Chico's FAS Inc. to use SAS Social Media Analytics to understand, predict and act based on intelligence from social media data

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Chico's FAS Inc. to use SAS Social Media Analytics to understand, predict and act based on intelligence from social media data.

SAS, the business analytics, software and services provider, has announced that Chico's FAS Inc. will implement SAS Social Media Analytics to integrate social data across all areas of its business to understand what is being said about Chico's FAS Inc.'s brands and apply this intelligence to decision making. The company will begin by analysing data from Facebook and Twitter.

SAS Social Media Analytics will help the company's three women's retail fashion brands Chico's, White House | Black Market and Soma Intimates - understand, predict and act based on social media data. With the ability to uncover sentiment about key aspects of their business across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, discussion forums, blogs and more, this on-demand software will help the company learn how customers feel about its products and brands, identify key influencers, and understand how social media conversations affect business results. The organisation can immediately apply answers to brand strategies, media placement, public relations and customer service activities.

Using the included SAS Conversation Centre module, Chico's FAS Inc. will also be able to better serve customers engaged in conversations with the company. This module will allow the company to capture tweets in real time and identify those that are significant to the brands based on sentiment and the influence of the Twitter author. Tweets can then be routed to customer-facing personnel to respond.

SAS Social Media Analytics, with its media portal and SAS Conversation Centre applications, is offered as an on-demand solution. Like other SAS Solutions OnDemand, this offering gives business users all the analytical power of SAS with the ability to get the solution up and running quickly.

Chico's FAS Inc. is an existing SAS customer intelligence customer, running customer analytics, reporting and multichannel campaign management through SAS' advanced cloud computing centre. The SAS Social Media Analytics implementation will allow the company to extend its customer insights beyond the boundaries of the brick and mortar, web and call-centre channels it actively analyses and market across and into the social channels where related apparel conversations are occurring.

"Our success is rooted in a heritage of listening to what our consumers want," said Barb Buettin, director of CRM for Chico's FAS Inc. "SAS' ability to help us listen and act upon what our customers are saying beyond the confines of our boutiques is a natural extension of that heritage. It will help ensure our communications are personalised to the needs of our individual customers. SAS Social Media Analytics and SAS Marketing Automation are a natural pairing of capabilities needed to better serve our customers."