Slashdot Mirror
Can a Customer Loyalty Database Change a Society?
Retrospeak writes "'Organisations that continue to put the brand at their epicentre and pay only lip service to the notion that the customer is king, will fail. It's just a matter of time.' So says business strategist Clive Humby. His marketing company, Dunnhumby handles the loyalty scheme database for Tesco, the third-largest retailer in world and the biggest retailer in Britain. This fact combined with a strong customer loyalty program means they may have one of the largest databases in the world. The Economist goes on to state that Britain itself is being changed by the secondary effects of Tesco's massive customer-driven database." From the article: "Some of these changes are small. The dust jacket of a book that was to be sold in-store was recently altered because a Tesco buyer did not like it. Others are more fundamental. Before the Clubcard came along, the largest panels that suppliers could use consisted of around 20,000 people. But suppliers can now pay for access to the database and many just rely on Tesco."
I seem to remember a hackers conference where it was suggested that everyone should bring along their loyalty cards, and then do a swap.
If enough people did this, the databases would suddenly start to pick up on unexpected trends - customers whose profile suggested eating tofu and lettuce would suddenly be buying cigarettes and crisps etc.
It seemed like rather an interesting idea to me...
The village where I live is about 3 miles from the nearest Tesco and, one by one, the small family-run shops are closing. But they themselves are partly to blame - apart from Saturday mornings, they're closed when I'm at home. I would buy my meat fresh the butchers, fruit and veg from the greengrocer, and fresh bread from the bakers, but they don't give me that choice. If they stayed open late, just by a couple of hours, one day a week they'd get my business. At the moment the only people able to shop there are pensioners, the unemployed, housewives and shift workers.
Tesco use a Teradata data warehouse analytical/relationship marketing. They're a division of NCR.