How Prada Group transforms in-store customer experience

The Prada Group is one of the world leaders in the luxury goods sector where it operates with the Prada, Miu Miu, Church’s, and Car Shoe brands in the design, production and distribution of luxury handbags, leather goods, footwear, apparel and accessories. The Group also operates in the eyewear and fragrance industries under specific licensing agreements stipulated with industry leaders, and with the recent acquisition (2014) of Pasticceria Marchesi 1824, it has made its entry into the food industry, where it is positioned at the highest levels of quality.

Customer satisfaction and loyalty have always been extremely important to The Prada Group, but, by 2015, the absence of WiFi in their stores had become an issue with customers. For some customers it was just the need to always be connected, but The Prada Group also knew that they were missing social media opportunities with shoppers to share their in-store experience.

The company was well aware of the potential challenges of rolling out guest WiFi to hundreds of stores around the world, such as easily managing the WiFi service and providing a consistent customer experience. They needed a solution that would address these issues and also enable them to meet numerous local requirements, since many countries have distinct compliance rules and regulations. This complex deployment would involve people in different departments across the globe; management would certainly be a significant effort.

Given the complex scope of the project, and with customer satisfaction as the number one priority, The Prada Group decided to deploy a guest WiFi solution that provided more capabilities than just basic customer connectivity. They set a goal to build the foundation for their digital transformation process with a solution that could provide:

• Quick, non-intrusive customer onboarding
• Easy cloud-based management across all store locations
• Insight about customers and their in-store behavior
• Ability to match customers’ devices with a unique digital identity
• Seamless integration with their existing third-party systems

The requirement for a global deployment led The Prada Group to pursue a cloud-based solution. This decision also fits their lean IT approach, and hey anticipated that cloud solutions would be both quick to roll out and intuitive to use. For networking hardware, The Prada Group chose a cloud- based solution from Cisco Meraki, because they specialize in hassle -free deployments for companies with lean IT.

Once the guest WiFi options were examined, the decision to deploy the Cloud4Wi’s product suite was straightforward. The product suite was built from the ground up with manageability and scalability in mind and seemed a great fit for the potentially challenging IT requirements. Cloud4Wi’s product suite would make it easy to manage guest WiFi across all The Prada Group stores, and is comprehensive enough to comply with strict local regulations. Cloud4Wi’s product suite platform had already been rolled out in 80 countries and had a demonstrated ability to provide a quick, intuitive sign-on for customers.

The Prada Group could see how product suite’s Location Analytics would help them better understand footfall traffic, including popular days and times customers are visiting, how long they stay, and how often they return.

Additionally, the Cloud4Wi’s product suite provides a robust set of tools for integration into third-party systems, building of custom applications, and enhancement of mobile apps.

In summary, the Cloud4Wi’s product suite did more than fulfill The Prada Group checklist, it enabled opportunities to drive new and innovative ideas to improve their business operations.

Cloud4Wi’s solution enables us to understand who our customers are and how they behave in the stores while respecting their privacy. Thanks to this in-depth knowledge, we will be able to deliver compelling and much more personalized experiences.

Lorenzo Bertelli, Owner and CDO, Prada Group

The Prada Group began the deployment of Cloud4Wi’s product suite in October 2015. It quickly became apparent to the IT team that implementing guest WiFi for more than 600 stores was much less complicated then had been expected.

Cloud4Wi’s product suite made it easy to create the same branded splash pages for all their Prada stores, and custom splash pages for each of their other brands: Miu Miu, Church’s, Car Shoe, and Marchesi 1824. Store managers were able to choose from a variety of different login options, including social media logins. Cloud4Wi’s product suite offered Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, Foursquare and Pinterest, plus VKontakte for their stores in Russia, as well as Sina Weibo, Baidu, QQ and Renren for Chinese tourists.

With easy Internet connectivity in the stores, sales associates quickly noticed a dramatic boost in customer satisfaction, as shoppers were excited to share new purchases and shopping experiences with friends and family on social media.

The login information collected by Cloud4Wi has enabled The Prada Group to grow their customer database by adding new contacts to it – assigning a digital identity to a shopper’s device on their initial login. When the customer subsequently visits any store, the network can then recognize their device, associate it to that individual, and allow them to automatically connect to the in-store WiFi.

By using Cloud4Wi’s product suite, The Prada Group has been able to collect in-store behavioral characteristics of their customers, including stores visited, date of each visit and related dwell time.

With guest WiFi successfully in place, The Prada Group has ambitious plans to use the Cloud4Wi’s product suite to further help the company reach various goals and initiatives.

The Prada Group plans to build a custom application, using Cloud4Wi’s product suite, to showcase the company’s product catalog directly on the splash page. The merchandise featured in the catalog will be specific to what’s in stock at that store location. And depending on a returning shoppers’ past purchases and preferences, specific items can be promoted in the catalog.

The Prada Group also plans to leverage APIs to feed customer data into their CRM system in real-time. Using Cloud4Wi’s digital identity feature, customer profiles on the CRM system will soon be enriched with valuable attributions such as when and which stores customers visit. This information will be connected with online behavior such as how many emails they open and how often they visit The Prada Group website. By combining online activities with in-store behavior, The Prada Group will gain a more comprehensive picture of who customers are and what preferences they have.

Personalizing the customer experience is something The Prada Group is also interested in implementing. Using triggered notifications, an email or text message can be sent to loyal shoppers when they enter a store, welcoming them back and promoting a new item they’d likely be interested in. Sales associates can also be notified when a returning shopper walks in so that they can provide better customer attention. These types of specialized services will ultimately help The Prada Group better personalize the experience for their in-store shoppers, which in turn will boost loyalty and build stronger customer relationships.

Lastly, Cloud4Wi’s product suite flexibility empowers mobile applications to be enhanced with unique and innovative features. For instance, in an effort to increase customer satisfaction, The Prada Group plans to offer services such as calling rides directly from the splash page.