Sally Beauty ramps up customer insights and engagement with new experience programme

With revenues of approximately $3.9 billion (€3.5 bn) per year, Sally Beauty has teamed up with Service Management Group (SMG) to develop and roll-out its technology platform and industry-leading professional services to provide actionable customer insights and build engagement.

Beauty, tech and marketing​

Specialty retailer and professional beauty supplies distributor and retailer, Sally Group, provides professional salon-quality products in the hair colour, hair care, nails, salon and beauty supplies segments. The company’s services provide both retail consumers and salon professionals with as many as 10,000 lines and proprietary merchandise.

Combining platform technology and professional services, Sally Beauty will be able to collect, analyse and share feedback and behavioral data across the business’s 3,700 Sally Beauty stores and 1,300 stores in the Beauty Systems Group network.

The big name salon brand will put in place a customer experience management programme in a move that aims to help Sally Beauty better understand and make marketing and brand decisions based on insights and engagement through online and retail routes.

Understanding the customer journey​

Enlisting SMG, Sally Beauty will use the technology provider’s SMG VisitView. The component is a location-level customer experience (CX) survey, which allows the brand to gather customer feedback. Evaluation, comments and recommendations will be collected from Sally Beauty’s various retail locations by an email invitation following purchase.

In the growing and evolving e-commerce environment, the distributor and retailer will extend this understanding to capture feedback on both customers and consumers who chose not to make a purchase. By adopting this approach, the brand can become better aware of, and make improvements, to the brand’s digital shopping experience, decision-making influences, purchasing factors and conversion numbers.

Sharing the current shopping landscape and next steps for Sally Beauty, Andy Fromm, Chairman and CEO of SMG, said: "At the end of the day, it's about listening to your customers, turning that feedback into actionable insights and giving your employees the tools they need to make changes.”​

Customer feedback​

Following beauty buys and subsequent delivery, Sally Beauty will use SMG’s post-fulfillment feedback tool, PostShip, to gain insights on overall satisfaction levels amongst customers. It will do this by collecting information on delivery times, accuracy and communication.

Major customer experience metrics give the retailer local information via customer feedback, role-based reporting and intuitive dashboards through the smg360 reporting dashboard and mobile app. Presenting a holistic view of multi-channel feedback data, Sally Beauty will then be able to progress its marketing and advertising plans by building customer insight and awareness.