“We can communicate with customers even after they have left the store”

The retail chain Tegne was founded 100 years ago with the store Christ. Engebretsen & Søn in Oslo, Norway. They started out as a paint store with a small artist paint department, but eventually became an institution for high-quality artist materials. Today Tegne has 5 stores in Norway, as well as the online store tegne.no.  The Diller team interviewed Linda Løkken, who is the General Manager of Tegne Bergen city center and store coordinator for all the stores.

First and foremost – congratulations on your 100th anniversary!

Thank you so much – it was a great celebration!

 Why did you start with a loyalty program?

We realized that there was a need to organize and systematize our discounts and customer benefits. Our stores have had various discounts, with programs that only worked in-store and not online. It was confusing for both customers and employees. Customers had to keep receipts to claim their benefits. In other words, it was too cumbersome.

We wanted to simplify and improve our program and make it easier to offer benefits. We spoke to our POS supplier, Extenda Retail, who recommended Diller. We realized that we had access to an integrated system that works in both stores and online.

What are the most important benefits of a loyalty program?

First and foremost we want to get a closer relationships with our customers, so that they become more loyal. A loyalty program simply gives us the opportunity to communicate, with the consent they give when becoming a member. It is a matter of trust that we send information that is relevant and useful. This is important to us.

The loyalty program provides the opportunity to communicate with the customers even after they have left the store, and the loyalty program connects the physical store and the online store.

What do you think of Diller’s functionality?

It’s fantastic to be able to dive into to product-level details, enabling us to provide the best possible customer service.  We have 30,000 product lines in our range, so it is essential to be able to hit the mark with our marketing. Diller really helps us in this regard.

With products ranging from finger paint for children and the best oil paint for artists, to knitting needles, it is of course a challenge to communicate effectively to everyone.

The purchase history of our customers makes it possible to target our communication, so that everyone experience that they receive relevant content, promotions and benefits from us.

What results have you seen so far?

We started at the beginning of 2022 and currently recruit an average of 1000 new members every month. We have around 15,000 members today and are very pleased with that. When we send campaigns by email and SMS, we experience increased traffic in the stores. We have customers who state that they came just because of a message they received, so we see a clear effect.

One example is when we had a late-night promotion in Bergen and sent out a text message to members the same afternoon. We got a high visit rate to the store because of that one SMS.

We have used various email systems for communicating with customers, but have experienced some challenges with these. Now we’ve moved to MailChimp, which is fully integrated with Diller, and this provides us with a completely different range of options. Among other things, we have started with segmentation, which is incredibly important for us in order to be able to send out relevant information.

Those who buy a paint product receive an email a few days later with information about courses, where a landing page from the email presents the teachers in our various painting courses.

How important is it that Diller is integrated with the cash register system?

It was absolutely crucial to our choice!

How important is it that Diller is integrated with the online store?

This is really what made us swap the loyalty program we had previously with Diller. Without the link to the online store, we would have postponed the launch or looked for other solutions.

How do you recruit new members?

We market the loyalty program on the online store tegne.no. There is information at several locations on the webpage and in the chat as a separate button – “ask us about the loyalty program” – plus at checkout in the webstore. We also encourage everyone who shops in the stores to become a member.

A popup message in the POS requesting the customer’s telephone number reminds employees to ask at checkout. The vast majority say yes to becoming a member and save money. We try to encourage them in with a 10% discount on their first purchase.

What do you think of the collaboration with Diller?

We get very good help from Knut in Diller!

An example of good customer support is that we have an employee who responded to the gender segmentation in the Diller solution. It was possible to select “Male”, “Female” or “Do not want to answer”.  My colleague pointed out that “non-binary” is the right 3rd choice, and Diller changed this to accommodate us. We find that Diller is both flexible and willing to join us into the future!