Let’s Talk with Katherine Bassett – making brands easy to love!

Today, I’m delighted to be joined by Katherine Bassett.

Katherine Bassett is the Partnerships UK Lead at Voyado, a leading Customer Experience Platform (CXP) that specialises in bridging the gap between online and offline retail through CDP, ESP, loyalty, search, merchandising, and AI-powered recommendations. With over five years in eCommerce and 18 months at Voyado, Katherine has established herself as a driving force in helping retailers create seamless, data-driven customer experiences.

Her career journey includes working with BigCommerce, where she first encountered Voyado as a partner before joining the company in a pivotal role. Passionate about the retail sector, Katherine founded Retail Recharge, a unique industry event blending eCommerce and fitness, and has even starred in a TV advert for a brand she loves.

Voyado’s mission is to make brands easy to love, offering retailers a 360-degree customer view through its omni-channel, AI-powered solutions. By combining customer data, real-time search behaviour, and personalised loyalty programmes, the platform enables brands to optimise customer engagement, product discovery, and post-purchase interactions.

In this interview, Katherine shares insights on industry trends, the evolution of loyalty programmes, and the growing role of AI in retail. She discusses how Voyado helps brands unify customer touchpoints, enhance personalisation, and drive better engagement and retention in an ever-changing retail landscape.

Leon: Katherine, thank you for joining us today. Voyado’s approach to merging online and offline touchpoints is impressive. Could you tell us more about the organisation’s purpose, what you stand for, and the main ways you help brands build better connections with their audience?

Katherine: We have quite a catchy tagline at Voyado, which is “Making Brands Easy to Love”, and in a nutshell, I would say that is our core purpose. I’m not a Marketer or an eCommerce mastermind, but if I was and working for a brand, then my main goals would be to understand my customer (not just who I think they are, but my real customers), learn where they are, and how to target them, and effectively, retain and nurture them into repeat purchases. Sounds a lot easier than it is, but that is our core focus.

Voyado helps retailers with:
1.) Understanding who their customer is with rich data.
2.) Leveraging AI to drive advocacy and repeat purchases through marketing automation and loyalty.
3.) Creating relevant and personalized experiences through our deep understanding of product data and search optimization.

Leon: The way you integrate AI-powered search and merchandising into the shopping experience is impressive. Given Voyado’s role in bridging offline and online channels, what are the most significant industry shifts you’re observing, and how do they shape your daily work?

Katherine: Sure, we’ve been talking about omnichannel for years, if not decades now. Therefore, it’s not a new concept. However, omnichannel sometimes becomes a buzzword for many brands, when in reality, brands are aiming to achieve a unified shopping experience.

In truth, that’s really bloody difficult to achieve as there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Retailers are investing in several tools to help them get a 360-degree view of their customers, which sadly means there will be blind spots. That said, we’re seeing a huge shift towards consolidated systems. Retailers now demand one system to manage various aspects of their customer journey, as this helps limit the number of contracts, and more importantly, allows retailers to have one system of Record, or Source of Truth when it comes to their data.

Voyado has stood by this approach from day one, consolidating the CDP and Loyalty with the CRM, as well as bridging the gap between the in-store and online experience. We have deep integrations with POS solutions such as Shopify POS and Sitoo, which enable us to gain richer insights on end users. Search and Merchandising also become a key part of this, as we’re able to understand historic customer data and marry that with the online experience, meaning we can understand which products customers are purchasing in-store and recommend relevant items online in relation to that customer.

Leon: Voyado is addressing offline-to-online gaps with in-store vouchers and BOPIS solutions, and your loyalty features stand out as well. What unique features does Voyado offer that set it apart from other CXP platforms in enhancing customer loyalty and engagement?

Katherine: Absolutely. A really good example that I like to share is our customer Nudie Jeans. Nudie truly understands their customer and tailors the customer journey to that desired experience. They wanted to take a step back from heavily discounting and promotions and utilize Voyado to build a better sustainability program by using Loyalty.

With Voyado, customers can purchase items online and access free repairs in-store. Not only can they then bridge the gap between the online and offline, but Nudie can also incentivize customers for repairing their jeans in-store. So rather than discounting, they are rewarding customers for doing something sustainable.

We’re able to do this as we own the loyalty logic, therefore we are not plugging into a third-party loyalty platform. This gives our customers the room and flexibility to use loyalty as a way of influencing behavior, as opposed to your typical spend-vs-points mechanism.

Leon: Your platform has delivered impressive results for well-known brands. Could you share some specific success stories where Voyado’s solutions led to measurable improvements in customer engagement or sales for your clients?

Katherine: We love talking about our customers, as we have genuine results to back up and share with the market.

From a Search POV, we’re often part of a larger digital transformation, typically an eCommerce replatform or migration. This usually means it’s harder for retailers to know exactly where the uplift is coming from. But ROI is fundamental to us, and we have some pretty cool stats to back it up.

My favorite is KICKS, the largest beauty retailer in the Nordics, similar to SpaceNK. Prior to Voyado, Kicks was manually merchandising all of its products and was quite cautious about moving away from this system. In Voyado, you have the ability to use our AI or manually merchandise, and at first, Kicks was pretty against trusting our engine.

Luckily for them, we’re able to A/B test on-site, and we were able to run the numbers. The results? An 8x increase in click-through rates, 8x more products added to baskets, and an incredible 100x increase in sales from leveraging Voyado’s merchandising.

Leon: Katherine, it’s clear you’re passionate about transforming loyalty and integrating AI to personalise every touchpoint. Managing data effectively is a growing challenge for retailers today. How does data consolidation impact customer-centric strategies?

Katherine: One of the biggest challenges for many retailers today lies in managing data effectively. The irony is that while one team focuses on strategy, loyalty, and innovative ways to acquire and retain customers, IT teams are often working behind the scenes to manage, consolidate, and maintain complex technical infrastructures.

These two groups—strategy and technology—operate in silos, speaking entirely different languages, which can lead to friction when it comes to decision-making around data.

Data consolidation has become increasingly critical as many retailers find themselves grappling with fragmented systems—eCommerce platforms, ERP systems, CDPs, ESPs, and loyalty programs, to name a few. Cleansing and migrating data between these systems is often a daunting task, but it is essential for creating a unified source of truth.

To implement a truly customer-centric strategy, retailers must achieve a 360-degree view of their customers. This means having a seamless understanding of the customer journey across every touchpoint. Without data consolidation, retailers risk losing valuable insights and the ability to deliver personalized, relevant experiences. Voyado helps its customers bridge the gap between strategy and technology, by fostering collaboration between these teams, which is crucial to unlocking the full potential of data in the retail landscape.

Leon: Door4 often supports businesses through replatforming and market expansion. How can brands entering new markets maintain consistency without losing innovation or agility?

Katherine: At Voyado, we work across various retail sectors, including fashion, consumer electronics, homewares, and pharmacy. While fashion brands often lead the charge in market expansion, the complexities are universal.

For example, H&M, a Swedish brand and one of our clients, has become a staple in markets like the US and UK.

Entering new markets introduces significant challenges across pricing, seasonality, logistics, and regulatory compliance. Fashion brands, in particular, must adapt to diverse cultural expectations while preserving their core identity.

This requires a balance between consistency and agility—leveraging data-driven insights and scalable digital platforms to localize offerings without diluting the brand essence.

Leon: Katherine, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us today. Looking to the future, what exciting developments do you foresee in retail, loyalty, and AI-powered personalisation that make you optimistic about the next chapter of customer experience?

Katherine: The future of retail is brimming with exciting opportunities, particularly in loyalty and AI-driven personalisation. Loyalty programmes are evolving into sophisticated ecosystems that go beyond rewards, offering hyper-personalised experiences tailored to individual preferences. This shift is made possible by advancements in AI, which enable brands to predict customer needs, optimise product recommendations, and create seamless omnichannel interactions. I’m also personally excited see the impact Retail Media will have on the online retail landscape. Retail Media is designed for multibrand retailers and marketplaces to manage their suppliers and brand partners. This enables brands and suppliers to bid for enhanced visibility at key touchpoints in the customer journey—such as on-site search, listing pages, landing pages, and product recommendations. You can learn more here: Retail media: everything retailers need to know

Katherine, it’s been brilliant having you on Let’s Talk.

Thanks for such a great conversation—so many fascinating insights! We’ll definitely be taking some of these ideas into our own work at Door4. Let’s do this again soon!

Want to know more?

You can contact Katherine via LinkedIn .

You can visit the Voyado website