Leroy Merlin turns its customers into ambassadors to support its phygital brand strategy

Pioneering company of the Adeo Group, Leroy Merlin is currently the leading retailer in France across all distribution channels in the home improvement and living space market, with 30,000 employees and 144 stores.

• Use the power of UGC to enrich the product catalog and boost conversion
• Engage the customer community using multiple levers
• Facilitate exchanges between different communities of customers and ambassadors

At Leroy Merlin, customer satisfaction is at the heart of the strategy. This is why the brand has been in the top 3 favorites of the French for years. In-store, the relationship with customers is strong, and Leroy Merlin wants to replicate that same connection online.

To achieve this, Leroy Merlin has implemented a phygital strategy that transforms its customers into true brand and product ambassadors. The marketing teams use various levers: loyalty programs, in-store events, etc. But they needed integrated tools to track all these activities and measure their impact on loyalty and sales.

Content creation is also crucial for Leroy Merlin. The teams strongly believe in user-generated content (UGC) and wanted to facilitate the creation and publication of customer videos. The goal: enrich product pages and build customer trust.

• Engage the customer community by integrating with various CRM tools
• Collect authentic customer videos and integrate them into product pages
• Facilitate exchanges between ambassador customers and expert moderators

After choosing Skeepers to collect and share video testimonials from its employees, Leroy Merlin wanted to enrich its product pages with videos made by customers. The goal: reassure site visitors with authentic product usage and reviews. Skeepers helps identify the best brand ambassadors, facilitates video creation step by step, automates editing and quality optimization, and publishes the videos directly on product pages.

Leroy Merlin also uses Skeepers’ Brand Communities solution to engage its community of enthusiasts. The platform was chosen for its functional richness and its ability to integrate with existing tools (CRM, gamification, loyalty, etc.). “It’s a 100% API-enabled solution that allows us to develop personalized journeys for users,” explains Ines Leleu, project manager in charge of the Leroy Merlin community. For example, community members earn Leroy&moi loyalty discounts by being active on the platform.

Another example: during thematic digital events organized by the brand, participants are encouraged to continue the conversation on the platform and ask live questions. Quizzes are launched to win gift cards. Leroy Merlin also benefits from surveys among its community to better understand its members.

Relational marketing also happens in-store: Leroy Merlin organizes events in its retail locations, mixing top customers with geo-located ambassadors. These contacts lead to new member recruitment for the community.

• An omnichannel engagement platform at the heart of the brand’s relational strategy
• A unique experience with personalized journeys that retain the best ambassadors
• Saves time through the integration of various customer community engagement tools

Nearly 300 customer videos were collected in two months through Skeepers. Analysis of the video engagement rate shows a direct impact on sales. Comparing the group of customers who watched a video with those who did not reveals a 31.4% increase in conversion rate for the product.

With Brand Communities Leroy Merlin can activate all the tools needed to engage its community in a fully phygital approach. Thanks to gamification, nearly 500 members join the community each month. The value-added content shared with members gets thousands of views, while links to the product catalog help generate sales.

In the short term, Leroy Merlin’s community members and customer video creators will merge. With the integration of Skeepers solutions, everyone will share the same space, increasing synergies and reinforcing the sense of belonging to the brand’s ambassador community.