Urban Outfitters Boosts Sales Through Virtual Appointments

By letting customers consult with stylists virtually or book in-store appointments, customer transactions have increased 25%.

Need to Know

  • Urban Outfitters has reported a 25% increase in customer transactions since enabling a virtual appointment booking solution.
  • The digital tool, JRNI Appointments, allows customers to consult with stylists virtually or book an in-store shopping appointment.
  • Since the pandemic disrupted the shopping experience we’ve come to know, retailers worldwide have leaned on technology and omnichannel solutions to better serve customers.

Analysis

Urban Outfitters is experiencing a recent uptick in customer transactions. The secret to their success? The fashion and lifestyle retail brand has enabled a virtual appointment booking solution to improve customer service digitally. 

Since April 2020 and the onset of the pandemic, the brand behind retailers Anthropologie and BHLDN has leveraged the services of JRNI Appointments, an “experiential relationship management (XRM) platform for scheduling and managing personalized experiences at scale.”

The platform is being used to book virtual appointments and email consultations for Anthropologie and BHLDN customers. The tool also helps retail locations manage in-store shopping appointments that comply with social distancing guidelines.  

Since using the new tool, over 25,000 customers have made purchases in-store 40% of the time and online 65% of the time. 

In total, the JRMI platform has accounted for a 25% increase in customer transactions for the Anthropologie and BHLDN brands. 

“As the business owner of our styling programs, it has been incredibly helpful to have the flexibility within the JRNI platform to make adjustments to the appointments and services we offer — to be able to go in and change booking questions, add new services, customize triggered emails, etc. — those types of features and functionality are so easy that we no longer have to involve our technology or web development partners to get them implemented,” said Maddie Bender, brand styling manager for both Anthropologie and BHLDN. “I can literally go in there and change them based on the needs of our business with little to no downtime, which has been instrumental, especially during COVID.”

Since last year when the pandemic disrupted the way retail as we knew it operated, retailers worldwide have leaned on technology and omnichannel options to continue serving customers. 

Prior to the 2020 holiday season, Target launched a similar reservation system that allowed customers to save their place in line for in-store shopping. The popular chain also added parking spots for shoppers using curbside pickup and introduced contactless mobile checkout. 

And Office Depot had been trialing a virtual queue system even before the pandemic hit. Using QLess, shoppers can check into a virtual “line” and receive real-time updates about when their turn is next. Waiting customers also receive discount codes, as data showed customers would spend about a dollar a minute online while waiting to come inside.