Here at Endear, we remain single-mindedly focused on our mission: enhancing the brick-and-mortar and ecommerce customer experiences through customer relationships. How we make this a reality is influenced entirely by you — our community of client brands and dedicated retail teams. 

Everything we do at Endear is a function of close attention to feedback across our user base, whether it’s rethinking how we structure a module of our platform or dedicating development resources to revamp a feature. Throughout the last quarter, we have heard retail teams loud and clear: 

1. Third-party platform data grows increasingly finicky. Ecomm apps feel increasingly siloed. 
2. The comprehensive, centralized nature of Endear’s CRM feels especially valuable as a single source of truth for retail teams who aren’t usually privy to any data outside their specific store. 
3. Today, retail teams want to store even more diverse customer data in Endear. 

In response, our team asks the important questions: How do we implement feedback within our roadmap to generate the greatest ROI for retail teams? How do we bring Endear to the retail teams who will benefit most? How do we continually grow our integrations and offerings? 

With this, Endear got to work in Q2, putting our heads down to build out three new releases — across integrations, AI, and self-serve reporting — that retail teams can enjoy in months to come. 

One of the greatest roadblocks to adopting Endear is surprisingly human. Time and time again, retailers tell us, “I’ve never serviced customers before, so I don’t know what to say. How should I reply to this message?” Gaps in previous retail experience or day-to-day creativity of customer engagement hinder sales efficiency and connection with shoppers. 

That’s why we’re rolling out Endear AI, an AI-powered feature that: 

1. Automatically suggests messages to customers based on purchase history, geographic location and proximity to your stores, and more
2. Jumpstarts that first touchpoint between retailer and shopper, inspiring confidence in your retail teams
3. Streamlines and accelerates the overall customer engagement process

Even more, understanding a customer’s style preferences or the recommendations they’ll love within seconds gives your retail team a notable advantage over the competition. 

Endear AI ultimately speaks to our larger philosophy around a technical shift touching every single industry. AI cannot replace sales associates. However, when a retail team strategically leverages AI within their outreach, they become that much more efficient in their roles and prepared to sell expertly to customers. 

Endear AI is currently in its beta release stage. 

Flexible reporting enables retail teams to dive into their data, gauge each sales associate’s performance, and understand their customer base from every angle. In the past, the Endear team has generated countless reports on behalf of our customers. We understood precisely why they needed them, so we took every request seriously. 

Today, we’re happy to announce retail teams can look forward to Endear’s revamped, self-serve reporting. With this rollout, retailers will have the power to: 

1. Generate their own reports on demand across not just messages and sales but also customers, orders, and products
2. Keep them updated with real-time omnichannel data
3. View and analyze reports anywhere, anytime

To date, Endear offers a long list of integrations, from industry staples like Klaviyo and Attentive to beloved POS systems like Shopify and NewStore. However, what if your retail team relies on proprietary tech or in-house builds? How can teams with non-standard technical stacks begin to leverage Endear? 

Luckily, in Q3, retail teams can look forward to two ways to bring Endear’s omnichannel clienteling and CRM into the fold: 

1. The Endear API — Teams will be able to utilize Endear’s custom APIs and build integrations for themselves. 
2. User-friendly CSV import — With a new CSV integration, teams now have the power to effortlessly import exported files from an external system. On top of our standard customer CSV import, brands can use our CSV Importer integration to import orders, products, and any other type of data records they want store in the app.

No more waiting for pre-built offerings. Endear can adapt to any retail team’s unique data setup for rich, centralized customer profiles at their fingertips.

While developing these upcoming rollouts, we continue to refine our understanding of which retail teams see the greatest returns from Endear’s clienteling platform and CRM. To date, these teams unanimously demonstrate two qualities: 

1. Tangible retail presence — Simply put, your brand operates three or more brick-and-mortar store locations staffed by sales associates. 
2. Dedication to your sales associates — You must have conviction around the impact of your sales associates. They shouldn’t passively receive customers. Their job is to actively engage, connect, and sell — both face-to-face and virtually over email and text.

The retail teams who see the greatest ROI from Endear view their sales associates as a vital resource. In comparison, software like Endear is only software — a helpful tool, not a comprehensive strategy. Ultimately, Endear is just one way to maximize the potential, performance, and value of your sales associates.