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Holland & Barrett: Treating Customers to Healthy Relationships?

Welcome to PostFunnelโ€™s 26th episode in theย Seven CRM Commandmentsย series.

Today, we will analyze Holland & Barrett, the health and wellness brand specializing in natural remedies, supplements, and healthy foods.

Letโ€™s find out if their CRM tactics are as healthy.

1. Be Transparent 9/10

According to aย Retail Gazette article, Holland & Barrett UKโ€™s employees will be eligible to receive instant access to their wages whenever they need them through a new scheme that they have launched.

โ€œAt Holland & Barrett, we believe in the importance of making wellness accessible to all, and this includes focussing on the impact of financial stability on our colleaguesโ€™ mental health,โ€ Holland & Barrett head of pay Tricia Foster said.

โ€œEarned Wage Access is relatively new and hugely exciting for us and all our colleagues. It was easy to implement and gives our colleagues so much more protection from the financial pain of meeting unexpected expenses.โ€

Also, since the second lockdown in the U.K. has come into effect on November 5th and will continue until December 2nd,ย an article by Daily Expressย detailed whether the alternative health shop has been classified as an essential retailer to remain open.

The article states that the retailer has been granted access to remaining open in the second lockdown โ€“ however โ€“ some employees werenโ€™t so happy with this news due to health and safety concerns.

H&B staff noted that the natural remedies and health foods shop isnโ€™t the same as a supermarket, while others complained that the space itself is too small to abide by social distancing measures.

โ€œIt is almost practically impossible to maintain social distancing, as the miles are very short width, and when we have to deal with customer queries, they do not respect the boundaries,โ€ a Holland & Barrett staff member said.

The company has approved the above announcements published in the press.

2. Incentives and Perks 10/10

When entering theย companyโ€™s homepage, the Singlesโ€™ Day promotional offer below (with a countdown) was presented to us in a popup:

One scroll down the homepage, the following discounted offers were also presented to us:

Finally, the health & wellness brand also has a Sales and Offers page for customers to browse through and shop if theyโ€™re interested.
This, by any standard, is a wide range of special offers.

3. Be Relevant 10/10

The top of H&Bโ€™s homepage includes information on how their product offering has changed due to the virus. Click-and-collect, as well as other delivery and return offers, have been added to the brandโ€™s offering. And an entirely new webpage has been created and dedicated to this.

Also, H&B has dedicated an entire webpage to Keeping Safe in Stores โ€“ which has a personal note from the brand that reads:

โ€œWe know that itโ€™s more important than ever that youโ€™re able to access the healthy food, vitamins, and supplements for special dietary needs to help keep you and your family well.

The health of our colleagues and customers is our biggest priority, so our stores have social distancing measures in place so you can feel safe when shopping with us. Weโ€™ve provided protective wear and face masks for all our colleagues and would like to remind our customers to wear a face-covering when you visit our stores unless an exemption applies.

You can check the opening hours of your local store usingย ourย Store Locator.

We look forward to seeing you soon.โ€

As for seasonal relevancy โ€“ so yes, seasonal marketing campaigns are also evident on the brandโ€™s website. H&B created a Christmas ideas page for customers to browse through.

Finally, as previously mentioned, they also had that Singlesโ€™ Day offer.

4. Be Helpful 8/10

H&B supports several charities as detailed on their website. The only one we could find on this page was Healthy Hope, a foundation that helps to break the cycle of poverty for women and children by providing healthcare.

Also, on the brandโ€™s website โ€“ H&B details its brand ethos in a timeline format going all the way back to 2007 โ€“ which mentions green initiatives, SLS and paraben bans, plastic bag bans, local sourcing commitment, wet wipes discontinuation and so much more. The last one we could find on this page was a Mental Health Programme in 2019 to support their colleagues.

Also, H&B launched a sustainability initiative by starting a process that discontinues the sale of plastic bottles.

Overall, an impressive, inspiring, well-rounded, and holistic effort by the brand to support wellness all around. However, we deducted two points here as other brands we have analyzed to date did a tiny bit more as far as being helpful, mostly by being more active specifically around the coronavirus, including significant monetary donations.

5. Realtime Personalization 3/10

Though we could not find any cross-selling techniques โ€“ the following upselling techniques were implemented by the brand when adding sunscreen to our cart, with the โ€œcustomers also boughtโ€ recommendation appearing below:

However, when going back to the HP โ€“ our experience wasnโ€™t further personalized to our products of choice, i.e. no sunscreens were promoted to us in various ways โ€“ or any other โ€œrelatedโ€ items for that matter.

Also, when exiting the website and hopping onto our social media accounts, we were not retargeted by the brand in realtime. Which is a CRM promotional tactic thatโ€™s basic, well-known, and easy to do.

6. Master UX 7/10

Our overall experience with the brand was good. It was delightful to interact with the categories on offer and browse through them.

However, every time we entered a different category of products โ€“ the same (annoying) promotional popup with the countdown timer kept appearing:

When adding items to our cart, the following delivery options, with tooltips providing more info on each method, were great for the UX:

7. Leverage Social Media 10/10

H&Bโ€™s Facebook account boasts over 435K followers and has a very active and engaged social community. The brand posts in high-frequency content that not only promotes their products in a lovely and unique way, but also uploads videos on food recipes as well as provides vitamin recommendations, vouchers and giveaways, motivational poems, tips from experts, and more.

Their Instagram account boasts over 139k Followers. They post in high-frequency (every day!) and use the Instastory feature โ€“ well done. Their account obviously promotes their products, but thereโ€™s more to it than that. They post inspirational self-love tips, videos on relaxation techniques, and more. All great for these uneasy times!

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View this post on Instagram

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The ultimate relaxation technique? ๐Ÿ’†โ€โ™€๏ธ ASMR is a popular sleep-aid and form of stress-relief with celebrities such as Cardi B โ€“ even Margot Robbie and Jake Gyllenhaal have tried their hand at it!๐ŸŽ™ @theasmrpsychologist discusses what ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) actually is, what causes it, and what the benefits are. ๐Ÿ’š A great way to relax and unwind for #stressawarenessweek, especially as thereโ€™s a lot of uncertainty at the moment. ๐Ÿ‘ Have you ever experienced ASMR before? ๐Ÿค”๐Ÿ‘‡

A post shared by Holland & Barrett (@hollandandbarrett) on

Their Twitter account boasts over 42.K Followers. H&B tweets the same type of content as in the two social media channels mentioned above โ€“ which is fine as the brand caters to the same type of audience โ€“ thatโ€™s simply more active on their social media channel of choice.

**

Overall, H&B is getting a 57/70 here (81%) placing them in 8th place.

With a few touch ups on the brandโ€™s realtime personalization efforts (which can easily be implemented to its product offering) and being more relevant as far as โ€œhelpfulโ€ goes amid COVID times โ€“ they could sit atop of this table.

Here are the full rankings of all the brands we analyzed to date:

  1. Pets at Home 91%
  2. Loweโ€™s 90%
  3. Petco 90%
  4. Target 87%
  5. Uniqlo 86%
  6. West Elm 81%
  7. The North Face 81%
  8. Holland and Barret 81%
  9. Brooks Running 79%
  10. Best Buy 78%
  11. Etsy 76%
  12. The Body Shop 74%
  13. Gymshark 73%
  14. William Hill 73%
  15. Iceland Foods 71%
  16. Total Wine & More 70%
  17. Tommy Hilfiger 70%
  18. Walgreens 70%
  19. Kohlโ€™s 70%
  20. Buy Buy Baby 68%
  21. Fiverr 67%
  22. Next 63%
  23. Patagonia 61%
  24. Burberry 60%
  25. COS 57%
  26. Dream11 53%

We publish a new analysis every week, so watch this space for more brand analyses coming your way!

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