Blue Nile’s crown jewel: Ultra-personalized sales and service

Picking out a diamond ring is a lengthy, highly personal process, whether it happens in conventional stores or through jewelry e-commerce providers like Blue Nile. For consumers who prefer online to offline, a successful buying experience demands a deep reservoir of trust.

Blue Nile’s team of sales and customer support specialists were well-equipped to educate customers about diamond quality and cut, types of ring settings, and different metal options. What they lacked was a CRM platform to centralize customer preferences, past purchases, and intent signals so they could deliver more personalized recommendations and shopping experiences. One consequence: high no-show rates to customer showroom appointments.

Blue Nile knew it needed a CRM solution to better understand and engage customers. By adopting Freshworks’ suite of customer service products, the Blue Nile team gained a fuller picture of each customer journey, enabling them to offer a better, more personal experience while boosting sales and cutting back on appointment no-show rates.

Having tools that build customer trust is crucial, says Mike Hopkins, senior VP of sales and service at Blue Nile. “To have customers feel comfortable purchasing from an online company is an underrated competitive advantage.”

The company

Blue Nile is the world's leading online diamond jeweler, specializing in creating handcrafted engagement rings, wedding rings, and other fine diamond jewelry. Though the company primarily operates online, it offers customers the opportunity to visit one of its many physical showrooms to explore its jewelry.

The challenge

Buying jewelry is a complex process for most customers; brands need to establish trust and credibility to close sales. Blue Nile aimed to tackle this challenge by creating personalized buying experiences for customers.

While Blue Nile had a skilled and knowledgeable sales team, they lacked insight into customer preferences and behaviors, which were crucial to personalization. Previous tools and systems didn’t track touchpoints during the buying process; when shoppers bailed on showroom appointments, sales teams had to engage all over again.

The solution

To build a more personalized shopping experience for customers, Blue Nile set out to equip sales and customer support teams with better tools to create fuller customer profiles. They were looking for a CRM platform to:

• Unify customer information, including purchase preferences, past sales, and previous interactions

• Automate personalized interactions, such as text messages to confirm upcoming showroom appointments and reduce no-show rates

• Increase likelihood of sales through more data-informed communication with customers 

With Freshsales and Freshdesk, Blue Nile better understands its customers and delivers more personalized experiences. Customers that schedule showroom appointments receive text messages reminding them about their appointments and encouraging them to reschedule if needed. Before adopting Freshworks, the no-show rate at showroom appointments was close to 50%. Now it’s down to 20%. That’s helped the company improve conversion rates, boost sales, and reduce staffing costs.

Impact

With Freshworks, Blue Nile was able to get a full view of who its customers are, understanding their unique needs, preferences, and purchase trends. This allowed the Blue Nile team to give informed recommendations at each step of the purchase and support journey.