Sears holds on to Acxiom for customer analytics

Sears Holdings Corp. has renewed its longstanding partnership with Acxiom Corp. as part of an effort to improve customer relationships and marketing efforts.

The 50+–year-old marketing services contract has been renewed for another three years. Under the agreement, Acxiom will continue to provide consumer analytics and insights, CRM and customer data integration. Sears' goal is to improve the customer experience and offer more timely and relevant direct marketing messages across multiple touchpoints.

“Sears' objectives include the need to integrate their communications and have their relationships across channels — online, offline, catalog —effectively be the sum of those communications,” said Jim Harold, Acxiom's retail industry executive. “We believe there are areas where we can help them better communicate across channels so the sum of their customer experiences are a more integrated set of experiences, and that calls for a whole spectrum of personalization across channels. We have to continue to better segment and understand who their customers are.”

Harold added that another goal, from Acxiom's perspective, is making sure Sears has in-depth data on how customer behavior differs depending on geographic location and the demographics of the customers in that area.

“Sears Holdings has a long-standing relationship with Acxiom, and we rely on them to help us build and maintain lasting relationships with our customers,” said Kurt Kendall, VP, Sears Holdings, in a statement. “They help us better understand our customers, which allows us to take a large step forward in meeting that goal of maintaining those relationships.”

A February letter to shareholders from Sears Chairman Edward Lampert reiterated that goal, naming “creating lasting relationships with customers” as one of five key pillars of Sears' strategy.

Harold said that Sears is, and has been, one of Acxiom's top three retail clients.