The Very Group (formerly Shop Direct) is the UK’s largest integrated digital retailer and financial services provider. Its story is one of triumph in adapting to changing consumer behaviour. Shop Direct’s multi-brand online retail stores are now household names.
The online stores include Littlewoods.com and Littlewoods.ie, with Very.co.uk now the company’s biggest and fastest growing brand. There are big numbers associated with its activities. In 2017/18 the business reported annual sales of £1.96bn, with Very achieving more than £1.39bn. Shop Direct offers customers ways to spread the cost of their purchases, and it is among the largest UK online unsecured credit providers. “We have one clear purpose: To make good things easily accessible to more people,” says, Helen Wakefield CRM Lead. “That means giving our customers access to the latest brands, products and trends they love.” She continues: “It means offering an easy, enjoyable and personalised shopping experience. They get access anytime, anywhere and have unique ways to spread the cost of purchases. That’s why they’ve been shopping with us for over 80 years.”
Shop Direct has remarkable ability to adapt to changing consumer behaviour and new technologies. Helen Wakefield says, “We are hugely ambitious. We have a constant focus on innovating by trialling new propositions to our customers. She continues: “It’s important for us to learn fast. It’s very competitive in the run up to Christmas and we wanted to launch a new delivery charge proposition. We wanted to ask what price points would be motivating. We needed as many views as possible and time was short,” says Helen Wakefield.
VoiceSage has been part of the Shop Direct digital customer experience and engagement strategy since 2008. VoiceSage Rich Media Messaging (RMM) is used across the business, including customer service, marketing, finance, internal communications, and more, and has proved highly successful in enhancing the customer experience.
“VoiceSage rose to the challenge immediately! Within
hours of discussing what we needed, we had draft
visuals of branded Rich Media Messaging. The survey
was built and sent within hours.”
Helen Wakefield
In less than 24 hours Shop Direct had a view of the result. Helen Wakefield says: “Less than a week later we had made an informed decision on our delivery proposition project, based on customer feedback.”
“The main objective was to drive a significant level of response from our customers and Rich Media Messaging definitely engaged them to participate in the survey. We were truly impressed by the level of engagement we saw. There was an 8.5% response rate. This more than met our requirements for a sample size,” says Helen Wakefield.
She continues: “We met our timeline and made decisions informed by customer feedback. VoiceSage listened, added value and delivered the feedback within an exceptionally tight timeframe.”
“It proved the value and showed how important Rich Media Messaging is to us for communicating with our customers. VoiceSage are an excellent service provider. They help us to continue to give customers more of what they want and remain true to our aim of making good things easily accessible to more people,”
