A global beauty retailer’s rapid growth across business units resulted in a fragmented approach to managing customer and enterprise data. This lack of cohesion not only hindered their ability to fully optimize digital platforms but also made it difficult to deliver the personalized experiences today’s consumers demand. With rising customer expectations and a competitive market, the retailer recognized the need for a comprehensive solution to maintain their edge.

To address these challenges, the retailer partnered with Concord on three transformative initiatives: improving customer data hygiene, advancing digital maturity, and building a foundation for advanced personalization. These efforts aim to bring stability, consistency, and accuracy to enterprise data and systems, while laying the groundwork for sophisticated personalization that drives both revenue growth and customer engagement.

Project 1: Improving Customer Data Hygiene

The retailer’s customer data was dispersed across multiple systems, including Salesforce Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and various BI platforms. This fragmentation caused issues like orphaned profiles in the Customer Data Platform (CDP), resulting in inconsistent customer experiences, redundant marketing communications, and inflated costs from excessive email and SMS outreach.

Concord conducted an in-depth evaluation of the client’s Salesforce Data Cloud platform to improve customer profiling and support personalized marketing efforts. The team focused on eliminating duplicate customer records and refining data models to address attribute gaps. Key actions included:

• Optimizing business rules within BizTalk and MuleSoft layers to accurately match customer profiles using criteria like Salesforce ID, email address, full name, zip code, and loyalty profile.
• Collaborating with the retailer to refine stitching rules in Salesforce Data Cloud, improving data accuracy and enabling more effective customer segmentation for marketing.

As a result, Concord helped the client:

• Eliminate duplicate records - System enhancements prevented new duplicates, even when customers updated their information in-store.
• Reduce overlapping marketing communications - Data accuracy improvements reduced redundant outreach and cut unnecessary costs.
• Enhanced loyalty data management – Cleaner data enabled more personalized and targeted marketing campaigns based on customer behaviors and preferences.

These improvements have led to an increase in customer lifetime value (CLTV), click-through rates, and conversion rates, alongside cost savings from reduced marketing volumes. This project not only addressed the retailer’s data hygiene issues but also elevated their overall marketing effectiveness.

Project 2: Elevating Digital Maturity

To better serve of today’s digitally savvy consumers, the retailer also looked to enhance their e-commerce website and mobile app. They faced several challenges, including:

• Limited insight into the technical and functional maturity of their digital assets.
• Gaps in customer experience leading to lower engagement and conversion rates.
• Performance bottlenecks and outdated architecture that limited scalability and agility.

Their goal was to gain a clear understanding of their current technical and customer experience landscape and implement targeted improvements to boost engagement, site performance, and scalability.

Concord conducted an evaluation of the client’s digital platforms and provided actionable recommendations across various assessment areas:

• Code & Architecture Assessment - Conducted a deep technical review to identify architectural limitations, coding inefficiencies, and integration gaps. This involved examining the entire technology stack, including Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, React Native for app development, MuleSoft, and BizTalk. Our team pinpointed key areas for modernization to ensure the platform could scale alongside business growth.
• UX & Functionality Assessment - Provided recommendations to enhance the customer journey on critical pages and streamline navigation for improved usability and engagement. Essential features to strengthen customer experience and conversion were highlighted, prioritizing enhancements with the most immediate impact on user satisfaction and sales.
• Quality Assurance & Automation Assessment - Assessed the client’s current QA processes and recommended QA automation solutions. Our team identified opportunities to automate repetitive tests, accelerate release cycles, and reduce operational costs, enabling the client to maintain a high standard of quality while speeding up time to market.
• Processes and Digital Maturity Assessment - Evaluated the client’s digital operations and organizational structure to provide insights into process efficiencies and bottlenecks. This included examining cross-functional workflows, identifying areas to streamline, and aligning technical processes with business objectives to support enhanced efficiency.

Concord’s engagement produced the following results:

• UX recommendations - Made suggestions for critical pages and customer journeys to elevate user engagement and satisfaction.
• Feature roadmap - Identified features essential for improving customer experience and driving conversion.
• Performance analysis and remediation plan – Gave a breakdown of performance bottlenecks with a detailed remediation strategy to address technical debt and enhance site responsiveness.

With a roadmap in hand, the client is equipped to optimize their e-commerce platforms. Concord’s insights offered clear steps to elevate user experience, enhance platform performance, and position the retailer for growth across their digital channels.

Project 3: Implementing a Personalization Strategy

One of the retailer’s beauty supply brands encountered challenges in creating personalized customer experiences. With their e-commerce presence established only in 2017, the brand was still in the early stages of personalization maturity. Previously, their approach treated all customers the same, relying on full-file email sends and a one-size-fits-all strategy for site experiences. The brand faced several issues:  

• A lack of segmentation and tailored messaging resulted in missed opportunities to connect with their diverse customer base.
• Processes varied across business units and were largely undocumented, leading to inefficiencies and operational inconsistencies.
• Changes to campaigns and site updates were implemented without robust measurement systems to track performance or ROI.

The absence of personalization was holding the business back from key opportunities to grow revenue and better understand their customers. Operational inefficiencies and a lack of data-driven decision-making exacerbated these challenges and created gaps in customer engagement and retention.

The brand recently partnered with Concord to develop and implement a personalization strategy. Our approach is unfolding in key phases:

1. Strategic consulting - Identifying gaps in their current personalization approach and defining a roadmap for improvement.
2. Project roadmapping - Establishing clear steps to implement segmentation, enhance site experiences, and integrate customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities.
3. Technical implementation - Deploying the tools and technologies needed to enable personalization on their website and through email campaigns.
4. Program measurement - Building robust measurement and experimentation frameworks to test into success and quantify the impact of new personalization initiatives.

As part of this ongoing transformation, the brand is positioned to:

• Increase revenue by delivering more tailored customer experiences that drive engagement and conversions.
• Reduce operating costs by streamlining and documenting processes and creating new operational efficiencies across business units.
• Enhance customer experience by leveraging data to create meaningful, personalized interactions that foster loyalty and satisfaction.

‍