myCountdown rounded out financial year (FY15) delivering an impressive incremental spend per-customer for Countdown, but the data told them the customer experience wasn’t fully optimised.

Heading into FY16, a significant challenge was laid down: deliver greater value for myCountdown customers despite wildly varying preferences, purchase behaviour and email interactions; and ensure that this translated into higher email open rates, engagement and incremental sales.

To understand the drivers of success and improve the customer experience, the Email Engagement Report was created, establishing baseline metrics to benchmark progress.

A comprehensive programme of data and statistical work was undertaken – analysing several hundred million rows of data – to identify critical phases in the customer lifecycle that yielded the greatest potential for improvement.

Based on these insights, a four-part myCountdown Engagement Programme to optimise engagement during key phases of the customer journey was developed:

• New customers were educated and nurtured towards the high-value spectrum of the base. Through the Welcome and Onboarding Programme, customers received one of four welcome-triggered solus emails, plus a three-part series of onboarding messages in their regular myCountdown emails, educating them about the benefits of the programme.
• For existing customers, it was hypothesized that if myCountdown arrived just prior to their regular shopping day, specials would be top of mind and engagement would improve. The Day/Store Preference Project detected preference mismatches and set out to realign their email arrival, to then lift engagement. 
• For low and non-engaged customers, a multi-path incentivised Re-engagement Campaign was created, leveraging customer insights to determine the appropriate incentive. The Onecard points balance is the most clicked email section, and points proved a compelling incentive.
  
  

For persistently non-engaged customers, a process was automated to pause communications in response to nil engagement, with a built-in option to resume once the customer swiped their Onecard.