XXL: Customer First

XXL, the fastest-growing apparel and sporting goods retailer in the Nordic region, continues to partner with HappyOrNot in capturing, measuring, monitoring and improving its overall Customer Experience.

Photo Insert: HappyOrNot helps XXL align its physical and online customer experience efforts, allowing team members to connect and share information while providing customers with a more seamless experience in stores and online.

The Norway-based retailer which aims to be the leading distributor of branded sporting goods across Europe acknowledges Customer Satisfaction and Pricing Strategies as key pillars to its overall growth.

XXL averages 4 million digital and in-person customer feedback per year and has used this enormous data to improve its entire retail operations.

Putting Customer First

XXL's retail store managers and company leaders used mystery shopping before partnering with HappyOrNot in early 2020. Some of these solutions provided value and insight, but not a large enough measurement sample to make data-driven decisions with the necessary impact.

Kenneth G. Sørensen, Operations and Business Development Manager of XXL, says that before partnering with HappyOrNot, reports from other solutions only captured a single moment.

According to Kenneth, ‘Customers' experiences will vary depending on when they shop, what they buy, and whether they deal with XXL staff on another floor. HappyOrNot provides XXL with the tools to offer all shoppers a chance to provide feedback, ensuring a consistent omnichannel experience. #customerfirst, one of XXL's core values, requires listening to all customers.'

800,000 digital customer feedback respondents

XXL's growing digital initiatives have seen steady increases in traffic, with the order confirmation Smiley Digital pop-up survey collecting feedback from 800,000 respondents and a 97% satisfaction score. Despite this positive number, XXL has identified the exact challenges among the 3% of unhappy customers and is working to reduce that number.

Kenneth says HappyOrNot helps XXL align its physical and online customer experience efforts, allowing its team members to connect and share information. 'It gives our customers a more seamless experience in stores and online,' he added.

Presently, 26% of XXL's business is from e-commerce and digital channels. With the pandemic closing 70% of XXL's stores, digital initiatives have increased website traffic and business.

It also means that 4 out of 10 customer feedbacks come directly from online shoppers via order confirmations, customer support chats, and email surveys. HappyOrNot Online surveys help monitor issues with online payment methods and third-party companies like couriers and delivery.

HappyOrNot Smileys has also given senior management a new perspective and helped XXL innovate and improve its websites. The data gives XXL leaders and store managers clear visibility of common concerns, links them to known problem areas, and helps justify future customer experience improvements.

Kenneth says, ‘XXL’s online and e-commerce strategy has performed well,’ while further emphasizing the brand’s commitment ‘to not only wanting to improve, but to doing so without just talking.’

To date, HappyOrNot has successfully motivated and enabled the XXL team to act on millions of customer feedback points.

HappyOrNot provides better alternatives

While the busy holiday season of 2020 saw XXL’s total satisfaction score at 94%, one of the main achievements HappyOrNot has been able to help XXL employees with is the ability to now offer otherwise-disappointed customers with better alternatives when a retail store or its online store doesn’t have a particular product in stock.

This could mean recommending a different product or telling them when one will be available. Without HappyOrNot, it was difficult, if not impossible, to measure customer experience.

For instance, one XXL store's customer dissatisfaction score (30%) was more than double the national average (13%). In follow-up discussions with the store's management about the cause and ways to improve, XXL's HappyOrNot data calculated that the store could lose up to €84,000 ($84,075) over the next 12 months if they didn't resolve the customer dissatisfaction issues.

Kenneth says 'HappyOrNot's data gives them a clearer view of these situations. This store has been successful for us. Despite a lack of a certain item, the store's staff and leadership doubled the number of satisfied customers. We can attribute happy customers to HappyOrNot's data.'

XXL leaders can now model other locations after these results. The real-time feedback data is used to motivate employee performance and enhance customer service at multiple locations.

For more information on the HappyOrNot real-time, CX Solution, visit www.happy-or-not.com.

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