Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
A Love Story: David's Bridal's Diamond Loyalty Program
David’s Bridal stands as a powerhouse in the bridal retail market, with one out of every three brides in the United States walking down the aisle in one of their gowns. Kelly Cook, President of Brand Technology and Finance at David’s Bridal, explains that this prominent position not only fuels their dedication to brides but also their innovative approach to customer loyalty. In a recent interview, Cook shared how David’s Bridal leverages data, personalized customer experiences, and unique loyalty initiatives to build strong emotional connections with their customers.
Evolving a customer loyalty program and keeping it relevant, engaging and top of mind can be a significant challenge for most brands who have frequent customer interactions. However, for brands with less frequent engagement opportunities, especially when those are tied to high-stress events such as the most emotionally charged experiences in a person's life, the challenge becomes even greater when that event is a wedding. Providing meaningful benefits and value is more critical. Weddings are deeply personal, emotionally intense occasions, not only for the couple, but also for the wedding party and the extended family. The challenge of personalization and strategic partnership management are familiar topics to our guests of the Leaders in Customer Loyalty series, but few brands do it as uniquely and successfully as David's Bridal.
Speaker 1:The evocative and award-winning customer loyalty program is led by one of the most energetic, creative and passionate leaders I've ever had the pleasure of speaking with, kelly Cook. She is the President of Brand Technology and Finance at David's Bridal. Kelly, welcome back to the Leaders in Customer Loyalty Series. Hope all is well with you. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us. How are you today?
Speaker 2:Thank you, mark, I'm doing great. It's so good to see you again.
Speaker 1:It's always great to see you, always good to reconnect. It's been a while, but looking forward to this conversation for sure.
Speaker 2:Excellent.
Speaker 1:First off, can you give us a short introduction to David's Bridal and tell us about your role with the company and, obviously, your deep expertise and experience in customer loyalty?
Speaker 2:Awesome, yep, so David's Bridal. If someone doesn't know, we are the largest bridal retailer in the United States. One out of every three gowns that a bride walks down a beautiful aisle in are David's bridal, so it's something that we are very proud of. I, again, am the president of brand technology and finance, which is, you know, sometimes people call that title, you know, a little bit of an oxymoron because you got marketing and finance together, but I think it's symbolic of sort of where the world's going, mark. I mean, it's hard to be responsible for a brand experience and not have some kind of partnership, heavy partnership, with finance and IT these days. So it's a great role. I love it. I suspect there will be more of these in the future.
Speaker 1:Excellent. When you look at the bridal industry, what are some of the unique challenges or opportunities? Does customer loyalty and the focus on customer loyalty present?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's interesting, Mark. I remember when we launched Diamond Program, a lot of people out there thought we were crazy. They're like well, what is a bride going to get married 20 times and come to you each time? Because that's like traditional loyalty, right is a lot of frequency and recency.
Speaker 2:We found out that two-thirds of all women that go to a wedding as a guest buy something new to wear, and so we thought, well, what if we gave the bride the credit for those dress purchases? So if you think about, an average bride is going to invite 200 people to her wedding. 100 of those are going to be women, so that's 66 dresses for every wedding out there, and there's 2 million weddings a year. So the thinking was well, why don't we give the bride the credit for those? And that was sort of the genesis of the loyalty program. And then we said, well, if we were going to do that, what's the payoff? And budget and stress about the budget is the number one thing she's thinking and feeling for 15 months. So we said, well, let's give her a free honeymoon, that's one less thing she has to worry about. So that's the payoff and that's how the Diamond Program was born.
Speaker 1:Okay, and you talked about it a little bit. Can you give us a kind of a brief overview of the Diamond Loyalty Program and what makes it unique compared to other loyalty rewards programs in the bridal industry?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there aren't any others in the bridal industry. We're the only one and we're the only crowdsource program in the world that I know of. There may be one out there, I just don't know about it. So if you're out there hiding, email me and let me know you're out there. It's unique from the perspective that it is crowdsourcing.
Speaker 2:So when the bride sends out her invitations whether they're digital or in paper she includes a little note that says hi, my husband and I, Mark, or my fiance, Mark and I, are a member of the Diamond Program. We're trying to win that free honeymoon. So for all you ladies out there, if you buy something new to wear to come to the wedding, go to David's and buy your dress, and when you do, give them my cell phone number and that's how all of the points are linked back to the bride. So we know exactly what purchases and transactions are under that bride's wedding. And that includes, you know, bridesmaids and the mother, the bride and the mother, the groom and the flower girl and grandma, and so in addition to that, there's guest stuff, and so they get all those points. And we have almost three million members now and have had a thousand brides qualify for a free honeymoon.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1:You look at that. You have and one of the things I enjoy about conversations with you is you have a very passionate approach to customer loyalty to your customers, but also what you know about your ladies the people who buy, who shop, who engage with the brand. You have a detailed understanding of them, and being able to conform the program in a manner that's advantageous is something you've done a pretty great job of. But how do you use these data-driven insights to inform the development of the loyalty program to some of the partnerships that you're bringing to bear? How are you leveraging that data?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that's an interesting part of our industry that a lot of other retailers don't have. As soon as she is proposed to, she's super excited and crying and happy and joyful for about 15 minutes, and then panic sets in as she realizes oh my God, I got to plan a wedding. And from the moment she starts planning, it is all about data sharing. She's telling us the theme of her wedding, the budget for her wedding, the location of her wedding, the time of her wedding, the guests, how many guests are coming through our Pearl Marketplace. She's sending them the invitations. She's getting RSVPs, them the invitations, she's getting RSVPs. So there's a lot of data innately associated with the wedding planning process and we use that data to feed AI. So when we're interacting with her, she's getting the best possible personalized and customized experience.
Speaker 1:Okay, excellent. You recently, as you've talked about, a little bit kind of changed or kind of tweaked the Diamond Loyalty Program to open it to all members of a wedding party, not just the bride. Can you tell us about the decision to expand the Diamond Loyalty Program to include those exclusive perks for the entire wedding party and kind of the benefits that entail?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that's a great question. So we stay very close marked to our members. So we're talking to our members every single month and we're asking for feedback, asking them what parts of the program they love, how can we can change it, how we can make it better. And one of the things that we found out is that the bridesmaids wanted to be diamond members and have benefits and perks. But a lot of the offers that we had at the time were tied to the bride getting her bridal gown at David's. So we said you know what that you know? There are instances where a bride maybe wears her mother's gown or her grandmother's gown or, you know, has it given to her from another purpose or reason. So we wanted to make sure that we were giving the benefits to everybody. So the bridesmaids are the ones that we're hearing the most positive feedback right now going.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I can now get my own points and and get my own offers and and start to uh, leverage them, because we found out another piece of very, very interesting information recently when we were talking to our customers Over half of the bridesmaids are also engaged. Okay, yeah, yeah, and so it was around 30%. Then we got recent data. That's about half, so it's probably somewhere in between. But if you think about, a wedding journey is between 15 and 18 months, sometimes 24 months out. Well, it kind of makes sense that you know at some point in that 24 month continuum a girl's going to get proposed to because she's at the prime age for engagements to because she's at the prime age for engagements. So we found out oh my gosh, half of the brides are also a bridesmaids and half of the bridesmaids are also a bride. So it really started to hone in, as we need to provide these benefits to as many women as possible and it's the number one rated attribute.
Speaker 1:Now that we've opened that up, yeah, Interesting and I know in past interviews you've talked about the Kingston era and also even going through COVID. Right, the COVID kind of changed the bridal kind of the wedding pair kind of patterns for a while accelerated, some put some off. So being able to have that pulse of the customer, knowing that over half of the wedding parties engage themselves, that obviously requires being pretty consistent and timely with the research so you can stay on top of those trends and act around them accordingly.
Speaker 2:A thousand percent right. And it's not just that data for the practical purposes of the loyalty program Mark, but we're also looking at that data for fashion trends as well. You know, we found out really quickly that white was like the new bridesmaid's color. If you can believe that and every woman you know in your life probably said no, no, no, that can't possibly be a trend. And it is. It was the number one trend. And we saw that very, very quickly from the data that we were receiving for brides, because we we asked that question as part of Pearl and we were. We kept looking at the data. It's white bridesmaids. So we reassessed our assortment and positioned gowns in a way and dresses in a way that allowed her to have a bridesmaids assortment that was white. So that's just another practical use of it. So it's not just loyalty, but it's product, it's AI, it's interaction, it's our concierge service, it's everything. So the data is really important to us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, excellent and you mentioned the addition of new reward tiers that allow members to earn perks, you know, at lower thresholds, right? Obviously, that's a big challenge within our community, our member community we actually meet and talk about. You know how do you create engagement? Brands want to get to that first reward redemption as quick as they can, because you know, traditionally and historically that is a kind of a bear of great news going forward, right? But so being able to do that with new tiers, that enhancing member experience is very important too. So when you look at that, you know, how did this new addition of reward tiers enable that kind of quicker redemption opportunity?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that came. We can't take credit for that. That came directly from the members themselves. So, as I was telling you, we talked to them every month and they tell us what they like and they don't like, and it became crystal clear that that women want that. Members wanted the ability to earn rewards faster, and the entry tier for rewards benefits was $3,000. Well, if you consider that a bridal gown is $99, it would obviously excuse me. A bridesmaid's dress is $99. You can see how it would take them a while to get to something. But so they wanted benefits of their loyalty sooner than that. So we opened it up at $1,000 and now you are able to receive rewards at a thousand and beyond motivated you know?
Speaker 1:what strategies do you have in place Are you considering to ensure that members you know feel motivated to progress through the tiers and unlock those you know higher value rewards?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's great. So one of the biggest things that they love about Diamond right now is, well, they love three things. They love that it's free, they love the coupons and they love that the rewards they get with each level. Those are by far the three things that they love the most, and the way that we position that is is that we allow them to provide or to receive benefits that only members can receive, such as member pricing. They get access to deals before we launch those to the broader customer base.
Speaker 2:We provide them access to events that nobody else can have, such as you know, we gave away tickets sweet tickets to the New York Jets game and guess what? A girl who was engaged brought her fiance as a surprise. He did not know she won and then he didn't even know they were going to the Jets game on Halloween night. Of course, my Texans lost and that makes me very sad. But there's access to events and there's access to perks and there's the promotions and the discounts, and it's an exciting thing for them because they get something that nobody else has. And the good thing is is that we've got a new, refreshed version of Diamond coming out in 2Q of next year. That's even better than what we've done so far, and it's all based on the data that we've collected from customers. We're allowing them to sort of design our program for us.
Speaker 1:Excellent. And personalization you mentioned that a number of times already very important, increasingly important in customer loyalty programs. What opportunities do you see for personalization within the Diamond Loyalty Program?
Speaker 2:Well, everything is personalized. That's the thing, and it's personalized because it aligns to her checklist, which is her wedding checklist, and that checklist feeds all the communications, and all the communications are driven by her data and AI and machine learning. And because we implemented that, I think over the last six months our email performance has been double digit higher than it was last year, and that's including sessions. There's higher conversion, more sessions, less attrition, less opt-outs, as she realizes that we know her, and so now we're connecting all of that data together. We still have some work to do, but we're connecting it all together to give her an experience that she expects and loves.
Speaker 1:Okay, emotional loyalty, another topic that's very germane relevant right now. How do you measure, how do you enhance, how do you drive? Weddings are a very emotional process, engagement process, I guess, culminating in the ultimate kind of event when you look at the emotional loyalty that you've driven within the Diamond Loyalty Program and at a brand level, creating those memorable moments is very important. So you know, how do you drive emotional loyalty and how do you measure the impact, potentially, of emotional loyalty on the customer behavior and brand advocacy?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'll answer the second part of that. First, we measure it two ways. We measure emotional connection to our brand at the customer level and then we also look at that same question at the member level and we hold the member experience to a higher standard. So we expect those scores to be higher for members than non-members because we want to make sure that we are giving them the best possible experience, even better than we do our everyday non-members. But in totality, there isn't a more emotional experience as a woman other than this one, maybe having children. Right, it is, it's highly emotional and it's fraught with anxiety. So the fact that we have an NPS score that is 82 is absolutely remarkable to me, because we think about this my as an. As an example, my son recently got married and I took her to the store the David's Bridal store to get her dress. She is six foot tall.
Speaker 2:She's six foot tall wow my no, my son and her are going to have linebackers. I know they are. They're going to have big kids, but anyway she started crying when she put on the dress. She said I've never seen my waist before, so think about that. She's worried about her, like women are worried about their body. How's the dress going to look? I don't like my boobs. I want my arms to show. I don't have a butt. Like. All these things are going through her head and because these pictures last forever, her grandchildren are going to see her bridal pictures, right? So it's just. All of these things are going through her head and the fact that a stylist can go into a dressing room, actually be in the dressing room with her, helping her get into this gown, and for her to come out of that dressing room and to cry because she's never seen herself look that beautiful. Think about all the dynamics that are going on with that experience. It's not the same as going to the Gap and buying a T-shirt or a pair of jeans, like. It's just totally not so.
Speaker 2:The standards are so high for us to get it right and we spend a lot of effort as a company making sure that we get that right. It is incredibly important to us and we have a program, my friend Bob Walker, who's the COO here. He calls it living in the ones and every morning we call it coffee with customers. Every single morning, the very first thing the executives do is read every single customer comment and you know what we do. We get comments from one to five. We go, we hit sort and it starts with the ones. We start reading the ones first because that's where we didn't get it right and we start there. What do we do wrong? How could we get better? Where did we screw up? What process is broken? It's incredibly important to us as a team to make sure that we start with where we're getting it wrong, so we're always improving ourselves as a mean better do an amazing job of with, should I say, our strategic partnerships, such as those of the Black Tux and Shutterfly.
Speaker 1:You know what role do they play in enriching the Diamond Loyalty Program and how do you choose them. Potentially, and you know, are there plans for additional partners going forward.
Speaker 2:There are. We have just to give you an example we have right now, 37 partners waiting to be brought onto our site, just as dropship partners Mark 37. So here's the beautiful thing about our business and why we love serving her and how partners help us serve her. Right now, our run rate, starting in December, for the next 12 months, we will have 300 million sessions a year on our website 300 million Think about that wanting everything from a men's tuxedo, men's shoes, a flower girl dress, a little boy's tuxedo, a honeymoon outfit for her husband.
Speaker 2:The most amazing thing that we've learned recently is that when our customers shop with us, they think of us in terms of the whole wedding, not just the bridal gown, the whole thing men's attire, women's attire, little boys, little girls and so we're growing those partnership offerings at an enormous. There's explosive growth in those, because our conversion rates were going down and as we dove into it online, we realized wait a minute, we have people coming to us for products that we don't offer. So let's partner with best in class retailers to offer her what she desires, because she's actually making all the purchase decisions. Mark, he isn't even doing that. She is. She's the household CEO, so we need to give her everything she needs to give that wedding. You know for it to be the wedding of her dreams. No, and that's actually. You know for it to be the wedding of her dreams.
Speaker 1:No, and that's actually, you know, a big focus, I think, a lot in B2B programs. Right now it is awesome that you're doing on a B2C programs. The B2B programs, whether there's someone like Verizon or someone like a Caterpillar or Thermo Fisher Scientific, you know what they want to do is take all the task out of you know, the loyalty program right. They want the optician you know, whomever that may be that they're running the program for, to be able to focus on what they do best. So they're offering tax services, they're offering accounting services, right. So, to simplify it in the reward program, and you're doing that on the B2C side, taking some of that stress. You know, as you mentioned, it is one of the most emotional taxing days for, you know, a woman it was for my wife but it's also very rewarding. So you are helping kind of remove some of that stress, that anxiety, that cortisol that you would have in a more less, I should say in a less comprehensive offering.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. I mean, it breaks your heart when you see that her number one emotion is anxiety. You know, for 15 months it's like what can we do to alleviate that from her at every turn and every corner? What can?
Speaker 1:we do, absolutely. Last question for this interview here you, you know, when you look at uh retail programs across uh, you know loyalty programs across retail, you know what trends do you think will be important for these loyalty programs to succeed, to continue to evolve, going forward?
Speaker 2:uh. So a couple of things. I think coupons, discounts, rewards are going to become table stakes. I think that you're going to get points taken off the board if you don't have them, but I don't necessarily think you're going to get points added to the board if you have them.
Speaker 2:I think experiences are where everything is going with a little tea. I really do. Giving them experiences to experience with other people, the experience of the brand, access to events. I mean I couldn't believe how much interest there was in us giving away tickets to a football game. I mean you would think that would be silly.
Speaker 2:But I think, just from a society perspective, we are craving human interaction, fun, enjoyment, being together, parties. You know, we've got something we're scoping out right now, based on one of our members suggested. They said hey, I can't, I can't, I can't get to the store, but will you bring the store to me? That's what she said. Will you bring that experience to me? So we're like, okay, let's partner with Wine and More and bring mimosas to our house. Let's partner with, you know, uber to get our bridesmaids to our house. Let's partner with Uber to get our bridesmaids to her house for this try-on where they don't have to drive home because they're having mimosas.
Speaker 2:You see what I mean. I just think experiences, as AI grows, as machine learning grows, I think us, as humans, are going to crave more human interaction and human stimulation, and so I think, the more we can bring people together, bring loved ones together. You know, we're looking for a partner right now because we just found out that the number one thing that brides want to give their guests when they leave after a big night of partying is warm cookies and ice cold chocolate milk, like we just found out right. So who can we partner with to give her warm cookies and chocolate milk at her wedding through Diamond? So that's an example. It's like really humanizing the experience in every corner.
Speaker 1:Okay, and last question. I know I said last question, the last one, but you know what can we do to help David's Bridal enhance its customer loyalty strategies?
Speaker 2:Well, I think you're doing it already. I mean helping us spread the word of the things that we can do, helping us tell our story. I think that's great, Mark. I appreciate the support and appreciate the love that you have for us, and we certainly feel the same way about you.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, and now we have the fun quickfire question rounds. We like to keep these to one word or short phrase answers, and the first question we have is what word or short phrase do you use to inspire others?
Speaker 2:Be someone's shot of whiskey, not everyone's cup of tea.
Speaker 1:There you go. What is your least favorite word that others use?
Speaker 2:Can't.
Speaker 1:Nice. What excites you at work?
Speaker 2:Seeing ordinary people do extraordinary things.
Speaker 1:Excellent. What do you find tiresome at home or at work?
Speaker 2:Well, I'll answer it in a positive way, since I'm a half full kind of gal, home fills my cup up.
Speaker 1:Okay, excellent, you can have dinner with anyone, living or dead. Who would it be?
Speaker 2:Thomas Sowell.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you never got that answer before.
Speaker 1:I've never heard Thomas Sowell. It might feed into this next question. What would you like to recommend to your colleagues?
Speaker 2:Finding my Virginity by Richard Branson.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, well then, thomas Sowell, branson. Okay, well then, I'm sold. What profession other than when you currently are in, would you like to attempt A?
Speaker 2:drummer in a rock band.
Speaker 1:Okay, what do you enjoy doing that you don't often get the chance to do?
Speaker 2:Walking barefoot on grass.
Speaker 1:There you go. Who inspired you become? The person that you are today.
Speaker 2:My husband.
Speaker 1:That's awesome how inspired you to become the person that you are today. My husband. That's awesome. How do you want to be remembered by your friends and family?
Speaker 2:She was sassy, classy and a bit smart-assy.
Speaker 1:Kelly, thank you very much for taking the time to join us today. It's always a pleasure speaking with you and getting an update on the David's Bridal Program. We appreciate it very much and look forward to hearing more about your successful program in 2025 and everyone else. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us today. Make sure you check back with us for additional episodes in our leaders and customer loyalty series. Until then, have a wonderful day.