Australian online retailer brings on first head of customer retention as its focuses on growth in 2014
The Iconic’s chief executive officer, Patrick Schmidt, has highlighted the importance of driving and measuring customer loyalty as it looks to take the next step as an online retail business.
His comment follow the appointment of the group’s first head of customer retention, Clare Zacka, (pictured) who joins from brandsExclusive, where she headed up the marketing function. She also has extensive experience in consumer loyalty marketing and customer relationship management across both client-side and agency positions for brands including David Jones American Express and CommBank.
Reporting directly to The Iconic’s managing director, Adam Jacobs, Zacka will be responsible for CRM, loyalty and retention. Schmidt told CMO she will work closely with teams across the business to ensure customer interactions across all touch points are enhanced to build “long-lasting relationships with customers”.
“The Iconic has always been focused on delivering an exceptional customer experience, requiring a shared level of commitment and dedication across every department within the business,” he continued.
“The appointment of the head of customer retention at this point in our journey will allow us to continually optimise our efforts towards achieving growth of our loyal, engaged customer base.”
With so many metrics that can be used to measure success of customer retention efforts today, from net promoter score to engagement rates, Schmidt said the company will utilise them all to better understand what makes customers tick.
“The more we learn about our customers, the better we can continue to service their needs and exceed their expectations, and that's the goal at the end of the day,” he added.
Zacka is one of several senior appointments made this month at The Iconic. The group also brought on former Westfield marketer, Sally Bonner, as its new marketing director, as well as Adrian Gribbin as its chief financial officer.
In a statement following their appointments, Schmidt said growth was a key focus for the three-year old group this year as it looks to expand its market position and consolidate successes.
The Iconic has chalked up more than 1 million orders, 250,000 IOS app downloads and a 90 per cent net promoter score rating since its launch.
Today’s customer loyalty game
Customer service and customer loyalty
How Supercheap Auto used big data to model customer loyalty
Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO Australia conversation on LinkedIn: CMO Australia, or join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia
Big brands were once protected from small brands by high barriers to entry. Big brands had the resources to employ big agencies, to crack big ideas and to invest in big campaigns. They had the luxury of time to debate strategies and work on long-term innovation pipelines. Retailers used to partner with big brands.
According to the World Economic Forum in its most recent The Future of Jobs report, the most important skills for the future are not technical, task-oriented skills, but higher-order skills such as creativity, social influence, active learning, and analytical thinking.
Businesses continue to highly value the attention they buy through paid media, yet at the same time, many continue to disregard and under-value opportunities to connect with customers using their owned media.
In this bonus last episode of this new podcast series, BrandHook MD, Pip Stocks, talks with former ANZ group general manager of marketing, Louise Eyres, talks about the importance of thinking like a customer and using intuition to solve customer painpoints.
I thought this was what Salesforce Audience Studio (formerly Salesforce DMP) was supposed to do. How are a CDP and a DMP different? I'm c...
Tony Ahn
Salesforce announces customer data platform
Well written Vanessa!! Agreed with your view that human experience is marketing's next frontier. Those businesses who are focused on the ...
Clyde Griffith
Forget customer experience, human experience is marketing's next frontier
Great tips for tops skills need to develop and stay competitive
Nick
The top skills needed to stay competitive in a rapidly changing workforce
The popularity of loyalty programs is diminishing, though I'd say it is because customers are savvy enough to recognise when a loyalty pr...
Heather
It’s time for marketers to rethink their approach to ‘loyalty’
Thanks Nadia for sharing this blog. It has really useful and amazing information about Salesforce Commerce Cloud and digital engagement w...
Holly Smith
Adidas taps data and technology smarts to build personalised digital engagement with consumers