Norths Collective maximises first party data to build lasting relationships
Find out how Norths Collective has increased engagement to grow its membership base and increase renewals by 28%.
Norths Collective is a membership-based hospitality group comprising eight hospitality venues and two-state of the art fitness centres. The group’s flagship venue, Norths, was founded in the 1950s and is an integral part of the North Sydney community.
Robert Lopez, General Manager CX, Brand & Innovation at Norths Collective, shared that their focus on the community was one of the things that made the club industry so special.
As a profit-for-purpose organisation, Norths Collective gives back over $1.7M per year in community support. This social contribution would not be possible if not for members and that’s why Norths Collective uses Salesforce to ensure they’re consistently engaged.
“Our members expect us to know everything that’s relevant to them. Salesforce not only gives us this knowledge, but allows us to wow our members with personalised experiences in real-time.”
Bringing member data onto one trusted platform
Norths Collective has approximately 60,000 members ranging from 18 - 102 years of age. The group’s challenge before Salesforce was how to communicate with each one more personally. It had a wealth of member data collected from different places such as its POS and sign-in systems. However, it was unable to bring this information together in a meaningful way.
“We were essentially data rich, but lacked knowledge derived from this data. So the starting point for our transformation was really about making sense of our data and getting to know our members and how best to communicate with them,” said Lopez.
With Service Cloud as its CRM, Norths Collective hit the ground running and connected all its data onto the platform for a 360 degree view of each member. This includes details about how often they visit the clubs and what they do once they’re there.
Norths Collective uses Marketing Cloud to maximise this first-party data and engage members with the right message, at the right time, via the right channel.
“Now when a member comes in, swipes their card, and orders a chicken schnitzel, that transaction information is added to their record in our CRM. So if we run a “Schnitty Tuesday” promotion, we can push out a message to everyone who’s ordered one in the last 12 months,” said Lopez.
These personalised promotions have increased North Collective’s average email open rate to 60% which is well above the industry average of 20.2%. Average click-through has also increased and is now 11.3% compared to an industry average of 1.2%.
Delivering real-time personalisation across channels
Norths Collective is now using Marketing Cloud to engage with members more personally and efficiently across its digital marketing channels. It has set up automated journeys to welcome new members and engage them on their birthdays and when it’s time to renew. It has optimised ad spend through the use of lookalike audiences and effective segmentation.
The hospitality group has also switched on Personalisation for its website so it can serve up relevant content in real-time. For some, this content includes headlines and images promoting different dining options. For others, it includes promotions for upcoming events.
“We are seeing really strong engagement across our digital channels, including our website. Traffic is up 45% and time on site has increased by almost 10%,” said Lopez.
The increased engagement has resulted in a number of key outcomes, including:
With increases in in-venue engagement, Norths Collective has also increased its financial support for the community by 13%.
A new Norths Collective app will help the group build on these results. Built on Heroku, the soon-to-be launched app will allow members to update their profiles, book tables, and purchase tickets to events all from the convenience of their mobile. At the same time, it will provide Norths Collective with more insights to personalise their experience.
Increasing operational efficiency
Norths Collective digital transformation has created number of operational efficiencies. This includes an average of 22 hours per month saved on marketing reporting alone. These savings have come from CRM Analytics which provides actionable insights to improve engagement.
The hospitality group has also reduced back-end set up time for new venues by 70%, supporting its aggressive growth strategy.
The planned integration between Service Cloud and 8x8 from the AppExchange will add to these efficiencies by eliminating the need for the call centre team to switch between three different systems while handling calls. Instead, they’ll have everything they need at their fingertips to provide fast and personalised support.
The extended use of Service Cloud will also streamline case management and increase productivity through automation. For instance, in the future, Norths Collective could use AI to respond to frequently asked questions and reduce the number of calls to the call centre.
“The more we integrate our business with Salesforce, the more we can automate and use technologies like AI to our advantage,” said Lopez.
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