Tara Jarmon integrates WhatsApp for greater customer loyalty

On the occasion of Retail's key autumn event - the NRF Europe 2025 - our CMO Sandra Fernandes took to the stage alongside two of our customers: Anne-Laure Chauveau, Digital & Data Manager at Tara Jarmon, and Benoît Gibier, Chief Digital Officer at Millesima.

Half an hour of discussion rich in innovation and new approaches for CRM teams! While Benoît Gibier highlighted the use of Predictive AI in the daily orchestration of Millesima's CRM strategy, Anne-Laure Chauveau presented the reasons that led her to integrate WhatsApp as a new CRM channel at Tara Jarmon.

WhatsApp was emerged as a challenger to already established CRM channels and is becoming an essential lever for customer communication and loyalty. Mobile, direct and conversational, the app offers brands a new channel to reach their customers wherever they are with personalized, visual and engaging exchanges, all the while cutting through the uninterrupted flow of communications received daily via email marketing. A look back at the interview with Anne-Laure Chauveau during the event ⬇️

Could you introduce the Tara Jarmon brand?

A.L. Chauveau: Tara Jarmon Jarmon is a premium French ready-to-wear brand. What set us apart is the extensive use of prints, colors and structured cuts in our collections. We therefore attract a target audience of active women, who have standards for themselves and the brands she chooses.

What is the CRM strategy implemented at Tara Jarmon ?

A.L Chauveau: At Tara Jarmon, the objective of our CRM strategy is first and foremost to create a lasting relationship with our customers and to guide them throughout their journey with us. In other words, the CRM team acts as the retail salesperson, but in a digital space. Currently, we maintain high communication frequency through two main channels : email marketing and SMS. To reduce this marketing pressure, we started by implementing marketing automation through automatic scenarios. To continue reducing this pressure reduction, we were looking for new channels that would allow us to complement email and SMS, and address our customers more personally.

What convinced you that WhatsApp could become an important channel for your customer relationship ?

A.L Chauveau: Customer behavior is evolving dramatically. It is increasingly difficult to attract their attention due to the high volume of marketing messages from all brands marketing pressure but also because nothing seems "new" or different. WhatsApp comes at a time when brands need to create a sense of closeness with their customers and to become part of their daily lives.

We're convinced that we will acquire fewer customers in the coming years and that our loyal customers, who alone drive 50% of our revenue, will be key to our strategy. This is why we want our customers to be as qualified as possible. WhatsApp therefore becomes a loyalty channel for Tara Jarmon, driven by the proximity it implies. 

How do you envision the integration of WhatsApp alongside your current channels like email and SMS? What will be its role ?

A.L Chauveau: Email marketing is and will remain our brand's number 1 CRM channel. It is used for presenting new products, promotions and key brand moments overall. SMS is more specifically used to send reminders. It's a lever that works really well for in-store sales at Tara Jarmon.

I contrast to email and SMS, WhatsApp will not have a "mass marketing" aim. It will be a hyghly selective, almost VIP channel. We envision offering personal shopping services, early access to sales and promotions...: personalized advice for each customer in a channel they use daily. WhatsApp will not be an additional push for Tara Jarmon but a creator of CRM conversations.

What do you hope to gain on the CRM side : more proximity, speed, personalization, and other marketing KPIs ? 

A.L Chauveau: The addition of WhatsApp to our channels quite honestly aims to increase customer loyalty to our brand. And to reach this goal, we're focusing on increased CRM personalization. We want each customer to feel that she is an integral part of the brand, that we're not just sending her generic promotions, but rather personalized attention. The responsiveness and proximity that WhatsApp enables are what set us apart... Our customers will be able to have real conversations with our teams!

What benefits do you think your customers will get from this channel in terms of experience and relationship with the brand ?

A.L. Chauveau: The key benefit for our customers will be to receive fewer generic messages, in favor of more content that reflects their preferences. For example, looking at the behavior of certain Tara Jarmon customers, we have customers who exclusively buy printed-style pieces. These customers absolutely never buy "essential" products. Conversely, we have customers who only buy essentials and never products with prints. Today when we launch a new collection, all customers receive the entire messages adapted to both profiles and each will receive the pieces from the new collection that match their purchasing habits. WhatsApp has a more human and personal side that other channels don't have and opens an exclusive conversation with our customers.

What does the future hold for WhatsApp in CRM and customer marketing?

A.L Chauveau: WhatsApp will become a major player in retail in CRM, and even more so in the premium fashion sector, where the customer is becoming (finally!) just as important as the product. We must refocus our efforts, because the customer is at the heart of everything: the product, the strategy and the communication. At Tara Jarmon, WhatsApp is a new channel with its own identity and objectives, it's not a duplicate of the CRM strategy already in place, but an extension.
It's a channel that enables responsiveness and "genuine exchanges". With WhatsApp, our ambition is to move from relational marketing to conversational marketing. We want to create value through the experience we offer customers. On the store side, loyalty comes through our customers' exchanges with our salespeople. This is a relationship we couldn't implement digitally until now, but with the integration of WhatsApp into our CRM strategy, we hope to bridge this gap !