Oriflame choose Nepa as insight partner for global brand research. There is a common denominator among successful brands. They all know how to get their brand to really deliver. Oriflame has chosen Nepa to help them continuously track and explain trends and the wills and actions of their customers and competitors in 10 countries.

“We are proud to be the supplier for this strategic project. Oriflame is a strong brand and we feel confident that our collaboration will help Oriflame gain actionable insights to improve the brand position even further”, says Johan Rinaldo, Commercial Director at Nepa.

Nepa will conduct brand tracking for Oriflame in Mexico, Colombia, Indonesia, India, China, Turkey, Portugal, Poland, Morocco and Russia. Countries with widely varying market conditions. Research is done among both end consumers and Oriflame sales consultants. The main purpose is to gain insights about Oriflame brand position and the development over time.

 “We set target to countries on performances according to our global strategic directions. Nepa will help us to understand our brand position in detail and how to find the formula for market success. We chose Nepa as partner because of their experience of global projects and innovative solutions”, says Frédérique Jacqmart, ‎Consumer Insight Manager at Oriflame.

For more information:
nepa.com or contact Deputy CEO and CFO P-O Westerlund,
p-o.westerlund@nepa.com
+46 706 404 824.

Being customer-centric is vital

in an increasingly competitive and fast paced business environment. Most companies understand this and do their best to listen to – and understand – consumers and customers. But how do you get it to work all the way to tangible profitability at the point of action and transaction in your business?

Companies gather vast amounts of disparate data – purchase behaviour, survey results, not to mention all those digital footprints. No wonder big data has been the buzzword for quite some time now, and will continue to be so.

Frustrated by the ever increasing amount of data?

Massive databases are filled with potential knowledge about how to increase sales or how to develop and transform a business. The keyword here being “potential” and not so much “knowledge”.

The data in itself is quite useless unless you extract meaning from it and take appropriate action based on insights. The ongoing digitalization has exponentially increased the amount of data available to companies but making data-driven decisions is lagging behind. For companies, it is difficult to extract meaningful insights from the vast amount of data generated from multiple sources.

“Companies become more customer-centric by using their loyalty club as co-creation engines – fuelled by big data.”

Companies are frustrated because big data holds a lot of promise but simply gathering the data doesn’t lead to customer-centricity. Instead of starting with and focusing on the vast amounts of data at hand, business leaders must take a step back and evaluate what business issues they aim to solve.

The voice of the customer is a very strong voice

Yet it´s more of a sniper rifle than a shotgun. Customer opinions and behavior are totally dependent on context and is taken into account when designing a solution. Specifically, a solution that aims to inject the voice of the customer into company processes and operations is vital for success.

READ ALSO: Brand research: What is it & why is it important?

Let’s explore how a large grocery chain in the Nordics, improved their retail store operations and became more customer centric by utilizing a forgotten asset – their loyalty club. The company suffered declining market shares at a steady rate over several years. The average consumer’s view of the company was that it was badly managed (although good natured and considerate) grocery retailer compared to competitors. Consumer associations to the company brand included old fashioned, expensive and even uninspiring.

“The consumer insight department was staffed entirely with people from outside the organisation and had a fairly free role.”

How to unlock the power of the customers’ engagement

A number of re-organisation initiatives and re-engineering projects were undertaken over the years without changing the negative trend. In a drastic attempt to make the company more market oriented and customer-centric, they formed a new business unit. The new unit was set up as an independent entity within the company. It also included old functions such as brand, communication and CRM, as well as a few new functions. One such new team was the consumer insight department. The department was staffed entirely with people from outside the organisation and had a fairly free role.

The new team began exploring the consumer’s perspective on the company and what assets the company had for insight generation. They found two things:

1. The amount of data the company had about customers and transactions was endless and despite the downward trend,
2. the company had not lost the engagement of their core customers.

The company asked Nepa – the Consumer Science company – to help them try to harness those two assets. The overall objective given to Nepa was clear: unlock the power of the customers’ engagement and their data in order to involve them in the re-design of the company into a modern retailer.

Nepa did not make the mistake of focusing on data rather than key business issues. Instead, Nepa and the company agreed that the first business problem was to improve the store operations.

READ ALSO: Benefits of Path to Purchase analysis

The first 3 vital steps

As the consumers found the company somewhat old fashioned and uninspiring we decided to:

1. Get more actionable insights from customers about possible improvements in the store environments and operations.
2. Gather relevant data and make it actionable for over 650 stores.
3. Deploy its solution for trigger based research by utilizing the Nepa Consumer Science platform®.

As previously mentioned, the company had an amazing asset in the engagement among their core customers. And they had a lot of them – The company’s loyalty club included more than 3 million members at the time. In order to make these numbers more manageable, Nepa invited the company’s members to join a smaller co-creation engine inside the club. Members were quite eager to join and soon the number of members in the co-creation engine was over 40 000.

Analyzing and visualizing details are key factors

The key feature of the Nepa Consumer Science platform® is having one customer-ID on each panellist – allowing attribution of any type of data to each individual. This allows Nepa to combine behavioral big data with attitudinal data – enabling trigger-based research using big data.

Every time a member of the co-creation engine shopped at a company store, personalized research can be triggered. The research is based on store visits and buying behavior. The company didn’t have to ask if a customer went to the bread section of a specific store in for example Stockholm. Before asking any questions , the customers already knew exactly what baked goods had been bought, when and where.

A continuous stream of development opportunities

To date the co-creation engine has:

1. Combined 2 billion lines of sales data with over 8 million points of direct customer feedback.
2. Packaged the data into over 2500 automated reports during a year.
3. Delivered the reports to over 600 stores each quarter.

“The introduction of the Nepa Consumer Science platform® tailored the feedback to each retail outlet.”

The format and delivery of these reports is key. It keeps insights actionable and not overwhelming the receiver with information and data.

Prior to the implantation of the Nepa Consumer Science platform® the company had general reports available on a regional level – regional managers where responsible for disseminating insights to individual store owners. The feedback wasn’t tailored to each retail outlet which was the problem. The introduction of the Nepa Consumer Science platform® changed this. A short 3-page report detailing key improvement areas in an importance/performance matrix, how the store was faring per department, and performance compared to local competitors and other company stores provided store managers with a clear guide as to what was working in-store and what wasn’t.

The financial impact – catching the eyes of store managers

Coupling sales data to the trigger-based research, the findings and recommended actions was translated into financial impact. For example, a certain level of satisfaction within the produce section is assigned an economic value based on the performance of the company’s stores. We can estimate the economic value of implementing changes suggested by customers and increasing the particular store’s satisfaction within that department.

This meant a greatly increased interest for the reports among store managers. The reports are hanging in the staff rooms of the company stores all over the country. This enables a localized data driven approach to store operations.

READ ALSO: Brand tracking is key to increase brand awareness

The voice of the customer is helping redesign the company

So far, a little over 180 000 customers have engaged in the initiative and have provided store managers with almost 250 000 suggestions, comments and ideas. Most of them are very specific and valuable to the local manager; some of them being complaints and comments regarding price. The average customer experience with the company has improved markedly since the start of the initiative.

In addition to evaluating store operations on a continuous basis – the co-creation engine also allows for extremely cost-effective ad-hoc research. Even though the company has very limited resources in the insight department (only 5 FTEs), they still manage to turn around over 120 ad hoc research projects per year.

The co-creation engine has been vital in redesigning the company and improving their operations. The company has harnessed the power of their engaged customers and the co-creation engine in Nepa Consumer Science platform® enjoys an extremely high response rate, over 50% with no signs of dropping.

“The company became much more customer-centric in their local operations by tapping an incredibly valuable asset – their own loyalty club.”

Beyond CRM – business growth triggered by consumers

To further leverage this quick feedback loop, Nepa built a digital live feedback tool for the company’s headquarters. Digital screens display a map of the country and populate it with customer feedback from different stores across the country – in real time. This is extremely valued by management who are already using the KPIs from the Nepa Consumer Science platform® as some of the main governing tools for the entire company.

The company became much more customer-centric in their local operations by tapping an incredibly valuable asset – their own loyalty club. Many companies today are underutilizing this asset and merely engaging in traditional CRM activities. It’s time for these companies to stop being confused by large data sets, look beyond CRM as a solution to customer-centricity and couple behavioral and survey data to build co-creation engines.

We help businesses to thrive with customer-centricity by utilizing the power of continuous consumer insights. There is no end to what you can achieve with real-time consumer insights, customer feedback and footprints. It changes the way your business engage with customers.

Please do get in touch if you’d like to find out more.

Lindsay Cowan
Managing Director of Nepa UK

Zoom in on the individual consumer

A consumer centric approach is not just a passing fad that we all use for a while and then disregard; like that Tamagotchi digital pet you swore to keep alive. It is an absolute necessity for all modern companies. But what does it actually involve? To summarize, it’s one of the best ways of monetizing your customer data by zooming in on the individual consumer.

In this connected world, consumers are bombarded by a vast array of information and choices. If you want to break through that with your message, you must understand the consumer’s desires. You must get personal on an individual level to gain and keep their trust. Marketing today is more complex than ever before. However, our tools at Nepa have evolved with the times. The companies that apply consumer-centric strategies will have plenty to gain. The companies that don’t must beware of the hungry competitors waiting to swoop in and steal their customers with just the click of a mouse.

“Data is the friendship-link between your company and that individual from New York (or Stockholm) that just ordered your product.”

Get to know your consumers and gain their trust

Data is the first building block towards a consumer centric approach. Ensuring the collection of data and understanding of customer behavior from the start of the consumer purchasing path will help you discover the vital trigger that determine why consumers act on your offer and vice versa. However, you will need even more data variables to fully understand what actually makes a consumer buy from you and also become a repeat customer. Data is the friendship-link between your company and that individual from New York (or Stockholm) that just ordered your product. Data can be collected using methods such as scripts, forms, observational techniques, and classic market research; all of which we support at Nepa.

READ ALSO: What is brand tracking and why is it important?

Customer data in itself is useless if you don’t put the 1s and 0s into action

My experience reveals that these mountains of data often become overwhelming. Therefore not surprisingly, most companies need help to get started and also need help to keep the momentum going. This is an ongoing process that grows in value the more you work with it. A lot of energy is often fueled very early into the project of data collection. This leaves very little for when you need it the most; specifically at the analysis stage. That is why we at Nepa like to take a long-term approach and evolve with you and your consumers, always staying one step ahead of your competitors.

Dashboards and action plans – tools to engage your entire organization

Your data needs to be filtered, sorted, and ranked according to importance. In addition, the data needs to be summarized into segments and the findings need to be visualized so they become easier to understand.

“In front of you lays a consumer centric action plan, upon which your decisions and your next best actions will be made – throughout your organization.”

Many companies halt at this stage; thinking that the job is done. But they are actually missing out on the crucial analysis phase. You must also consider the data in the context of what you are trying to achieve; uncovering trends, relationships, and reasons to continuously act within all those data sets. Once the analysis is complete, you will feel the presence of your customers. In front of you lays a consumer centric action plan, upon which your decisions and your next best actions will be made – throughout your organization.

For instance, lets say your customers turn out to be male joggers who also like highly educated women that love all sports. Finding the triggers that will make them buy their next pair of sport shoes from your company (and not your competitor) is crucial. To do this effectively, you need to implement consumer centric strategies. This will make your customers feel that you are talking to them and not a mesh of target groups bundled into one.

READ ALSO: Power-up your marketing mix with brand expertise and data science

Using a holistic approach; no bits and pieces left behind

Many companies hire someone to find the “big data”. Then additionally hire someone else to provide the necessary analysis, insights, and actions. This leaves these companies with an abundance of information, often stored in silos, but with no real strategy on how to actually implement it. Therefore, the abundance of information is not helpful. It can get more complicated when you consider how all of that information is intended to be used; whether it is your marketing, sales, product development, or product placement in stores.

“We believe in a holistic approach, taking into consideration all of the factors that eventually determine your success in the marketplace.”

There is no universal template for gathering and analyzing consumer data. Since most companies don’t work through this problem at outset, many end up with disappointing results. That is why at Nepa, we believe in a holistic approach. We take all of the factors into consideration that will eventually determine your success in the marketplace.

Just having relevant customer information alone is worthless

Unless you are able to use it to take effective action based on the data; but not just any action. Actions bring you financial rewards; whether it’s earnings from new sales, developing new products, or simply keeping your existing customers far away from your competitors. This can be enough to make even the savviest CEO worry.

What if there was someone who could actually guide you the entire way?

1. Through the customer path to purchase
2. Through the process of combining and analyzing feedback and behavioral data
3. Deciding upon your continuously updated consumer insights
4. With daily actions no matter where in your organization the potential for improvement is pointing
5. With having the result addressing your own KPI´s
6. By automating the entire process to ensure your growth opportunities never stops.

This is what Nepa, and our  Nepa Consumer Science Platform®, is all about. Real-time optimization based on continuous consumer insights, customer feedback, and footprints.  All this with a single goal – to improve customer experiences and ultimately your financial results throughout your organization.

In this post I have only scratched the surface. To become a true customer-centric business, there is of course a number of tricky tech issues, complex analysis, specific understanding of your business, and more to consider. This is our area of expertise at Nepa. So, why not get in touch with me and I promise to get you started.

Ola Bergfeldt
Head of Global Communications at Nepa