Epicor unveils expanded CRM offering for specialty retailers

ORLANDO, USA, PERSPECTIVES 2007: Epicor|CRS, the Retail Solutions Division of Epicor Software Corp., a leading provider of enterprise business software solutions to the midmarket and divisions of Global 1000 companies, has unveiled the CRS RetailCRM 2.0 to attendees of the company’s annual customer conference, Epicor Perspectives 2007.

The enhanced customer relationship management (CRM) solution gives specialty retailers advanced tools to drive sales, increase loyalty and support the business processes necessary for success in today’s competitive marketplace. With a Microsoft.NET-based service-oriented architecture (SOA) as its foundation, RetailCRM provides integrated capabilities for customer analysis, customer segmentation, campaign management and loyalty program management.

RetailCRM is designed to support multiple sales channels, and employs powerful analysis tools that provide a consolidated view of the customer and enable targeted communications with point-of-sale (POS) or other sales channels –- supporting real-time loyalty points management.

"Epicor|CRS shares our vision to provide retailers with innovative software solutions that enhance the overall shopping experience for customers,” said Paula Paravecchio, managing director, Worldwide Retail Industry,  Microsoft Corp. “RetailCRM is built on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services and provides businesses with analytics tools and reporting capabilities that can be used to derive insight from data that is captured at every customer touch point to make more-informed business decisions."

Know customer, improve shopping experience

RetailCRM couples an advanced ability to segment customers by combining demographics, RFM (recency, frequency and monetary value) measures, purchase history and response to loyalty initiatives, with powerful analytics and reporting capabilities. With access to information regarding customer preferences, shifts in shopping patterns and product affinities within a segment, retailers can make faster, better decisions about day-to-day and longer-term operations.

According to a recent AMR Research report: "To increase intelligence about consumers and build shopping allegiance, 53 percent of retailers plan to add to, improve, or replace their CRM applications in 2007.  leaders seek to retain and expand relationships with their most valuable customers by providing consistent and positive cross-channel customer interactions."

Match customers to offers and improve value

RetailCRM gives retailers the ability to narrow their targeting to make more personalized offers to customers, enhancing their perceptions of the value of those offers, and enabling them to more accurately measure results.  Using any combination of demographics, RFM measures, purchase history and response to loyalty initiatives, RetailCRM makes it possible for retailers to offer promotions via integrated, multi-channel campaigns designed to drive RFM while reducing costs.

With POS interaction in any channel via immediate offers, RetailCRM extends the retailer’s ability to execute a successful promotion. Targeted promotions deliver offers based on who the customer is, moving well beyond suggestive sell and current transaction triggers. With its easy-to-use wizard process, RetailCRM makes it simple to build campaigns and promotions complemented by real-time analysis of in process outreach campaigns.

Reward loyalty, retain customers

RetailCRM enables retailers to recognize and reward loyal customers through a central repository for balance, rewards and redemption of loyalty points. 

Communicating in real-time with the POS, RetailCRM provides instant access to customer status across all sales channels.

"We’ve designed RetailCRM to support three key business strategies for creating and sustaining loyal customer relationships, know the customer, match customers to offers, and reward ongoing customer loyalty," said Kathy Frommer, senior vice president and general manager of Epicor|CRS. "Our solution provides extensive and powerful analytics right out of the box, giving retailers a broad, real-time view of how campaigns, promotions and loyalty plans are performing to accelerate a retailer’s ability to use data strategically and enhance the overall customer experience."