METRO - Transforming the customer Experience

METRO supermarkets are a Cyprus based chain of modern retail stores. Founded in October 1982 in Larnaca, METRO now has locations in every major city throughout the country. The company was the first of its kind in the Middle East to utilize what was then considered the latest technology, such as electronic inventory, control and product ordering systems, as well as electronic cash registers at every check out. Since then, METRO has kept up their heartfelt tradition of hospitality and close client relationships.

The challenge for METRO was to maintain their customer centric approach of “METRO takes care of you”, which has been the foundation of their success over the years, all while adapting to todays heavily technologically driven business environment. Being that client-brand interactions have dramatically increased, METRO’s challenge included finding a solution that would allow them to serve their customers needs at the highest level, and at every touch point- creating a feeling of reliability, while also, gaining a competitive edge in the market.

A company truly driven by its philosophy in customer care, METRO identified their main need in helping them carry out their company values to their customers, was through a digital transformation. The vision was and still is to develop a company that “cares for you” at all touch points- whether that be the company website, the mobile app or the actual store. There were many challenges to be addressed both technologically, such as breaking down data silos between IT systems (loyalty card, website data, social) and also, organizationally, like the company culture and process. 

METRO chose BRANDCORE Customer Experience Platform as it provides all the features needed for providing personal and coherent customer experiences across touchpoints. 

Implementation

The first step in METRO’s digital transformation was the creation of a fresh, modern and user friendly online presence. The solution used during this phase was BRANDCORE's Content Management System, enabling the marketing team at METRO to deliver a device agnostic experience. In addition to this, the BRANDCORE Content Management System provided the ability for METRO to address different audiences by launching the new website into three languages. 

The second step of the digital transformation was the introduction of a Content Marketing strategy.  BRANDCORE’s Content Marketing Platform has been implemented with the objective to provide all the necessary tools to successfully apply their content marketing strategy. The solution empowered the editorial team at METRO to create, manage, and collaborate on their editorial calendars. In addition to this, BRANDCORE’s user friendly, intuitive tools provided the editorial team a holistic overview of the publishing process with clear visibility of what was published, when and where, and the status of the content (finished or not). Moreover, BRANDCORE’s Content Marketing Platform text authoring tools and basic image editing tools, enabled marketing and editorial teams to focus on creating valuable content for their users. The solutions contextual intelligence based on machine learning algorithms gave editors the ability they needed to evaluate content prior to publishing, in order to ensure brand consistency and user relevancy.

During the third phase the full BRANDCORE Customer Experience Platform was implemented to empower METRO with all the tools necessary to transform the customer experience. This phase of digital transformation, which is an ongoing process, involves steps in breaking down of data silos between the different IT solutions systems (loyalty card - METROcard, Facebook, Website, etc). The objective behind this was and currently is to identify the users and collect their personal data with their consent, as well as map a customer’s journey across our different touch points (web, social, and store). This process entails different steps and includes a variety of marketing and communication actions, each one with its own micro objective. A specific example of this process would be the Christmas campaign “Santa Spin & Win”. With a customers METROcard, which is a customer loyalty card, customers were able to sign up using their cards in order to keep track of their purchases and get discounts on store items- customers were then able to take part in the “Santa Spin & Win”. To play the game, participants had one chance to spin the wheel, and win a certain amount of points that would therefore go on their METROcards towards free shopping- and everyone was a winner. In order to play the game, users were prompted to login with their Facebook accounts, and provide specific user information such as their METROcard, address, email, and name, in order to win reward points on their METROcards. The concept had tremendous success. By doing this, we earned a lot of user engagement, we drove new users to the store to collect their new METROcard, we collected data from existing customers and managed to associate the digital footprint of users with their METROcard. Most importantly, this has given us the ability to map a user’s journey across touchpoints using our own customer experience platform/tracking solution. In this continuing process, each concept has different micro objectives such as enriching data and user profiles. Another project that falls under this umbrella is “myMETRO” portal for METROcard owners. Users under this portal have access to useful tools such as a shopping list, an overview of points and purchasing trends, as well as personalized content and offers based on their consumer preferences.

Furthermore, the BRANDCORE Customer Experience Platform has been used to improve the customer experience for in-store users through a mobile application. The application uses contextual and location based information to deliver to the user tailored content and offers based on their user preferences, shopping patterns, and in store customer journeys using information received from beacons. 

Finally, using BRANDCORE's Personalization Engine, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, METRO can now process the data collected, get actionable insights, predict user behavior and personalize communication with the objective to improve the customer experience, increase loyalty, minimize customer churn rate, and secure of positive ROI for the company.

 

With the new, personalized technology, METRO saw its client numbers grow and have steadily increased their sales ever since.
Clients found the content interesting and motivating, and this helped build the kind of close client relationships that have always been at the base of METRO’s company values. What’s more, customizing the in store experience increased client traffic.
With personalized technology, METRO saved costs in advertising, publicity, and overall communication costs, as the carefully directed online content was more effective.
With these favorable results, Kondiment’s digital transformation at METRO is ongoing.