Wiltshire Farm Foods

Case Study

Website - Wiltshire Farm Foods

Background

Wiltshire Farm Foods (WFF) is the direct-to-consumer brand of apetito; one of Europe’s leading suppliers of quality frozen food and catering solutions. The company provides delicious, high quality frozen meals direct to the door, including dishes for special dietary needs. Established in 1992, WFF has a dedicated network of over 60 outlets nationwide and more than 200,000 loyal customers. 

Challenges

In 2007, EWA was commissioned to conduct an extensive study of WFF customer and transactional data. The study was conducted by EWA’s Customer Insight team with the objective being to analyse and investigate different areas including key purchasing trends, customer behaviour, demographics and development opportunities.

During the data study, EWA identified a number of challenges faced by WFF:

• An under-developed customer base with a high number placing only a single order via the company’s website.
• Despite a large customer base and a strong rate of acquisition, there was a significant reliance on a relatively small number of high value customers.
• Comparatively low levels of cross sell rates in key product ranges including gourmet, select and dessert.
• High levels of attrition and lapsed customers – partly due to the nature of the business and the demographic of WFF customers.

EWA Approach

As a result of the findings from the data study, EWA proposed a new digital CRM strategy and was subsequently commissioned to develop a programme of Customer Insight led initiatives. In order to support and facilitate the new communications, EWA developed a marketing database linked to WFF’s own transactional database via a secure VPN connection.

The digital CRM strategy focused on two key areas; customer development and retention. In order to meet the challenges identified, a three staged communication programme was designed:

• Welcome Email - a personalised communication for all new WFF customers containing unique, customer specific, and relevant product direction.
• No 2nd Order - a programme specifically aimed at customers who have placed only a single order with the objective to encourage them to continue their relationship with WFF and place a second order.
• Critical Lag - a customer retention programme designed to minimise the risk of high value and frequent customers lapsing their relationship.

All of the communications were designed to be delivered through highly targeted and personalised email with the content of each message being relevant to the individual customer and containing unique product direction based on their previous purchase history and Geo-demographic segment.

With the exception of the Welcome communication, the timing of each email was also unique to each customer with order quantity, purchase lag and delivery time all being used to add significant strength to the business rules relating to each programme.

Results

The database and associated digital relationship marketing, provides an invaluable channel for WFF to communicate directly with their customers.

From a technological perspective, the marketing database, associated business rules and integrated email communications provide all the advantages of outsourcing – instant access to the latest technology, the benefit of long-term experience in digital CRM and the removal of the need for expensive internal infrastructure.

From inception, the digital CRM programme designed by EWA has delivered significant benefits to WFF and improved customer communications. In the first five months of operation, the two customer development programmes have seen uplifts of between 15% and 20% in terms of converting single order customers to repeat purchasers. The Critical Lag programme has mirrored this success with an uplift of between 15% - 20% in customer retention rates. As a result of these uplifts, the three communication programmes are on target to deliver a combined total of between £700K and £1million of additional revenue in the first twelve months of operation.

As well as the resultant initiatives, the initial data study also provided WFF with detailed insight into its customer base including:

• Consumer demographics and purchase patterns
• The current levels of product cross sell
• The rates of customer acquisition and churn
• Regional product differentiation

This insight - provided by the data study - has allowed WFF to enhance its CRM strategy and undertake informed work with its online marketing agency and EWA to develop further customer communication programmes.

Looking forward

Working in conjunction with the New Media team at WFF, EWA has designed an ongoing schedule of CRM initiatives which will be deployed throughout 2009. These initiatives will be measured against agreed targets - focussed on customer acquisition, growth and retention - and will be reviewed and updated to suit the business needs.

It’s exciting times for WFF and the Customer Insight work conducted by EWA has opened new avenues for one-to-one customer communications and will continue to do so in the future.

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