Case · de Bijenkorf · Consumer Brands & Retail
Turning a premium retail brand promise into a consistent omnichannel experience.
Bring the brand promise to life across the omnichannel customer journey, through consistent store operations and employee interactions.
+24%
customer retention within six months
+9%
revenue growth
+20
NPS points among loyalty cardholders
Introduction
De Bijenkorf is a leading Dutch premium department store chain, with seven stores across the Netherlands and part of Selfridges Group. The brand wanted to strengthen its store proposition while keeping the experience relevant and authentic to its core customer base.
TCXA was engaged to assess how the brand promise translated across the omnichannel customer journey, from marketing communications and e-commerce to in-store processes and employee interactions, and turn those findings into an improvement program that could be piloted and scaled with ease.
The ambition was clear: increase customer retention and spending while helping employees understand the direct impact they have on customer experience and store performance.
- Sector: Premium department store / retail
- Scope: An omnichannel customer journey that brings the brand promise to life through consistent store operations and employee interactions
- Methods: Journey review, mystery shopping and in-store process assessments
- Pilot: Two months
- Rollout: Across the store network after a successful pilot
The challenge
In premium retail, the brand promise is only as strong as the experience customers receive when channels, processes and people meet. De Bijenkorf needed a clearer view of where the journey was creating friction, and where operational or employee pain points were making it harder to deliver a consistent experience.
Rather than looking at marketing, e-commerce, customer service and store operations in isolation, the engagement examined how the omnichannel promise held together across the end-to-end journey:
- Marketing communications: How the brand promise translates into customer communications
- E-commerce: Digital journey and channel continuity
- Customer service: Service interactions across the journey
- Store operations: Checkout, fitting rooms and in-store kiosks
- Employee experience: Behaviors, employee pain points and customer-facing interactions
The solution
TCXA combined a review and refinement of the customer journey with mystery shopping and in-store process assessments. This surfaced key operational friction points and employee pain points, creating a shared evidence base for action.
Working with the operations team, TCXA then developed an improvement program focused on checkout, fitting rooms and in-store kiosks. Employee training supported the operational changes, with an emphasis on more proactive and welcoming customer interactions.
The program was tested through a two-month pilot. Following a successful pilot, the client's internal team rolled the program out across the store network.
- Diagnose: Review and refine the end-to-end customer journey
- Mystery shop: Observe the experience in practice
- Assess: Assess the customer pain points, employee pain points, and operational friction points that caused these
- Improve: Operational process improvements, supported by employee training
- Pilot & scale: Successful two-month pilot followed by rollout across the store network
From journey design to operational change: The work moved beyond identifying customer and employee pain points. It connected the customer journey to the operational processes, tools, behaviors and teams responsible for delivering the journey reality in store.
- Personal advice: Improvement of personal advice guidance online as well as in the store
- Checkout: Improvement program focused on a key transaction moment
- Fitting rooms: Improvement program focused on this core physical touchpoint
- In-store kiosks: Improvement program focused on this in-store touchpoint
- Employee interactions: Training to encourage proactive, welcoming customer interactions
The results
By aligning marketing, customer service, e-commerce and store operations around a shared customer-centered vision, TCXA helped improve key moments across the customer journey, with a particular focus on retention and loyalty.
Within six months, the program delivered:
- +24% customer retention
- +9% revenue growth
- +20 points NPS among loyalty cardholders
- +16% employee satisfaction
Operational improvements and employee training also contributed to reduced absenteeism and improved employee retention.
Why it worked: The engagement followed a practical path from diagnosis to action: understand the real journey, identify the friction, improve the moments that matter, equip employees to deliver the change, test it in a pilot and then scale what worked.
For de Bijenkorf, that meant turning the brand promise into a more consistent operating reality across stores, while linking customer experience improvements to commercial and employee outcomes.
“TCXA helped us translate our promise into a consistent experience across our stores. By aligning our teams, improving processes and empowering employees, we were able to strengthen loyalty, increase satisfaction and drive measurable business results.”
FAQ
de Bijenkorf: common questions.
The essentials of this engagement, answered.
TCXA helped de Bijenkorf see where its premium brand promise was losing consistency across the omnichannel journey, from marketing and e-commerce to store operations and employee interactions.
TCXA combined a journey review, mystery shopping and in-store process assessments, then built an improvement program for checkout, fitting rooms, in-store kiosks and personal advice, supported by employee training and tested in a two-month pilot before rollout across the store network.
Within six months, the case reports a 24% increase in customer retention, 9% revenue growth, a 20-point NPS gain among loyalty cardholders and a 16% rise in employee satisfaction.