Meet Craig Kistler, the Senior Director of Personalization & Experimentation at Signet Jewlers. He is responsible for their seven key brands: Kay, Kay Outlet, Jared, Zales, Zales Outlet, Banter (formerly Piercing Pagoda), and Peoples Jewelers. He is an award-winning CRO and jewelry industry leader.
Given that Craig is someone paving the way for CRO in the jewelry industry -- as the industry as a whole is digitally lagging behind -- I wanted to have an in-depth interview with him to better understand what he's doing. Spoiler, I'd say he's actually running one of the most mature optimization programs I've heard of over the years.
Download the eBook here or read the interview below.
1. Tell us your professional story. Where did you start? How did you get to where you are now?
2. Explain your current role in more detail. What brands are you responsible for?
3. Can you elaborate on Signet’s CRO program at all? e.g., testing velocity, research efforts, your personalization efforts, etc.
4. How mature do you think the jewelry industry is right now relative to digital efforts?
5. How mature do you think the jewelry industry is right now relative to CRO efforts? (If it’s immature, why do you think that’s the case?)
6. What would you say to other jewelry stores, independents or corporate chains, that either aren’t yet aware of digital’s potential or aren’t fully bought into digital efforts?
7. Signet Jewelers seems to be extremely mature relative to digital efforts, particularly CRO. Would you agree or disagree? If yes, are you able to elaborate on why you think Signet is so mature? Is it related to the business’ culture? Leadership?
8. What are the biggest learnings you’ve had in the recent past relative to CRO? What has made Signet so successful with CRO?
9. What are the biggest learnings you’ve had in the recent past relative to digital efforts overall for the jewelry industry specifically?
10. What do you think the biggest areas of opportunity are that you’re excited to tap into relative to CRO specifically and/or digital efforts at large? Anything aspirational that you want to do but might not be able to for whatever reason, too?
11. What are the biggest challenges you’ve seen for Signet that would relate to the jewelry industry as a whole?
12. For those brands that don’t have enough data to test, what would you tell them to do (or not do) for CRO and digital efforts?
13. What is your primary CRO tool stack?
14. How do you manage your personalization efforts from a project management perspective?
15. Anything else you want to share?