Experts Your Way

Founded in 2018, US fitness brand Hydrow provide a connected rowing machine and real-life personal training programme, that provides an entire body workout. For a piece of kit that GQ have called “essentially the Beyoncé of at-home rowers”, and had Vogue saying it was a “non-stop, one-stop machine that does it all”, we were thrilled to partner with them to launch their revolutionary equipment in the UK in summer 2021.

After a successful first year since launch, Blue Square are proud to be a part of Hydrow’s future journey too. A recent extension to our partnership means we’ll continue supporting them in bringing this ground-breaking product to market in the UK through the provision of people, technology and data.

With 50% of UK consumers increasing their focus on physical and mental wellbeing in 2021, Hydrow’s ambition was to offer consumers on this side of the Atlantic a new and dynamic way to do just that for customers, having already established the brand in their native United States.

Having successfully rolled out retail teams in 6 stores within Selfridges and John Lewis, they gave us a new brief – to enhance the customer journey by creating a personalised experience that helps customers to engage with Hydrow in a way most convenient to them.

To meet this brief, we used Blue Square’s proprietary ‘Experts Your Way’ solution, which provides a platform where customers can browse online and speak to a Hydrow expert instantly.

Connecting to a dedicated live studio environment staffed with a team of Hydrow experts via video or instant secure messaging, this solution has helped customers at various points in their journey to purchase, from consideration through to sale, post-sales service and support.

Customers are able to reach this Hydrow Live solution online through the Hydrow website, their social channels, or connect from physical regional experiential events using a QR code.

Essentially, wherever the customer first engages with the Hydrow brand, there are multiple ways to experience the Hydrow product and stay connected through human interaction, both online and offline.

Marie Le-Hur, Marketing Director at Hydrow, praised the solution saying:

One of our ambitions with Hydrow Live, after proudly launching our in-store experience for UK customers in 2021, was to make the entire journey feel seamless for everyone interacting with our brand and products online.

We wanted to offer the best in customer care and demos, a smooth tech solution to power it and a digital experience that would help us to grow our sales and brand advocacy without relying on retail stores to be the only destination for a ‘real’ Hydrow experience.

Fairly standard expectations then! Blue Square have been terrific in partnering with us every step of the way on the Hydrow Live solution, and our customers have been raving about it too.”

With 71% of all calls being answered first time, the technology provided also enables customers to schedule an appointment to speak with an expert at a convenient time too. Once those appointments are scheduled in, we’ve seen an exceptional 100% attendance rate from potential and existing customers.

Experts Your Way also offers customers the ability to book appointments in-store and even to their home for complete flexibility and a humanised service experience that is on the customer’s terms.

This human interaction is where the Experts Your Way solution really comes to life. The tech provides the connection and access, but it’s the people representing the brand in our studio that make this experience what it is.

Thanks to our dedicated in-house Talent Acquisition team, we worked closely with Hydrow to build a team of brand reps who would be the best possible fit for the brand and their target audience.

Tracking and attribution of customer interactions and their impact on sales is enabled by generating unique discount codes, which can be redeemed either online or in retail, for every customer who connects with Hydrow via Experts Your Way.

This gives them the best possible experience when they re-engage with the Hydrow sales and service teams after their initial call, should they opt to go into a physical store after they’ve spoken to our Hydrow reps in the studio.

Carl Aelle, Product Director at Blue Square, said:

‘The Experts Your Way solution was designed to create convenient and personalised experiences for customers and it has been great to see Hydrow customers personalising their experiences through the website, social channels, live events and in store since launch, creating exciting new ways to engage with Hydrow products.’

These many elements have helped us to drive a 30% conversion rate for Hydrow on purchases post-interaction with the Hydrow Live service.

Propensity to purchase for customers after an instore physical demo sits at 30% too, indicating that the virtual experience matches the physical experience for customers. That’s absolutely something we strive for with our Experts Your Way solution.

We’ve been delighted to help Hydrow grow market share in the UK in 2021 and look forward to doing more excellent work alongside them in 2022 and beyond. Intrigued to see it in action? Experience Hydrow Live for yourself here!