Clientsmart™ is a sophisticated system used by retailers such Tiffany & Co., Saks Fifth Avenue, and Neiman Marcus. The system offers many useful and important features, and is particularly targeted for the high-touch/high-service segment. Some of the highlights include:

Improved Client Management
Clients may be organized in a variety of powerful ways. They can be affiliated with one or more sales associates who service a client in all areas, or only in specific categories, such as cosmetics. Notes may be open to all, or private to a specific associate. Policies are set to suit a retailers specific requirements.

Clients are linked to friends and family. Spouses, children, and the relationships are all saved on the system. This enables sends to known addresses with just a few keystrokes. Even better, the calendars of linked family members will be checked when the client shops so that gift occasions are properly marked and the gift history updated so that next year, a record of what was purchased in prior years is available.

Lastly, clients can be linked by organization, a very powerful concept. An organization can really be viewed as any type of grouping of clients. Usually, it will be an actual organization, such as the Junior League, but it can also be a designer or collection. Organizations are used so that events such as trunk shows, galas and the like can be automatically linked to each client identified as either belonging to, or having an interest in the group or collection. In the case of actual organizations, this allows associates to quickly contact all members of the organization when a ball or other event is coming up. All that needs to be done is to add the event to the organization's calendar, and all members of the organization will receive the event on their calendar.

A client can, in a similar manner, be identified as being interested in one or more designers or collections, such as Donna Karan Signature, Escada, Margaretha Ley, Calvin Klein, Akris, or St. John. A similar list can be set up for men's collections. Trunk shows and other collection sales events are added to the designer or collection's calendar, and will then be automatically added to each interested client's record.

These events then display on the ticklers used by associates responsible for serving the above clients, allowing them to take appropriate actions, such as sending invitations. When they make a sale, they can indicate that the sale is a result of the event. This allows tracking of the sell-through rate for events.

Organizations and events can be national, or local to a store.

Knowing the Client
Considerable information can be maintained for each client:
• The list of family and friends, and important gift occasions, as indicated above
• The stores at which the client shops
• The security level of the client so that access to VIP clients can be further restricted
• All addresses for the client, without limit, including the type of address and the dates of residency
• Charge account information, both house and third party
• Customer profiles, including interests, likes and dislikes; calendar dates; free form notes which may be either public or private

Client preferences can be finely detailed. The system allows the specification of any type of merchandise attributes, from sportswear to sunglasses, by building tables which can identify and categorize multiple sizing dimensions (color/sleeve etc.), vendor, style, fabrication, or any other type of identifying characteristic. There is no limit to the number or types of attributes that may be set up.

Purchase history is kept, allowing the customer's wardrobe needs to be easily identified, as well as information on prior purchases and return history.

Using the Information
The system provides many reports, but also a user friendly query tool that allows queries to be built and saved for subsequent reuse using a pull down tool that is specifically designed for Clientsmart?.
Reports available within the system already include, purchase history; client profile; client preferences; tickler reports; organization reporting; event analysis; new enrollees; top one hundred customers; client organization report; client daily report and many others. Reports not already available can be easily constructed using the query tool, which guides the operator through the process.

The intent is to allow the sales associate to more easily manage his or her clients, and to allow the retailer to use the information for marketing and serving these clients in a proactive way. Associates can easily record actions taken, and these can be reported on, creating a useful management tool.