Our customers

In an increasingly interconnected world, our customers demand a pleasant and convenient shopping experience tailored to their needs. At Inditex, we are committed to fully integrating our brick-and-mortar and online stores with the aim of providing an innovative and multi-channel service that helps us achieve our model of designing everything we offer based on what our customers want.

At Inditex, we are committed to fully integrating all of our sales channels, making it easier for our customers to find our merchandise quickly and efficiently

Inditex’s main goal is to satisfy customers’ demands. For that reason, our top priority is to offer them responsibly made fashion and to deliver a satisfying shopping experience to increasingly selective consumers.

Our customers are more connected, and they require an easier, more streamlined and flexible ways to shop. That is why, at Inditex, we are committed to fully integrating all our sales channels, whether brick-and-mortar or online, offering consumers quick and convenient access to our merchandise.

Under this model, customers have the option to request home delivery or in-store collection of their online purchases, and returns. Additionally, when customers do not find a specific product in store, they can purchase it online and request delivery to the most convenient location.

To enhance our customer service we are working to continue improving the shopping experience. In 2016, we made furthered progress toward integrating our sales channels with a strategy that provides new buying options that fullfill our customers’ demands.

This year, we took a new step toward integrating shopping online and in-store by launching mobile payments in Spain for all of our brands. Online receipt is part of the service, which helps do away with paper receipts.

In 2016, we also embarked on various projects to provide an increasingly customized experience. We have launched two trial projects: digital tags and interactive fitting rooms.

These upgrades were made possible with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. After developing it for five years, in 2016 the Group finished the deployment in all Zara stores and is now implementing it in other brands including Massimo Dutti and Uterqüe.

At Inditex, we work to contribute to the Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially in Sustainable Development Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, the area with the biggest impact on our customers.

INDITEX AND THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS		INDITEX’S CONTRIBUTION
	Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.	Our commitment to our customers is to maintain their trust over the long term by offering them the responsible, sustainably manufactured fashion they are looking for. We work to deliver a satisfying shopping experience while at the same time offering consumers information about the products to help them decide what to buy and to foster a responsible consumption model.

Zara employee at the Fifth Avenue store in New York (USA).

1. INNOVATION IN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

As a result of integrating all our sales channels, we have worked to develop technology designed to meet our customers’ needs. For example, in 2016 we developed and tested projects including digital tags, interactive fitting rooms and quick check-out registers.

Digital tags help our teams match items and recommend complete outfits. This initiative also gives customers information about the number of items available in a more visual and attractive way.

The goal of interactive fitting rooms, is to reduce customers’ waiting time when our staff bring them other sizes, colours or styles when trying on our clothes. With this system, users would no longer have to leave the fitting room to find the items. The service is based on touch screens that offer customers a complete shopping experience by giving them information about the products available in-store or providing the option to buy them online.

NEW PAYMENT METHODS

To provide the speed and flexibility expected by today’s customers, we have introduced new tools that allow us to streamline the purchase process, reducing waiting times and offering new options for buying, exchanging or returning products.

Mobile payments

In 2016, all Inditex Group brands implemented mobile payment system, a service that kicked off last September in Spain and is available in 15 countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy and France.

This new service is available in the mobile apps of our eight brands, as well as in a new Group app called InWallet, which centralizes purchases made at all Inditex brands.

This initiative is designed to improve customers’ shopping experience, simplifying the activation process, as well as purchases or returns. With this system, customers simply link the credit cards to their login accounts in order to make payments by mobile phone using a highly secure, QR code.

Mobile payment has an additional benefit– the integrated management of online and off-line purchase receipts, which are automatically saved to each customer’s account, are accessible at all times and can simplify the process of returning items. The system thus helps eliminate paper receipts. Thanks to this innovation, Zara became the first Inditex brand to eliminate physical receipts in its stores and for orders placed on Zara.com in Spain in 2016. It is also introducing this initiative in the United States and the United Kingdom. This new paperless system will be gradually expanded to all other brands and markets in 2017.

Buy online, pay at store

Pull&Bear and Bershka have taken another step towards offering a fully integrated experience: customers have the option to purchase their products online and pay in cash when they pick items up from the store. This allows people to shop online without a credit card.

QUICK CHECK-OUT REGISTERS

Quick check-out registers, are being tested out at some Zara and Massimo Dutti stores. Customers can use these registers to perform quickly the purchase by themselves.

This initiative streamlines the entire purchasing process. Items are first automatically scanned and shown on the screen for confirmation. Customers can then pay by credit card or with their mobile phone. The system can print out coupons or the original purchase receipt, which can also be saved on their phones.

Mobile check-out systems

Inditex has also developed other options for streamlining the sales process. At its new flagship on Paseo de Gracia in Barcelona, Massimo Dutti launched mobile check-outs, a service allowing customers to pay by mobile phone without having to go to the check-out registers.

Inditex continues to develop their mechanisms that enhance customers purchasing experience.

Zara SoHo employee at the store in New York (USA).

RFID

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, one of the Group’s most notable initiatives, forms the backbone of many other projects to improve the shopping experience. RFID allows garments to be individually identified, from the moment they are fitted with security tags at our logistic platforms, until they are sold. This reflects a leap forward in the quality of the service we give our customers, because it allows any item to be located quickly and with precision at all times.

In 2016, the Group finished implementing this technology at Zara stores. Meanwhile, Massimo Dutti and Uterqüe have already introduced the innovation, installing the technology needed to identify each individual article. The system is already up and running in trial mode at some Massimo Dutti stores. Both brands will continue to roll out the system in 2017, and Pull&Bear will install this technology at distribution centres and outlets.

The Group aims to gradually expand the RFID project to other brands, with the goal of installing it everywhere by 2020.

INNOVATIVE CUSTOMER SERVICE PROJECTS

In 2016, Inditex finished DEPLOYING RFID technology at all Zara stores and began introducing the system at Massimo Dutti and Uterqüe

Inditex employee at the New York (USA) offices.

Information security and privacy

Protecting our customers’ personal data is an absolute priority for all of our Group’s divisions. Inditex has a Security Committee in charge of deploying the strategy to ensure that personal information remains protected in all company processes and tools that use this type of data, establishing necessary measures and protocols.

At Inditex we have our own Technology Centre located at the Group’s headquarters in Arteixo (Spain). This Centre serves as a laboratory for the different innovations and new technologies which are tested by the Group. This facility, designed to withstand physical or geological incidents, keeps new tools secure while ensuring the highest level of continuity for our processes.

To that end, this technology platform has a backup system for computers and systems that ensures which the Group’s activity can proceed at all times. The Technology Centre is TIER IV and LEED Platinum certified. It is the only data processing centre in the world to have the highest level of certification in both infrastructure reliability and environmental sustainability.

Immediate and multi-channel replies

Our customers’ comments and suggestions are crucial when designing new products, but they also drive our customer service improvements in all sales channels. For that reason, all Inditex brands have in-house and outsourced teams to reply to the requests and questions sent to us by our customers in the 93 markets where we do business.

In 2016, our agents responded to more than 17 million requests by phone, email, chat and social media from customers who asked for information primarily about our brands, products, return policies, the status of an order or specific questions about a particular store, such as its business hours.

Additionally, to give our customers more comprehensive service, the Group offers the Affinity Card for shopping at all Inditex brands. In 2016, more than 92,243 people joined this initiative, which already includes almost 1.1 million users.

CUSTOMER RELATIONS IN 2016

FOLLOWERS of Inditex Group’s brands on social media in 2016

		Zara	Pull&Bear	Massimo Dutti	Bershka	Stradivarius	Oysho	Zara Home	Uterqüe	GROUP TOTAL
	Facebook	25,233,087	5,855,332	3,223,544	9,711,718	4,548,412	2,415,414	1,847,988	241,658	53,077,153
	Instagram	15,731,099	2,555,276	848,493	3,806,775	2,868,474	965,858	1,355,834	180,530	28,312,339
	Twitter	1,229,686	337,339	69,400	411,351	216,492	101,316	79,939	17,130	2,462,653
	Weibo (China)	706,323	50,173	37,238	37,853	29,453	24,459	not available	not available	885,499
	VK (Russia)	272,808	62,550	16,886	113,873	55,573	30,930	9,418	not available	562,038
	Pinterest	330,341	38,217	18,478	48,495	35,018	13,490	62,204	2,113	548,356
	Youtube	33,481	26,435	7,766	19,891	5,496	2,903	n,d,	220	96,192
Total by brand		43,536,825	8,925,322	4,221,805	14,149,956	7,758,918	3,554,370	3,355,383	441,651	85,958,068

OVERVIEW OF OUR CUSTOMER SERVICE IN 2016

	CUSTOMER CONTACTS	COMPLAINT FORMS *	QUALITY OF SERVICE **	LEVEL OF SERVICE **
Zara	10,857,950	3,451	80/100	96%
Pull&Bear	1,013,779	426	83/100	88%
Massimo Dutti	901,289	222	87/100	94%
Bershka	1,071,658	462	88/100	85%
Stradivarius	706,019	436	94/100	92%
Oysho	404,593	294	83/100	95%
Zara Home	410,807	97	83/100	97%
Uterqüe	63,566	50	90/100	92%
TOTAL	15,429,661	5,438

(*) Complaint forms submitted in Spain
** Incidents resolved upon first contact with customer
***Percentage of total contacts made by phone, email, chat and messages

Affinity card user statistics

	2016	2015	GROWTH
Total accounts	1,099,007	1,032,259	66,748
New accounts	92,243	82,616	9,627
Receipts	6,333,372	5,732,301	601,071
Website visits	796,433	694,796	101,637