Since 2004, DEFACTO X has supported the Esprit Friends customer loyalty programme with a big team: the Esprit Solution Centre. During that time, Esprit Friends has grown to become an exemplary programme for the fashion trade. It now boasts 6.3 million active members (over 9 million in total) who use it for shopping worldwide. Members of this programme represent 72 percent of Esprit’s net sales.
This success story has now been recognised by the German Dialogue Marketing Association (DDV). At EDDI Night, held as part of the DDV Dialogue Summit on 3 May 2017, Esprit received the EDDI Award in the BtoC category for Esprit Friends. In the presence of some 250 guests at the gala in Frankfurt, DDV President Martin Nitsche presented the trophy to Gunter Neeb, Head of Global CRM at Esprit. A delegation from defacto realations took part in the celebrations – after all, this award is also a recognition of all our hard work in recent years. We were also primarily responsible for putting together the submission presentation.
José Antonio Ramos, Chief Commercial Officer at Esprit, acknowledged DEFACTO X’s contribution to this success: “When it comes to the direct-to-consumer area, we quite deliberately and carefully aligned our activities with our customers’ needs and wishes. Direct-to-consumer is much more than just the major factor in our communications and our Esprit Friends customer loyalty programme; it colours the way we think and act all along the value chain. In that sense, we feel that this EDDI Award honours and affirms the entire company. Both we and our strategic partner DEFACTO X are delighted to have received this award.”
Ultimately, the EDDI is a fantastic confirmation of our expertise – and it will help us both in our PR and in our sales. After all, this is a case of one of our most important customers being honoured for a programme that the whole sector perceives as being closely related to DEFACTO X.