Hotel Chocolat, which has over 140 stores including outlets, as well as cafés, a unique London restaurant overlooking Borough Market and a cacao estate hotel in Saint Lucia that sits at the heart of a 275-year-old sustainable cacao farm, is investing in the online experience for the first time. It saw a substantial uplift in eCommerce sales during the pandemic, which now accounts for 50 per cent overall. The luxury chocolatier is leveraging parcelLab’s technology to better meet the needs of the growing online audience, having recently reported having 3 million customers on its database, an uplift of 66 per cent since the end of 2019. This includes reducing WISMO enquiries, relieving the pressure on its customer services team, where the volume of calls has increased in line with sales. The chocolate company is also looking to parcelLab to help drive greater online loyalty through enhanced post-purchase communications, which are proven to help ease customers’ worries around delivery.
parcelLab will work with the brand to deliver email communications to customers in addition to serving push notifications to VIP.ME customers through the Hotel Chocolat app. It will also be creating and launching a branded order status tracking page, both in the webshop and on the app, which keeps customers updated on the status of their order and offers opportunities to engage with customers in areas like increasing awareness of other products.
Martin Bell, eCommerce Director at Hotel Chocolat said: “Despite the challenging circumstances, the last 15 months has seen our eCommerce business go from strength to strength. It has demonstrated how important it is that we continue to invest in the online experience making improvements and creating even stronger relationships with our customers. While we are delighted to welcome customers back in-store, the desire for an exceptional online experience will remain, and being able to provide these through our partnership with parcelLab will prove vital in driving long-term customer loyalty.
parcelLab’s expertise and proven success rate in helping brands navigate the post-purchase experience make them a great fit for us. They understand our business and our challenges, bring an innovative approach to solving these, and are passionate about creating positive and happy online experiences that bring us closer to our customers.”
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