Failing to plan is planning to fail.

When it comes to clienteling, the stakes are too high for retailers to wing it. As you’ve seen from our recent Black Friday/Cyber Monday Recap data, clienteling is the key to increasing sales. You want to walk into 2025 ready to charm your customers’ socks off (and maybe sell them new ones). The brands that succeed will be the ones that use the last few months of 2024 wisely—cleaning up their data, analyzing trends, and fine-tuning their clienteling strategies.

Sounds like a lot of work? Not to worry! Preparing for next-level clienteling doesn’t require a crystal ball, just a bit of focus, some elbow grease, and a CRM that doesn’t leave you in the lurch, doing all the hard work manually. Here’s how you can use the rest of this year to hit the ground running and make 2025 your most personalized and profitable year yet.

Let’s start with the unglamorous truth: your clienteling game is only as strong as the data it’s built on. Think of customer data like a closet—if it’s a mess of duplicate files, outdated information, and way-too-unspecific client notes (like “Loves clothes?” really?), how are you supposed to find anything? A little cleanup now can save you a ton of headaches down the line.

Steps to Get Organized:

• Remove duplicates and deadweight: No one needs three separate profiles for the same customer. Merge duplicates and delete outdated entries.
• Fill in the blanks: Update customer profiles with missing information like birthdays, purchase history, or favorite product categories.
• Segment smarter: Group customers by key traits—like VIP spenders, seasonal shoppers, or lapsed customers—so you can tailor your outreach.
  
  

Remember when Marie Kondo told us to only keep things that spark joy? Apply the same principle to your customer data. If it’s not accurate, relevant, or actionable, let it go.

The holidays are like a grueling triathlon for retail, and earning amazing customer data is the prize at the end of the finish line. Analyzing how your customers shopped during Q4 can give you invaluable insights for the new year. Did your Cyber Monday SMS campaign crush it? Were scarves the MVP of your winter collection? (Looking at you, “Loves clothes?” guy.)

What to Analyze:

• Top-performing products: Understand what your customers couldn’t resist buying so you can double down in 2025.
• Purchase frequency: Spot the customers who kept coming back versus the one-hit wonders.
• Engagement trends: Did your personalized messages get more clicks than your generic campaigns? (Hint: They absolutely should’ve.)
  
  

Think of your Q4 data like Spotify Wrapped for your store. What were your biggest hits, and who are your top listeners? Use this to shape next year’s playlist – aka, your clienteling strategy.

Speaking of playlists, segmentation is like creating the ultimate mixtape for your customers. The more specific you get, the better your chance of hitting the right note. Not all shoppers are the same, so don’t treat them like they are.

Segmentation Ideas:

• VIPs: High spenders who deserve the red carpet treatment.
• Seasonal Shoppers: Those who only show up for winter coats or summer sandals.
• Lapsed Customers: People who haven’t shopped in a while but might come back with the right nudge.
• Category Fans: Customers who always buy from specific collections (e.g., accessories or shoes).
  
  

With the right segmentation abilities in your CRM, you can filter customers by purchase history, preferences, and even engagement levels. Want to send a New Year’s email to your top 100 spenders? Done. Need to target your “once-a-year” scarf lovers? Easy. Do the “hard work” (note: your software should do this for you) of segmenting your audience ASAP, so you can hit them with targeted messages as early as New Years Day.

Here’s the thing about your existing customers: they already like you enough to spend money with you. That makes them prime candidates for upselling and cross-selling, especially if you use their data to make the experience seamless. Now is the time to know which customers are more likely to go for what upselling offers.

What to Look For:

• Frequently paired products: Which items are often bought together? Think: boots and winter coats or necklaces and earrings.
• Gaps in purchase history: If a customer bought the dress but skipped the matching jacket, that’s your cue.
• Gift givers: Identify customers who buy gifts for others and suggest gift bundles or add-ons.
  
  

For example, track a customer who bought a leather jacket but skipped on related accessories. Send them a personalized message: “Hi Alex! That leather jacket you picked up last month would pair perfectly with our new wool scarves. Want me to set one aside for you?”

Think of upselling and cross-selling less like a forceful ask, and more like what a helpful, stylish friend would do for each of your customers: provide them with fantastic, hyper-personalized recommendations that they just can’t resist. Because to them, it’s something they overlooked and would have purchased in the first place.

Even the best clienteling CRM can’t work magic if your associates don’t know how to use it. The quieter months are a golden opportunity to train your team so they can use clienteling tools like Endear to their full potential.

Training Tips:

• Make it hands-on: Host live training sessions where associates can practice creating customer profiles, sending personalized messages, and tracking results.
• Set clear goals: Encourage associates to use your clienteling software for specific tasks, like upselling at least three customers per week or booking a set number of styling appointments.
• Role-play scenarios: Practice how to handle different customer situations, from first-time shoppers to VIPs.
  
  

Channel your inner Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights: “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose…when it comes to clienteling.” (It’s been a while since we watched the show, but that sounds about right)

If you want to hit the ground running in 2025, now’s the time to put in the work. Clean up your data, analyze trends, segment your customers, find those cross-selling opportunities, and invest in your team. With a little effort now, you’ll be ready to deliver clienteling experiences that delight your customers and drive loyalty all year long.

And if you really want to make it easy? Use Endear. With tools to segment customers, track engagement, and send personalized messages, Endear takes the guesswork out of clienteling. It’s like having a personal assistant for your retail team—one that never takes a coffee break.

So, are you ready to make 2025 your best clienteling year yet? Let’s do this. Because your customers deserve more than just another generic sales pitch—they deserve you.