Merkur, Slovenia’s leading DIY retailer, has spent the past decade building a loyalty programme that now reaches more than 350,000 members across 24 retail centres and a strong online shop.
But scale alone was not enough. Fragmented, outdated data made it difficult to recognise changing customer behaviour, respond at the right moment and prove which loyalty activities were generating growth.
Together with Agilcon, Merkur connected customer data, loyalty mechanics, marketing activation and performance insights in one Salesforce environment.
Within 15 months, sales from loyalty programme members grew by 24.7%, average purchase value increased by 16.4% and the number of active members rose by 25%.
The challenge: Scale without a clear customer view
Merkur’s decade-old loyalty programme still relied largely on physical cards before Salesforce was introduced.
Customer data was spread across marketing, sales, support, retail stores and the ERP system. It was difficult to connect, often outdated and unavailable as one reliable customer view.
Segments and campaigns required heavy manual work, and the data could already be weeks old by the time customers received them.
Merkur wanted to improve data quality, recognise more customers and give its teams faster access to relevant insights. The ambition was clear: turn loyalty into a measurable source of customer understanding, relevant engagement and revenue growth.
The solution: Turning fragmented data into connected loyalty
Merkur entered the project with clear expectations: a digital programme built on reliable, compliant data, delivered quickly and ready to support personalisation throughout the customer journey.
Merkur came to the project with a clear business vision. They knew what they wanted to achieve, and our role was to translate that ambition into a Salesforce setup that could deliver in practice.
Stana Džudović
Solution Consultant, Agilcon
Together, Agilcon and Merkur built a connected environment where teams can unify customer profiles, create actionable segments, manage loyalty benefits, automate personalised communication and track commercial performance.
The solution combines Salesforce Data Cloud, Loyalty Management, Marketing Cloud and analytics, integrated with Merkur’s established ERP system. Customer data is unified and ready for activation, loyalty mechanics such as statuses, points, cashback, coupons and benefits are managed centrally, and personalised communication can run across the customer lifecycle.
Analytics provide a clear view of programme performance and commercial impact, while the ERP integration keeps core operations stable and customer-facing processes flexible.
Turning customer behaviour into the next best action
The business value comes from recognising changes in customer behaviour and responding with the right offer.
When a previously active member starts purchasing less often, Merkur can move them into a dormant or higher-risk segment and trigger a more relevant coupon or incentive. The team can track whether the offer was redeemed and how it performed, then quickly adjust its value, timing or format.
Merkur can also use product affinity to identify cross-sell, upsell and replacement opportunities. If a customer previously bought a washing machine, purchase history and product relationships can help determine when to promote a relevant accessory, a higher-value model or a replacement, instead of sending the same offer to everyone.
Active members can be rewarded for continued engagement, while less active customers receive a stronger reason to return. Past behaviour now helps determine what Merkur promotes, which benefit it offers and when the message is sent.
With all customer data in one place, we no longer spend time trying to connect it. We know who the customer is and can move from insight to a personalised action much faster.
Robert Petrič
Director of CRM, Analytics and Loyalty, Merkur
Results after 15 months
The impact was visible in both customer behaviour and commercial performance.
- 24.7% increase in sales from loyalty programme members
- 16.4% increase in average order value
- 25% increase in active members
- 7.1 % increase in the number of purchases
More members were active, transactions became more valuable, and a larger share of customers could be recognised and engaged with relevant communication.
The change was operational too. Segments and campaigns that once took weeks to prepare can now be launched in minutes. Data is continuously updated, marketing teams can act more independently, and results can be compared across segments almost in real time.
Merkur can now see which coupons, benefits and loyalty mechanics drive the strongest response, adjust them faster and invest in what delivers the greatest customer and commercial value.
What comes next? With this insight and control in place, Merkur can move towards deeper product-level personalisation, location-triggered offers in retail centres and broader use of AI to make interactions more relevant and decisions faster.
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