Halfords CEM campaign supports its ‘That’s Helpful, That’s Halfords’ strategy

Halfords is implementing a Customer Experience Management (CEM) programme across all its 466 stores to analyse feedback from its new, ‘That’s Helpful, That’s Halfords’ strategy.

The programme uses flashboard reporting, to provides focus on store performance and areas where it can be improved, as well being a platform to celebrate success among with staff. Customers are encouraged to provide feedback online through printed invitations handed out by Halfords staff and are incentivised by a prize draw entry for all respondents. The move follows a successful three-month pilot at 17 Halfords stores, which gained over 8,000 responses from customers. The pilot was run concurrently with a mystery shop programme.

Steve Marson, Retail Operations Director at Halfords, said: “It’s important that we deepen our understanding of our customer needs in order to build an appealing brand personality and remain competitive. The CEM approach tells us what our customers feel about our products and customer services and ultimately ensure that we provide the best shopping experience possible to our customers ensuring we deliver on our Helpful promise.”

Customer insight gained in the pilot stage of the programme have included the following;
: 80% of customer visits to stores are to purchase a specific product
: about a third visit www.halfords.com before entering a store
: over 60% are keen to give future store feedback.

Halfords also intends to shortly implement a GoRecommend social networking application, which allows satisfied purchasers to recommend the brand or product via Facebook, Twitter and email.