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Sennheiser Pilot Project with Customer App
Press Information
Hamburg, November 2, 2021.
Sennheiser Pilot Project with Customer App
Interactive dialogue and personalized approach in front of the shelf with App Clip
Customer app instead of in-store monitors: With the MySennheiser app, the audio technology manufacturer wants to personalize customer communication. The technically complex products from Sennheiser are to be explained and made interactively tangible. The app also enables a personalized dialogue with customers and only sends messages and offers to them when they are in front of a shelf with Sennheiser products.
Customers know it from online shopping: Top sellers or category-based product recommendations pop up on the start page, you receive real-time recommendations based on a search term. Quite different in stationary technology retail. Currently, manufacturers communicate with their customers here via in-store monitors, which are attached to the shelves of the products and play videos about them. “These screens run continuously and only play unpersonalized messages,” explains Prof. Dr. Hans-Christian Riekhof, Managing Director of locandis. The company has developed an app for Sennheiser, a manufacturer of high-quality audio technology, which enables personalized customer communication directly in front of the shelf with Sennheiser products. The MySennheiser app is currently being tested in a pilot project.
Interactive dialogue via smartphone “highly relevant field” for Sennheiser
Following the motto “Bring your own device (BYOD)”, the app complements traditional channels with additional functions and maps them on the customer’s smartphone. In a personalized dialogue with customers, messages and offers are only sent to them when they are in front of a shelf with Sennheiser products. At the same time, additional functions, such as collecting loyalty points and a function for advertising new users by existing ones, can be introduced.
“The interactive dialogue channel via the customer’s smartphone is a highly relevant field for Sennheiser,” says Alexander Hinte, Director Retail Channel Europe at Sennheiser. “In our pilot project, we are staging a shopping experience in stationary retail that is supported by the MySennheiser app. With the help of location-based marketing and the use of app clips, the customer is enabled to inform himself directly at the shelf about the products of Sennheiser and to receive rich content with pictures, videos, promotions or interactive surveys. This is particularly interesting for cross and up-selling as well as the use of coupons, incentives and loyalty programs”, continues Hinte.
App usage without prior download with App Clip
Delivery of content without registration in the app developed by locandis is made possible by so-called app clips. “The App Clip functionality from Apple enables customers to receive information about the Sennheiser products immediately by scanning an NFC tag or QR code in addition to the push-based delivery of information at the shelf,” explains Stefan Brinkhoff, CTO and Managing Director of locandis. Registration in the app is not necessary for this. The exciting feature of the NFC solution from a user experience perspective is the simple handling: Users only have to hold their mobile phone near the chip. The content is then automatically displayed and the customer is subtly encouraged to download the app.
“This significantly facilitates the customer’s willingness to subsequently load the app, as they were already able to use the features and benefits in a preview mode,” says Brinkhoff. This function thus enables every customer with a smartphone to use the Sennheiser app without prior download. “Conversely, this function also means that the app clips represent a complete campaigning tool, which enables the delivery of differentiated content at each individual NFC tag. And completely without downloading an app”, Brinkhoff describes the advantages of this technical solution.
Reaching customers in relevant buying situations thanks to location-based marketing
locandis enables a variety of functionalities, which can be directly mapped via the app clip. These include videos, pictures or interactive elements, which bring the Sennheiser products closer to the customer. “Specifically, customers can thus be guided directly to the suitable Sennheiser headphones through an interactive product advisor. Alternatively, customer surveys can be carried out directly via the locandis App Clip campaigning, which provide valuable insights into the purchasing behavior and preferences of the Sennheiser customers”, explains Stefan Brinkhoff. This is just a small selection of the use cases that can be implemented within the framework of the app.