Iconic Houston Retailer Gallery Furniture Uses AI to Create Demand for Made-in-America Furniture
09 November 2017 - 1:00AM
Business Wire
Furniture Chain Uses Autonomous Marketer
“Albert” to Bring Its Unparalleled In-Store Experience Online, and
Drive Traffic Into Stores; Increases Sales by 22% in Month
One
Houston furniture chain Gallery Furniture has been on the
cutting edge of customer service since the early 80s, when it began
offering same-day delivery to local customers before leading
national brands. This legacy of innovation and world class customer
service is the driving force behind its recent foray into
artificial intelligence. Today, Gallery Furniture announced the
results of its first two months working with AI marketing platform
Albert (LSE: ALB.L), which has resulted in a 6,897% increase in
leads, a 4,710% increase in conversions, a 96% decrease in cost per
lead, and a significantly more personalized experience for online
customers.
Albert is now responsible for perpetuating Gallery Furniture’s
unparalleled in-store experience online and then driving the online
world back into its iconic Houston stores. “He” is achieving this
by autonomously executing key components of the retailer’s social
media and search engine marketing efforts (including audience
identification and segmentation, real-time budget allocation,
creative optimization, keyword identification and management, and
more). Gallery Furniture’s in-house team of over 20 dedicated
marketing personnel and its external agency Thrive continue to
handle organic social media efforts and customer service across
online channels, as well as all creative strategy and
production.
In July 2017, Albert’s first month working with the retailer,
Gallery Furniture attributed a 22% increase in revenue to Albert,
as well as its own successful efforts to refine its lead response
methodologies. In the same month, Gallery Furniture saw $23.75 in
revenue for every $1 spent on Facebook (as compared to $4.80 per
dollar spent on Facebook without Albert). Campaign-wide (Facebook
and Google), Gallery Furniture’s campaign produced $11.36 for every
$1 spent.
For the first two decades of Gallery Furniture’s existence, its
founder Jim McIngvale, aka “Mattress Mack”—a local, and now
national, hero, having sheltered hundreds of Houston residents
during Hurricane Harvey—prioritized two things: the customer’s
experience while in the store, and sourcing the highest quality,
American-made furniture. To drive in-store traffic, he invested
heavily in print and television advertisements.
In 2009, the retailer set out to extend the unparalleled
in-store experience to online customers with the early adoption of
Facebook and Twitter “help desks.” Gallery Furniture’s customer
service team began engaging daily with its large and active
community, responding to 100% of interactions in under three hours.
(To this day, the team responds to thousands of comments each day.)
From 2011 on, Gallery Furniture experimented with various methods
of attribution to determine exactly how many in-store sales
originated from its social media efforts.
Now, in 2017, with nearly 400 employees, Gallery Furniture has
introduced artificial intelligence into its sophisticated marketing
mix. It adopted Albert to introduce scale and precision to its
ongoing efforts to drive high quality and highly qualified leads,
while maintaining its high customer experience standards. Albert
works across channels to drive customers either directly into
stores or to one of six highly-optimized and incentivized landing
pages, segmented by campaign or product category, on Gallery
Furniture’s website. Customers are encouraged to fill out an
information-request form, which Gallery Furniture’s customer
service team responds to personally and quickly.
“When a customer walks into our flagship showroom, I make a
point of shaking their hand and showing them that we appreciate
them. It’s important that whatever marketing approach we take
online lets us reach out to the customer and shake their virtual
hand, too. Albert has helped us to do this,” said Jim McIngvale,
Founder and President of Gallery Furniture. “Albert’s
‘thoughtfulness’ creates a more delightful experience for the
customer and has produced great results for Gallery Furniture.
Coming up to Christmas, the next 90 days are going to be tremendous
now that Albert is onboard.”
Gallery Furniture now has six full-time employees responding to
leads, seven days/week. Albert has not only driven exponential
digital growth, but has also standardized AB testing, providing
quick automatic analysis and acting on the results, as only a
machine could do. Albert’s work has scaled Gallery Furniture’s
efforts exponentially and freed the team to focus on what earned
Gallery Furniture the title, “every person’s furniture store”:
personalized, one-on-one interactions and customer service.
For more information or to request a demo or briefing of Albert,
please contact Gretel Going, gretel@channelvmedia.com, or Amy
Inlow, amy@albert.ai.
About Albert™
Albert, created by Albert Technologies, LTD. (AIM: ALB.L), is
the world’s first and only fully autonomous digital marketer. The
enterprise-level artificial intelligence platform drives digital
marketing campaigns from start to finish for some of the world’s
leading brands. Albert liberates businesses from the data and
technology complexities of digital marketing—not just by
replicating their existing efforts, but by executing them at a pace
and scale not possible by human teams. “He” accomplishes this by
wading through mass amounts of data, converting this data into
insights, and autonomously acting on these insights, across
channels, devices and formats, in real time. Brands such as Harley
Davidson, EVISU, Cosabella, Dole Asia, and Made.com credit Albert
with significantly increased sales, an accelerated path to revenue,
the ability to make more informed investment decisions, and reduced
operational costs. Visit albert.ai.
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Channel V MediaGretel Going,
212-680-0179gretel@channelvmedia.com
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