Case Study: Harry & David achieves 14% higher customer loyalty and revenue growth with SAS Customer Intelligence

Better segmentation and campaign personalization delivers a turnaround for Harry & David

Harry & David, a longtime gift and gourmet retailer famous for its pears, saw sales and profits collapse after the 2008 downturn and filed for bankruptcy in 2011. The company faced aging infrastructure, disconnected data and siloed teams, which left analysts spending most of their time on operations rather than understanding customers—so leadership needed a way to move from product-led to customer-led marketing.

By adopting SAS Customer Intelligence and building customer-focused analytics, Harry & David implemented segmentation, lifecycle modeling and personalized campaigns (for example, targeting “Santa’s Elves” who buy only at Christmas). The data-driven approach delivered a turnaround: profits rose 20%, customer retention improved 14%, sales per customer increased 7% and the share of high‑value loyal customers grew about 10%, while enabling targeted, multi-channel marketing at scale.

Harry & David

Paul Lazorisak

Vice President of Customer Marketing