Authentic, Engaging Customer Relationships Instill Brand Loyalty for Finish Line

For officials at Finish Line, customer loyalty is a major priority. It means so much to them that the theme is apparent in every business decision that is made.

“We have developed an authentic and engaging relationship with the customer, which enables Finish Line to become the first – and only – brand customers think of and go to when buying the latest and great sneakers,” Imran Jooma, Executive Vice President and Division President of Omnichannel Strategy at Finish Line, told Loyalty360. “We strive to create emotional connections with our brand and aspects of our customers’ everyday lives so that we are top of mind when they think of the larger retail space.”

These emotional connections, Jooma noted, are built by providing a compelling mix of unique, personally relevant experiences (including content), and premium products that make Finish Line a customer’s preferred destination.

“Ultimately, we measure true customer loyalty by the level of conversation a customer will engage in (lead indicator) and the amount of commerce they do with us (lag indicator) over the lifecycle,” Jooma said. “Our definition has remained the same, but what has evolved is the way we build relationships. Social media has enabled us to have more timely, relevant, and more authentic relationships. That is what we are continuing to define and refine.”

Some brands often speak highly of what customer experience means to their respective organizations. Others speak highly of customer experience and its impact on brand loyalty because they have taken this process to what they believe is another level of engagement.

“It is a simple notion to say that you put the customer first in everything you do,” Jooma explained. “It is another thing entirely to do it in reality. At Finish Line, we have taken our focus on the customer to a new level in recent years driving the ongoing development of our customer experience. As part of our recent efforts to update our brand positioning, we also continue to drive internal education on our target consumer muses. A better understanding of our consumer sharp point has added an intense focus on better understanding the impact from a customer point of view.”

Finish Line’s consumer-focused brand efforts and a singular mission to ‘Deliver the Epic Finish’ have led to a heightened level of employee engagement.

“This engagement has fueled changes in how we measure our results and how we prioritize efforts across the technology pipeline to support our customer experience enhancements,” Jooma said.
Social media is great way to create those authentic and engaging relationships with current and potential customers.

“It is also a real-time channel that allows us to gauge our customer interest in certain products, understand upcoming trends, and modify our experiences based on the way our consumers are referring to things in this space,” Jooma added. “We use our channels to alert customers about certain product information such as launches, inventory alerts and other ‘act now’ type of messages. As more and more of our core customers continue to use different social media platforms (Instagram, Snapchat, etc.), we need to continue to develop authentic content that will inspire and engage them with us as well as leverage the strengths of each platform.”

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