Debenhams
UK department store uses SMS to drive sales initiatives with great success.
Background
Debenhams is the UK’s leading department store with a turnover in excess of £2bn, over 140 department stores in the UK, a further 40 franchised stores around the world and a significant online presence.
The original Debenhams store founded in 1913, was based in London and is still used by the company for its press and communications activities. Acquisitions of Harvey Nichols and Browns stores followed and the company listed on the stock market in 1928.
- Founded in 1913
- 140 UK stores
- 40 franchised stores
“We are delighted with the success of this sales initiative. We are equally pleased with TextAnywhere. We have worked with them for three years now, and the service has been faultless, simple to use, and highly economical”
Paul Munday – Debenhams’ Technical Manager of Networks
Requirements
In early 2005, ‘Debenhams to you’ was launched as a new initiative offering customers the ability to order currently unavailable items either from within their home store, or by calling a central phone service.
When a customer places an order through the ‘Debenhams to you’ service, text messages are dispatched automatically to local store mobiles for staff to check the in-store availability of the item ordered. Once availability confirmations have been relayed back, the customer is informed and the item is either delivered to their home or can be picked up at their local store.
Solution
Following a review and evaluation of SMS providers, TextAnywhere was chosen as Debenhams’ text-messaging partner.
“We originally chose TextAnywhere because their service was swift, good value, and they understood the importance of business-critical applications in a customer-centric organisation like Debenhams”, added Paul Munday, Debenhams’ Technical Manager of Networks.
Project Successes
The ‘Debenhams to you’ service has been a great success with thousands of items per week being ordered through this route. And the decision to use a text service to deliver the store-to-store communication has proven to be a good one.
Debenhams have also found further uses for SMS messages across the business – daily, tailored sales figures are sent via SMS as a means of providing up-to-the-minute store and region performance data.
Range of Services
TextAnywhere empower organisations across both the commercial and public sectors to communicate better with text messaging services that enable the sending and receiving of SMS messages, through online and email applications.
They also offer a Developer Toolkit for clients to integrate texting into their own applications, as well as a White Label service for partners who wish to offer TextAnywhere’s services as their own, to find out more email us at [email protected].
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