Customer-Centric Approach Drives Tory Burch's Growth

Chic apparel and accessories retailer Tory Burch is leveraging digital channels to fuel its dynamic growth. In addition to its thriving e-commerce business, the retailer has opened company-owned brick-and-mortar stores in growing markets such as Hong Kong, Dubai and Singapore, not to mention its wholesale presence in leading department stores such as Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom. Yet there's one constant within all these different channels: a commitment to providing customers the best experience possible.

In the opening keynote presentation yesterday at the Shop.org Annual Summit in Chicago, Miki Berardelli, chief marketing officer at Tory Burch, and Matt Marcotte, senior vice president of global stores for Tory Burch, discussed how the brand uses technology to improve its customers’ experiences both online and in-store.

Tory Burch has e-commerce sites in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Austria and Japan. In addition to those countries, the retailer ships online orders to over 30 more countries. Tory Burch relies on a scalable web platform to enable its international growth online, Berardelli said. As for its international stores, Tory Burch has a presence in 14 countries, including Brazil, China, Philippines and United Arab Emirates, among others.

We're channel agnostic, said Marcotte. Our goal is to tap into the passion of our customers. If we're not 100 percent completely passionate about our customers, we won't make the right decisions.

To help it engage with its passionate customer base, Tory Burch presents itself as an OPEN brand — on-demand, personal, engaged, networked — said Berardelli. Social media is a critical component to that philosophy. Tory Burch engages with its fans via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, among other social platforms. In fact, the brand's Twitter and Instagram pages are managed by Tory Burch herself.

What differentiates our social media efforts from a lot other retail brands is that we create unique content for each platform, said Berardelli. It's a lot more work, she noted, but the payoff in the end is worth it.

Client Book is a prime example of how Tory Burch is seeking solutions to improve the customer experience in-store. The program, which launched in April, aggregates all the data the brand has about a particular customer (e.g., purchase history, channel of purchase, etc.) to help their local store associates build better relationships with them. For example, Client Book alerts store associates to a customer's birthday, enabling them to reach out with a handwritten note. The strategy is working: The average order value for Client Book customers is 62 percent higher than Tory Burch's typical customer.

Tory Burch's store associates also have the ability to view wish lists for customers who are signed into the retailer's website. Having this knowledge enables better service, Marcotte said, and that ultimately leads to happier customers because they're getting what they want.

Content marketing is essential to Tory Burch's digital strategy. The retailer's website is evenly split between editorial content and product pages, Berardelli noted. The company blog details what inspires us as a brand, she added. Tory Burch's website live streamed its recent fashion show during Fashion Week in New York City, for example. It also included "behind the scenes" content for the featured apparel during the Fashion Week show.

Content marketing has value for Tory Burch offline as well. The retailer's store associates must be knowledgeable of the content it features on its website. It's necessary in order for them to be viewed as trusted style advisors, said Marcotte. On average, Tory Burch's store associates receive 1,500 hours of training.

Forty-four percent of Tory Burch's website traffic comes from mobile devices. Nearly 30 percent of the company's sales are generated via mobile, with a large portion of those sales taking place in-store. Recognizing the need to engage its customers on their mobile devices, Tory Burch launched its own app, Tory Daily. The app is shoppable, features special sales events with limited product offerings, and highlights the company's blog posts.

We wanted to create an app that people weren't just going to download, use once and then forget about it, said Berardelli. The app has utility for users, she noted, and that's reflected in its 80 percent return user rate.

However, satisfied customers isn't enough for Tory Burch, Marcotte said. The retailer wants to build loyalty. To help it accomplish that goal, it uses Net Promoter surveys to get feedback from its customers on what it's doing well and what it's struggling with. This approach has helped Tory Burch gain valuable feedback that it can incorporate into its business. The company will receive — and review — 40,000 feedback forms this year. This yields a high level of knowledge, noted Marcotte.

Showing that bottom-line profits isn't its only purpose, Tory Burch has made social responsibility an integral part of its company. The Tory Burch Foundation was created to help women launching startup companies by offering them small business loans and mentoring. Listening to our customers on social media helps us to be a better brand, said Berardelli.