Reconnecting with customers
Revitalizing The Limited Stores involves more than gaining new-found independence underwritten by Sun Capital and an enthusiastic sales force. It’s going to require a long, hard look at why customers like or dislike the store. It’s going to mean tracking all customer traffic — not just sales. It’s going to mean getting reacquainted with customers on a more personal level. Heasley is all over that.
“The most critical area we have is our stores and our store experience,” she says.
That’s why getting to know customers again has become priority No. 1.
“We’re developing a lot of metrics right now around the customer,” Heasley says. “Metrics that we probably should’ve used historically but haven’t.”
For example, in the past when customers purchased an item from The Limited Stores, a toll-free phone number would randomly print on receipts inviting them to answer a handful of questions about their store experience. Now, exit interviews will be added to capture information about why customers decide to buy — or not buy —merchandise. Ditto for traffic counters, which track how many people enter the store.
“Right now, we’re only getting information from people who actually complete a transaction,” Heasley says. “For me, it’s as much about who doesn’t complete a transaction. I’ve watched too many people go in our store, turn and go out without a bag. That bothers me. I lose sleep over that.”
Further complicating the task of better connecting with customers is the fact that The Li
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ted attracts an extremely varied demographic among women.
“She’s anywhere from 25 to 50 years old,” Heasley says. “That’s a very broad range. And you can’t be everything to everybody.”
So Heasley and her team fashioned a more specific customer profile, gave her a name and plastered her likeness upon the walls throughout the company’s headquarters to help associates envision who they’re catering to at The Limited Stores.
“We call her Tyler Monroe,” Heasley says. “We believe she’s 28 to 35 years old. She’s a professional woman. She likes fashion, but she’s not a slave to fashion. She’s probably in her second job, but she’s career-minded. She’s involved in a relationship. … We created a whole brand story around Tyler.”
Limited executives even created a detailed day planner for Tyler listing everything from an upcoming Key West getaway to sticky-note reminders to call her mom.
“It’s a tool to bring life and a face to our customer,” Heasley says. “The associates rally behind it. The design and merchant team really love it. … It’s been a very helpful way for us to get very clear in our minds where the assortment needs to go. What would Tyler wear? What wouldn’t she wear?
“It also gets to the customer experience in the stores. How would Tyler want to be addressed when she goes into the stores? What would be the store experience she would want? So we’re now carrying this all the way through our service offering.”
Heasley’s only concern with the Tyler prototype is that she may narrow the customer target a bit too much.
“Our customer is broader,” she says. “When you walk in our stores, we have a lot of women who are stroller moms now, but they’re career women. So we’re all Tyler. That’s the theme we’re talking about now. How do we keep it inclusive relative to who the customer really is? How do we capture all of that? That’s what we’re trying to refine right now.”
