Bert’s Bikes & Fitness and Century Cycles Aim to Better Connect with New and Existing Customers
GOLDEN, COLO., April 28, 2021 — Ascent360 announced today that Ohio-based Century Cycles and Western New York’s Bert’s Bikes & Fitness have adopted the Ascent360 Data Driven Marketing Platforms. Both shops chose Ascent360 for its powerful capabilities for making 1:1 connections with every customer and seamless integration with Lightspeed POS.
As with most bicycle retailers, customer engagement has been a challenge throughout the COVID-19 pandemic for Bert’s Bikes and Century Cycles. The inability to hold traditional events or even casually chat with customers hanging out in shops made it difficult to nurture customer relationships. Scott Buelter, CEO at Ascent360, said that the Ascent360 platform provides an easy workaround for pandemic-related interaction barriers and a powerful marketing platform for keeping customers engaged as they return to their other regular activities following the pandemic.
Bert’s Bikes & Fitness has seven locations and is approaching its 50th anniversary in 2023, so it’s a long-time fixture in Western New York. Stephanie Bucalo, Customer Relationship Manager, at Bert’s Bikes, said that they switched to the Ascent360 platform because general emails simply weren’t cutting it during the pandemic. “We realized that we need to be much more strategic with our marketing messages since general offers and information don’t capture the attention of riders with specific interests in mountain biking, gravel riding, e-bikes or fitness equipment. For example, we’re known for ebikes, which make it easy for people who haven’t biked in many years to start riding comfortably again. Ascent360 will help us share messages that will be useful and interesting to our ebike customers,” said Bucalo. She also noted that Ascent360 should be a big help in promoting the shops’ programs for women. “Women customers regularly tell us how they feel excluded or patronized at other shops, so we’re really trying to provide a positive experience and build a women’s cycling community with group rides and clinics.” Bucalo said that Bert’s bikes initially plans to employ Ascent360’s post purchase, service reminder and bike anniversary campaigns using Lightspeed data.
Century Cycles has three stores spread across the Cleveland and Akron metro areas. With a mission of helping people to enjoy bicycling as much as possible, the shops serve all types of riders, from high-end road bike enthusiasts to kids biking to school. Kevin Madzia, IT Manager, at Century Cycles said that the shops have been happy with Lightspeed since they started using it 10 years ago, but that the stores have struggled to stay connected with customers after they purchase a bike. “We are excited to use our Lightspeed data to provide customers with communications that are relevant to each of them,” explained Madzia. “We think that the Ascent360 post-purchase, loyal customer and lapsed customer campaigns will be a great way to spread enthusiasm about biking in the community while keeping our stores top of mind.”
About Ascent360:
Ascent360 is a leading Data Driven Marketing Platform for mid-market business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. Founded in 2013, Ascent360 helps businesses understand their customer base, nurture authentic lifelong relationships and drive sales by sending messages that matter. Today we manage over 150 databases for clients across brand, retail, e-commerce and resort segments. Ascent360 seamlessly integrates with over 100 data systems, and our sophisticated segmentation and data hygiene engine provides a clean, unified view of customers. Clients rely on our library of proven, automated marketing campaigns to easily send personalized 1:1 messages at scale.
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For more information, visit https://ascent360.com/ or contact Heather Knutson: 720.728.3362 or hknutson@ascent360.com.
