that, too few new customers were making an appointment to experience it for themselves.”

Behind the scenes, the booking process was managed through legacy infrastructure that had been put together in the very early days of the store’s online efforts. This system wasn’t designed for a mobile-savvy shopping audience and it didn’t integrate smoothly with the look and feel of the Debenhams website.

The system also didn't collect data showing how customers used the service, which is data that could prove to be invaluable for the business. Staff found the system frustrating and inefficient. It was unable to convey the true value of personal shopping sessions and the team had no way of managing additional information, including multimedia content and linking data to Debenhams’ CRM system.

Further, the Head Office team had no real-time visibility of booking performance, and it was difficult to add, update, or change appointments. This ultimately made it difficult to allocate the correct resources in stores and measure the impact personal shopping appointments had on sales.

Debenhams challenge was to find a system that would reflect the great service customers received in-store, and would also capture data and measure ROI.

When discussing a potential solution with JRNI, formerly BookingBug, three key requirements became clear. Debenhams wanted to:

1. Create an integrated, seamless booking experience for customers (and staff)
2. See availability across 88 stores in real-time
3. Capture data and measure ROI

During the implementation process, JRNI worked closely with Debenhams to ensure their appointment scheduling process was seamless and consistent with all other channels. JRNI also ensured that staff could record important customer information within a modern, branded interface.

With this new system, availability could be checked automatically and updated in real-time. Additionally, customers could receive SMS and email reminders to ensure maximum convenience for them and higher attendance rates for staff.

To meet Debenhams third requirement, JRNI integrated with Zoho CRM so all appointment data was consolidated and able to be tracked. Now, Debenhams can generate reports, track performance, and measure ROI in a way that wasn’t possible before.

Now all bookings, from all channels and stores, are managed through JRNI.

Within the first 12 months, Debenhams saw a 25% increase in bookings for their personal shopping service. The amount of online bookings doubled, meaning that staff had to spend less administration time actually booking the appointments manually.

Donna explains the impact of this with customers: “More personal shopping appointments means more customers than ever are receiving the ultimate, VIP treatment with Debenhams. This grows their loyalty and helps them become advocates for the unique, differentiated and exclusive experience we work hard to offer.”

For staff, the booking process is now a simple task instead of a laborious chore, and they are much happier to use it and provide information that will feed back into the wider CRM system. They can spend more time assisting customers, so the overall customer experience has drastically improved.

For head office, JRNI's integration with Zoho CRM is providing a wealth of data. Head office can use customer data to communicate and tailor services to them in an increasingly informed way. This enhanced visibility of personal shopping across 88 stores helps them identify the popularity of different locations, ensure the service is adequately staffed during peak periods, and build a stronger relationship with their customers.