Today, notifications and messages bombard every customer’s digital touchpoints. While brands and service providers cannot ignore these personal channels, marketing leaders are increasingly concerned about the communication resonating with the customer and the critical aspects of targeting and personalization.
When Sajith Don took on the role of Director of E-commerce at Shawarmer in early 2023, he encountered this same problem. Since 1999, the brand has brought the popular street food, Shawarma, with consistent quality and innovation to the people of Saudi Arabia, and it continues to do so through its 160 restaurants.
However, this is a highly penetrated category in Saudi Arabia. The people of Saudi Arabia love to eat out, and local and global fast food brands are constantly vying for their attention. Amid this competitive landscape, Don realized that the generic messaging Shawarmer was sending out to its customers was not creating an impact.
Seeking powerful segmentation to stand out in a crowded landscape
Don conducted a deep-dive into the data with the aim of improving the relevance of communication. He found that the occasion, as well as the larger context of the meal, such as a quick breakfast pick-up on the way to work or a large dinner delivered at home for the entire family, drove how customers transacted and were critical for the segmentation exercise to be effective.
Traditional segmentation does not capture the rapid shifts in customer behavior. To sharpen the focus of our retention efforts, we wanted a deeper, real-time understanding of these shifts.s
Sajith Don,
Director of E-commerce, Paid Media
To deliver effective, targeted communication based on dynamic customer behavior, Don and his team wanted a powerful, all-in-one platform. CleverTap, with its ability to streamline and deliver rich messaging, and its sophisticated Recency Frequency Monetary Value (RFM) segmentation, crystallized as the best fit.
Boosting retention through Occasion-based segmentation with CleverTap’s RFM
Shawarmer’s research identified 15 unique occasions for customers’ meals. Of these, four occasions were prioritized for targeted engagement. Besides revenue and growth potential, factors such as audience size, future trends, and Shawarmer’s brand and go-to-market strategies were considered while zooming in on four occasions. Of these, dinner and late-night off-premises dining, making up 60% of Shawarmer’s value and with a potential of 18% growth, were further shortlisted as bullseye occasions.
Next, since these communication exercises were for customer retention, Don and his team decided to leverage Shawarmer’s owned channels where the customers already interacted—push, pop-ups, and the inbox on the company app, email, and Whatsapp – rather than spending on paid channels.
With this reasoning in place, the Shawarmer team used the outcomes of CleverTap’s ML-driven RFM segmentation to design targeted messaging for each customer for these prioritized occasions. The platform seamlessly integrates into the company’s marketing calendar. Based on the recency, frequency, and monetary scores of the segment they were in, such as champions who frequently engaged with the brand, or customers who were at risk of churning, each customer received customized incentives such as discounts and free products for the four important occasions.
For example, if the Shawarmer team wanted to increase dinner transactions on a day, it sent tailored communication on owned channels to select RFM segments created by CleverTap, incentivizing them in different ways to get their dinner from Shawarmer. The fact that a customer is a frequent lunch or breakfast customer may also be factored into the design and targeting of the communication.
CleverTap also enables the Shawarmer team to elevate the quality of their messaging with rich push notifications that have video and voice. The platform makes it easy to deliver pop-ups and in-app notifications, as well as use the app in-box, so the customer is engaged with detailed communication in different ways, making sure they don’t miss the intended message.
RFM segmentation is complex. It earlier took a long time and the results were cumbersome to execute. CleverTap’s Behavior Analytics & RFM Segmentation has been transformative for our customer engagement strategy. We gained invaluable insights into our app customers’ behaviors, allowing us to craft strategy & drive highly targeted campaigns that resonate with Shawarmer’s App audience.”
Sajith Don,
Director of E-commerce, Paid Media
RFM segmentation delivers measurable success for Shawarmer
The company’s strategic segmentation of its customer base has yielded significant results. Year-over-year sales following segmentation implementation have seen a notable lift.
RFM segment-based campaigns have delivered a 9% uplift on overall sales. It has delivered 15% of all Pick-up channel sales, since this cohort of users has been a key focus segment. That this was achieved with Zero media spend is truly remarkable.
This success extends beyond new sales, demonstrating the effectiveness of targeted outreach. Reactivation within the previously ‘hibernating’ inactive segment is a healthy 27%, while 36% of customers identified as ‘at risk of churn’ have been successfully retained.
The company plans to leverage this momentum by further focusing on its champions—customer groups with the highest sales contribution- to solidify the volume share. Additionally, they will use the learnings from this successful exercise to explore both broader and micro-segments for sales growth and market share expansion.
The ability to segment users effectively and analyze customer Lifecycle, recency, frequency, and monetary data empowered us to drive a remarkable 15% incremental increase in our Pick Up channel sales and a 9% lift in overall sales. CleverTap has proven to be an indispensable tool for deepening customer understanding and enhancing engagement, helping to elevate customer experience and achieve measurable growth.”
Sajith Don,
Director of E-commerce, Paid Media
