More Contact with the Customer
At first glance you might think that German drugstore chain Kloppenburg and Postbank, the German Post Office’s banking service had nothing in common. However, both companies are working to develop strong ideas for intensifying contact with their customers.
Postbank is the first company in Germany to provide a branch TV service in all of its approximately 850 sales centers. The varied program informs customer about current affairs, the bank’s offerings and even the weather for the coming weekend. This means that the bank can advertise ongoing special offers directly or broadcast adverts for a short period of time without having to plan advertising campaigns in the long term. At a later date, Postbank also intends to provide individual branches a feed for local information. This would enable it to advertise regional special offers, for example. An editorial team from T-Systems works with Postbank to produce the content for the information and advertising program each day and then transmits the content to the screens in the branches using the Postbank VPN.
Lots of space but not much room
At Kloppenburg, customers can use multifunctional kiosk terminals to develop their photographs, download mobile phone logos and current ring tones, as well as charge prepaid cards. “The profitability of an area plays a vital role in the retail sector”, says Dr. Torsten Franz, director of IT and organization at Kloppenburg. “The terminals allow us to bring together many more services in the same space.” T-Systems provides the ring tones online in all stores simultaneously by means of a network link. This means that it is possible to download the day’s latest top ten ring tones from there. Dr. Franz explains: “This is important because today’s must-have ring tone will be out-of-date tomorrow.” The terminals are linked to the POS system. Once the customer has paid, this system automatically sends a message to a server belonging to the content owner which electronically enables delivery of the tone. The melody purchased will then sound on the mobile phone within a few seconds.
