Charlotte Russe chief information officer (CIO) Debra Jensen has revealed the benefits from the deployment of Watson Customer Engagement solutions on IBM Cloud.
Charlotte Russe is a U.S.-based women’s clothing retailer.
The fashion retail chain is using Watson Customer Engagement solutions on IBM Cloud to help them fulfill record numbers of customer orders, improve profitability and maintain high-levels of customer satisfaction.
“Like all retailers, our business is judged by its ability to serve the needs of our customers. If we can’t meet their expectations we can’t compete,” said Debra Jensen, CIO for Charlotte Russe.
“IBM is a proven leader when it comes to retail transformation. We know that our backend systems — the engine that keeps sales flowing, orders shipping and customers happy — is solid, taking whatever our customers throw at it and automatically understanding the best way to meet their needs. We also know that as new trends emerge we are in step with each customer,” Debra Jensen said.
IBM Watson Customer Engagement solutions come with cognitive technologies that are enabling marketing, commerce and supply chain professionals to enhance customer’s experience.
Following deployment of IBM Watson solutions, Charlotte Russe team realized that its initial sales and transactions projections for the holidays were significantly lower than what the latest data reflected—online sales would increase over 2015 and could cause potential disruptions in service and dissatisfaction among customer.
Poor online performance can be costly — a two-second delay in the loading of the first page of the checkout process can result in a 60 percent drop in conversions.
Charlotte Russe used IBM’s Holiday Readiness team, which assessed if the retailer could handle this spike in product demand. IBM recommended adding capacity to help meet the anticipated growth, fine-tuned the system and ran in depth performance tests ahead of peak holiday shopping time.
IBM and Charlotte Russe teams worked side-by-side to ensure that all systems were performing at peak capacity over the 2016 5-day holiday shopping peak. Despite record volumes of orders there were no performance issues and the volume was handled easily by the system.
“The always-on customer’s relationship with a retailer lasts only as long as the business’s ability to keep their unique needs and interests at the center of every interaction,” said Harriet Green, General Manager, IBM Watson Customer Engagement.
IBM’s Order Management helps retailers handle orders, integrate with financial processing systems, process shipping notifications, interface to customer email and settlement systems and update inventory systems.
