Customer Story

How Printemps drives 3x more customer engagement with rich messaging 

Discover how this French department store leverages RCS and Rich SMS to create personalized shopping experiences that boost engagement and loyalty.
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Overview

Challenge: Keep customers engaged with innovative digital experiences

Solution: Use RCS and Rich SMS to enhance the customer experience

Results: Dramatically improved customer engagement and conversions

3x
more redirects with RCS than Rich SMS
3x
higher read rate with RCS than email
78%
response rate with Rich SMS

Company

Printemps

Product

RCS

Industries

Retail

Country

France

Founded in 1865, Printemps is one of France’s oldest and most iconic department stores. They’ve used innovative physical retail experiences to engage customers over the last century and a half — think artificial ski slopes and firework displays in the heart of Paris. 

Then, as online shopping became more popular, Printemps began to explore digital experiences to engage customers. The luxury retailer partnered with Sinch in 2017 to send their first SMS marketing campaigns, and they now send over 12 million texts a year. 

Boosting sales with Black Friday messaging campaigns 

After refreshing their brand in 2022, Printemps wanted an omnichannel customer communications strategy that would allow them to create more innovative campaigns.  

Sinch helped Printemps develop a Black Friday campaign using two messaging channels — Rich SMS and RCS — to increase holiday sales. 

Here’s how it worked: 

  • The Rich SMS campaign included a link to a landing page with holiday deals 
  • The RCS campaign featured all of the holiday deals in the message itself and linked to shopping category pages. 

The RCS campaign enticed shoppers with deals up front and produced three times more redirects than the Rich SMS campaign.  

Printemps and Sinch launched several other RCS and Rich SMS campaigns, including one to encourage more loyalty card downloads. Though both channels drove loyalty card downloads, RCS drove more than three times more downloads than traditional SMS. 

Personalizing their Back-to-School campaign 

Printemps faced a new challenge with their 2024 Back-to-School campaign: how do you help someone pick out the perfect jacket without ever meeting them?  

Printemps developed RCS and Rich SMS campaigns — this time with more interactive elements. 

Here’s how it worked: 

1. The conversational RCS experience 

For customers with RCS-compatible phones, a personal stylist chatbot helped them find a new jacket. They could reply with who they were shopping for, the occasion, words to describe their dream jacket, and more. 

Then, the RCS personal stylist shared personalized jacket recommendations and a Back-to-School offer. 

2. The swipeable Rich SMS experience 

Customers without RCS capabilities received a Rich SMS message that linked to a page of jacket images. They could swipe right on products they liked and left on those they didn’t, just like the popular dating app Tinder.  

When customers swiped through all of the jacket images, they could view product pages of the jackets they liked. 

Both campaigns generated strong results: 

  • The RCS campaign had 75% read rate 
  • The Rich SMS campaign had a 78% response rate 

The RCS campaign encouraged more customers to visit Printemps’ site, with two times more redirects than the Rich SMS campaign. 

Which channel is better for customer engagement? 

RCS and Rich SMS are both strong messaging channels with higher average engagement rates than traditional SMS. But Printemps’ team is most excited by the interactive features and conversational experience of RCS. 

“The RCS channel proved to be particularly powerful, and we intend to fully integrate it into our strategy,” Sikou said. “Thanks to a robust infrastructure, we are ready for the industrialization of our campaigns, thus maximizing engagement, conversion, and loyalty.” 

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