Jane Mustoe, Senior Technology Director at Tesco, joins Natalie to discuss how Tesco is using tech to redefine both customer and colleague experiences. They explore:
Tesco’s recent innovations – GetGo and frictionless shopping, gen AI chatbots, digital twins, mobile apps for store associates, and more.
All about the margins – the importance of achieving marginal gains in a low-margin industry.
Always keeping an eye on future innovations and finding pockets of “reality” amongst the “hype”.
Why over half of innovations fail, why that’s important, and lessons from Tesco’s drone trial.
Why getting the culture right is ‘make or break’ for organisations and the need to balance agility with operational efficiencies.
DEI and advice for the next generation of female tech leaders.
Centric Software provides an innovative and AI-enabled product concept-to-replenishment platform for retailers, brands and manufacturers of all sizes. As experts in fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home and related goods like cosmetics, food & beverage and multi-category retail, Centric Software delivers best-of-breed solutions that optimize planning, pricing, design, product development, sourcing and production.
Find out more about the Retail Disrupted Podcast by visiting retaildisrupted.com
Retail Disrupted
Every Little (Bit of Innovation) Helps: Chatbots, Digital Twins, Autonomous Stores, and Drones with Tesco
byNatalie Berg
Jane Mustoe, Senior Technology Director at Tesco, joins Natalie to discuss how Tesco is using tech to redefine both customer and colleague experiences. They explore:
Tesco’s recent innovations – GetGo and frictionless shopping, gen AI chatbots, digital twins, mobile apps for store associates, and more.
All about the margins – the importance of achieving marginal gains in a low-margin industry.
Always keeping an eye on future innovations and finding pockets of “reality” amongst the “hype”.
Why over half of innovations fail, why that’s important, and lessons from Tesco’s drone trial.
Why getting the culture right is ‘make or break’ for organisations and the need to balance agility with operational efficiencies.
DEI and advice for the next generation of female tech leaders.
Centric Software provides an innovative and AI-enabled product concept-to-replenishment platform for retailers, brands and manufacturers of all sizes. As experts in fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home and related goods like cosmetics, food & beverage and multi-category retail, Centric Software delivers best-of-breed solutions that optimize planning, pricing, design, product development, sourcing and production.
Rich Honiball is the EVP and Global Chief Merchandising & Marketing Officer for NEXCOM (Navy Exchange Service Command). He joins Natalie on the podcast to discuss:
The unique role of military retail, the importance of having a clear mission, and other lessons for traditional retailers.
Learnings from the launch of the world’s first Toys R Us department on a military base.
Self-checkouts, frictionless experiences, and the importance of customer choice.
The power of community and how Gen Z shoppers are redefining store experiences.
Why retail was an “accidental career” for Rich and how he hopes to encourage the next generation of retail leaders in his role as adjunct instructor at George Mason University.
Since its inception in 1946, NEXCOM’s mission has been to provide customers with quality goods and services at a savings and to support Navy quality of life programs.
NEXCOM’s six primary business lines include the Navy Exchange (NEX), NEXCOM Hospitality Group, Ships Store Program, Uniform Program Management Office, Navy Clothing and Textile Research Facility and the Telecommunications Program Office. Each of its business lines provide the necessary support for the Navy’s warfighters and military families to remain ready and resilient.
Bio:
Rich Honiball combines executive leadership, strategic development, and consumer insights as EVP, Global Chief Merchandising & Marketing Officer for NEXCOM, overseeing merchandising and marketing efforts for a $2+ billion global enterprise offering retail, services, food & hospitality. Before NEXCOM, Rich founded PDB Advisory Group & the Brand(Co)Lab, advising CEOs on purpose-driven marketing strategies and brand development. His executive roles at Haggar and JCPenney involved building world-class teams, strategic development, brand growth, and corporate refresh initiatives. He shares his extensive retail and consumer behavior expertise as an adjunct instructor at George Mason University. Rich is an MBA graduate from William & Mary and a BS in Marketing from SNHU. Rich is dedicated to mentoring and has served on several educational and nonprofit boards. Rich is honored for his retail expertise by Rethink Retail, innovative marketing by the CMO Club, and as an ONCON ICON Top 100 Marketer, and he continues to influence the industry while traveling the world.
Find out more about the Retail Disrupted Podcast by visiting retaildisrupted.com
Retail Disrupted
What Retailers Can Learn From the Navy Exchange
byNatalie Berg
Rich Honiball is the EVP and Global Chief Merchandising & Marketing Officer for NEXCOM (Navy Exchange Service Command). He joins Natalie on the podcast to discuss:
The unique role of military retail, the importance of having a clear mission, and other lessons for traditional retailers.
Learnings from the launch of the world’s first Toys R Us department on a military base.
Self-checkouts, frictionless experiences, and the importance of customer choice.
The power of community and how Gen Z shoppers are redefining store experiences.
Why retail was an “accidental career” for Rich and how he hopes to encourage the next generation of retail leaders in his role as adjunct instructor at George Mason University.
Since its inception in 1946, NEXCOM’s mission has been to provide customers with quality goods and services at a savings and to support Navy quality of life programs.
NEXCOM’s six primary business lines include the Navy Exchange (NEX), NEXCOM Hospitality Group, Ships Store Program, Uniform Program Management Office, Navy Clothing and Textile Research Facility and the Telecommunications Program Office. Each of its business lines provide the necessary support for the Navy’s warfighters and military families to remain ready and resilient.
Bio:
Rich Honiball combines executive leadership, strategic development, and consumer insights as EVP, Global Chief Merchandising & Marketing Officer for NEXCOM, overseeing merchandising and marketing efforts for a $2+ billion global enterprise offering retail, services, food & hospitality. Before NEXCOM, Rich founded PDB Advisory Group & the Brand(Co)Lab, advising CEOs on purpose-driven marketing strategies and brand development. His executive roles at Haggar and JCPenney involved building world-class teams, strategic development, brand growth, and corporate refresh initiatives. He shares his extensive retail and consumer behavior expertise as an adjunct instructor at George Mason University. Rich is an MBA graduate from William & Mary and a BS in Marketing from SNHU. Rich is dedicated to mentoring and has served on several educational and nonprofit boards. Rich is honored for his retail expertise by Rethink Retail, innovative marketing by the CMO Club, and as an ONCON ICON Top 100 Marketer, and he continues to influence the industry while traveling the world.
At the recent Manhattan Exchange in Barcelona, Natalie had the opportunity to sit down with Pieter Van den Broecke, EMEA Leader, Supply Chain Commerce Strategies, at Manhattan Associates. They discussed opportunities with AI, rethinking the post-purchase experience and achieving a truly unified commerce offering.
AI isn’t exactly a recent development. Why all the hype now?
You’re right. In fact, during World War II, artificial intelligence was used to mobilise troops!
Retailers have used AI for decades to help them make decisions in a world of constraints. A machine can only produce 100 bottles of champagne in an hour. A ship moving goods from China to the port of Barcelona takes three weeks. Retail operations are all about fulfilling demand to the consumer, while dealing with many real-life physical constraints and uncertainty. AI helps businesses to work around those constraints and make sure that the right product is getting into the hands of the right consumer at the right time.
Generative AI is, of course, what’s new. By providing insights based on collective memory, Gen AI helps operational engineers to design the right solutions for the business. Gen AI can assist in building solutions by taking over configuration tasks, testing, and even coding certain elements of the system.
Pieter Van den Broecke, EMEA Leader, Supply Chain Commerce Strategies, Manhattan Associates
I can see how Gen AI drives operational efficiencies for retailers. But how does it improve the experience for the customer?
When we talk about the online customer experience, we’re really referring to the “order and fulfilment experience”. When customers change their minds or when things go wrong, they want an immediate solution and ideally through self-service. This is where Gen AI comes in. Gen AI chatbots, for example, can deal with very complex queries in real-time. A customer simply needs to say, “Hey, I placed an order a week ago and I’m still waiting on delivery.” Or “Remind me what items I ordered again – was it a blue shirt or a red shirt?”. So it’s very natural, personalised and, most importantly, it’s contextually and factually correct.
In those cases where the Gen AI chatbot can’t solve a customer query, a conversation summary is produced and passed on to a real human being. This allows the customer support team to continue the conversation without having to go through the questions again, saving both the retailer and customer time.
Let’s talk about the post-purchase experience. What are the benefits of allowing customers to modify their online orders?
Sometimes we change our minds and need to cancel or change an order. By facilitating late order cancellations, ideally before the order has been shipped, the retailer is firstly improving the experience for the customer by removing the need for a return and also by being refunded immediately. The retailer benefits by keeping the product in stock and commercially available, plus the delivery (and potentially return) costs are eliminated. And of course, it’s a more sustainable way of retailing if we don’t have to deliver something that would ultimately be returned. It really is a win for the consumer, a win for the planet and a win for the retailer.
What exactly do we mean by unified commerce and can you give us an example?
Unified commerce is putting customers at the centre of the retail brand experience. Customers don’t want to think in channels and retailers shouldn’t be forcing that on them, but it still happens too often today.
As a retail organisation, it’s critical to really think from the ground up with a unified commerce mindset. You have to embrace technology with your heart and mind. It’s not an afterthought. Your digital core has to be strong, at any level of the organization, and with the consumer in the centre.
You might have heard about a concept called Omnicart, which is a shopping basket that can be filled digitally. If you opt to collect the goods in-store, that digital shopping basket then becomes a physical one, unifying the customer’s journey. This means that orders initiated in any channel can be completed, returned or exchanged in any other channel, and it also gives store associates greater upsell/cross-sell opportunities.
There’s a huge opportunity to unify promotional activity here. Traditionally, promotions have been very channel-specific but technology is breaking down those silos. So, if a customer sees a 10% discount online for an item, this can also be applied to an in-store purchase along with any other discounts on different items. I think this is a really nice example of stretching people’s minds on what unified commerce can look like in practice.
In one sentence, what is the most important thing that retailers can do after reading this?
Identify the biggest friction that you create for your customer and start addressing this immediately.
This is an abridged version of Pieter’s interview with Natalie on the Retail Disrupted podcast. Listen to the full episode here.
Last week, I travelled to the beautiful city of Barcelona to attend Manhattan Exchange. This is Manhattan Associates’ annual European conference and always a great opportunity to hear directly from some of the region’s biggest retailers and brands. So what stood out for me this year?
There were a few distinct themes that permeated throughout the event – unification of physical and digital commerce, store employee empowerment, and the need for both retailers and technology companies to continue to “shatter the status quo”, in CEO Eddie Capel’s words.
But what really sparked my interest was learning more about generative AI’s impact on customer service. Real-time responsiveness is very much a trend to watch for 2025. Here are my top takeaways:
Retailers are increasingly comfortable experimenting with gen AI but most of the use cases that we talk about today are centred on e-commerce operations – writing marketing copy, coding, creating images, etc. So, it was interesting to hear how European retailers are now encouraging staff to use gen AI in-store. Using voice, rather than text, this enables store associates to quickly identify solutions and better serve the customer. Expect a whole lot more of this in the coming months.
There was a clear consensus that AI chatbots in their current form (ie. not the gen AI kind) are an abominable experience for the customer. They often spit out generic or irrelevant information, or redirect the user elsewhere, all of which lead to customer frustration and potentially lasting brand damage.
Gen AI chatbots, meanwhile, are going to be a gamechanger. This next iteration of the chatbot, like Manhattan Active Maven, can resolve more complex issues. For example, instead of just asking “Where’s my order?”, customers can ask things like: “What size was that polo shirt I ordered last year?” or “Remind me how much tax I paid on that purchase.”
One of the top reasons customers get in touch with a contact centre is because they forgot to add a discount code at the checkout. This can be quickly resolved by a gen AI chatbot. Similarly, if a customer changes their mind after making a purchase – for example, they want to modify or cancel the order or alter their fulfilment method – this is another easy task for gen AI that benefits the retailer, customer, and planet.
Traditional chatbots can handle between 20-30% of inbound customer queries without any human intervention. With gen AI chatbots, this rises to more than 50%, freeing up staff time to focus on more valuable tasks like upselling or dealing with more complex customer issues.
Gen AI chatbots will drive efficiencies and improve the customer experience, but they won’t replace humans. For example, gen AI will draft an email for a contact centre employee to send to the customer following an interaction, but the employee can tweak this and must sign it off before sending. Similarly, the tool will generate post-interaction notes, saving employees another 45-50 seconds each time.
However, sometimes no AI is needed at all, and customers just want a human – albeit one that is still very much tech-enabled. We heard how a major European retailer allocates a QR code to each store employee, allowing shoppers to scan the code and continue the conversation with that member of staff after leaving the store. Now, as Green Retail World editor Ben Sillitoe pointed out on my podcast recently, we might not be rushing to scan the QR code of staff at our supermarket checkout, but for those more considered, bigger-ticket discretionary purchases (think fashion, beauty, luxury, home, electronics) this is exactly the kind of innovation retailers should be pursuing.
For more on Manhattan Associates, visit www.manh.com
‘Permacrisis’ was declared the word of 2022, so what might 2023 bring?
There are reasons for cautious optimism, but first retailers are going to have to buckle up and brace themselves for more turbulence.
Spending more to buy less
Let’s briefly recap on retail’s Golden Quarter. Christmas was not the wipe-out that many of us had expected. After a bumpy couple of years with Covid cancelling Christmas, consumers were determined not to let illness, inflationary pressures or industrial action hamper their celebrations.
There are some caveats here: soft comparatives (remember Omicron?); supermarket success came at the expense of the hospitality sector; and perhaps most importantly much of the growth we saw was fuelled by inflation – in December retail sales were up in value terms but volumes continued to fall. In other words, consumers are spending more to buy less.
Inflation might be starting to ease, but consumers are still a long way from feeling the benefit. This ongoing erosion of spending power makes for a pretty gloomy outlook: consumer confidence tanked again in January, returning to a near 50-year low. Looking ahead, the deterioration in consumer sentiment is likely to persist throughout the first half of the year, at least. A reminder to retailers that value will remain firmly top of mind, purchases will continue to be incredibly considered, and big-ticket discretionary buys will be delayed.
Trimming the fat
The spending hangover is here and while there’s never a good time for subdued consumer demand, it’s especially painful when retailers are simultaneously grappling with their own cost inflation. No one is immune: this dangerous combination of soft demand and rising costs is impacting even the most bulletproof retailers. Amazon, for example, is laying off 6% of its global workforce, closing warehouses and putting the brakes on bricks & mortar expansion. 2023 will be a year of operational efficiencies for retailers, in many ways mirroring their own customers’ behaviour by trying to do more with less.
The other immediate challenge for retailers will be shifting excess stock, the result of over-ordering during the supply chain crisis and exacerbated by the current consumer weakness. With a glut of inventory and sluggish demand, retailers are left with little choice but to slash prices. But wait, haven’t they been doing that for the past four months? Aside from the obvious margin implications here, there is also the risk that shoppers are becoming desensitised as promotion fatigue sets in – or even worse, that they forget what it’s like to buy at full price.
2023 opportunities: bricks & mortar resurgence and immersive digital experiences
There’s no sugarcoating it: 2023 is going to be another year of instability and uncertainty. But the retail industry is nothing if not resilient and I believe there are reasons to be optimistic. Stores are back, they’re repurposed and better than ever. We’ve been thrust into the future thanks to the pandemic-induced digitization of bricks & mortar retail, levelling the playing field and shifting the industry’s perception. Stores were once considered liabilities in this digital era, but they’ve been reconfigured for 21st century shopping and are now essential assets.
When it comes to customer experience, I believe that ‘tech-enabled human touch’ will be the next battleground, as retailers recognise the many opportunities that come with equipping your staff with the right digital tools. Mediocre experiences have become a thing of the past. Meanwhile, automation will climb higher up the agenda as retailers look to achieve operational efficiencies, despite the initial outlay, while simultaneously addressing the current labour shortage. In 2023, we’ll see more trials of autonomous vehicles delivering our goods and robots working alongside humans in warehouses.
Shoppers will continue to abandon e-commerce in droves now that we have returned to some semblance of normality. Some categories like food, fashion and furniture will never transition online like the rest of retail has, but it’s clear that as an industry we have been propelled towards a more digital world. And over the next decade, new, immersive digital experiences will redefine our perception of e-commerce – this is going to be the next big thing in retail. I’m still a bit of a metaverse sceptic. I know barriers can be knocked down but right now how many of us really have a VR headset kicking around at home? However, it’s clear that e-commerce is ready to evolve. Sure, all of the friction has been sucked out and today the experience is wildly accessible, slick, effortless. But is it any fun? Not really. It’s still far too transactional, too one-dimensional. This will change.
The next stage of e-commerce is all about immersion, discovery, curation, hyper-personalisation and escapism. And it’s already happening with augmented reality, virtual showrooms, live shopping, social commerce, 3D product views/virtual try-ons, video shopping consultations, among others. In the future, we won’t know where the physical world ends and the digital one begins.
Our hybrid way of living is here to stay and while businesses may still be acclimatising to the consequent shifts in demand patterns, longer term this will present new and exciting customer engagement opportunities. Despite tight budgets, investment in sustainability will remain high on the agenda in 2023, while opportunities to tackle the often-neglected post-purchase experience and explore new revenue streams such as retail media and third-party marketplaces will accelerate. In summary, short-term volatility will persist while consumers batten down the hatches, but as always the future of retail is bright for those who are willing to evolve.
It was wonderful to sit down with Mark Thomson to talk through the findings of the 15th Annual Global Shopper Study from Zebra Technologies.
Here’s what stood out for me:
💵 While nearly 75% of shoppers say inflation has caused them to delay purchases, they’re still returning to stores but most (76%) want to get in and out as quickly as possible.
😯 3 in 4 shoppers leave without the items they intended to purchase, with 49% blaming out-of-stocks.
📶 More than two-thirds of associates are concerned that shoppers are more connected to information than they are.
🙂 Seven-in-10 shoppers are satisfied with help from retail associates, compared to only 37% in 2007.
📱 Pandemic habits are sticking: approximately 90% of shoppers said they are likely to continue using technologies such as a personal shopping device, mobile cashless payment and self-checkout. And retailers are responding: nearly HALF of retailers said they would convert more manned till space to self-checkout in the future.
Where next for bricks & mortar retail? Is hyper-personalisation about to go mainstream and what are the opportunities for retailers? I discuss all of this and more with Thierry Gadou, Chairman & CEO of SES-imagotag, a company that invents IoT and digital technologies that create a positive impact on society by enabling sustainable and human-centered commerce.
After surviving a pandemic and digital disruption more broadly, have physical stores finally proven their worth?
To be frank, the past two years haven’t been so negative for many omnichannel physical retailers. Many are actually better off than before COVID, despite the twin pressures of adapting to the consumer shift to digital and a challenging economic backdrop. Stores are back. The most successful retailers have recognised that their physical stores can be high value digital assets. Stores have proven that they are essential and at the very core of omnichannel commerce – but they need to be better stores. There is still a lot of work to do when it comes to transforming the physical space.
Let’s explore that transformation in more detail. How can retailers adapt their business models to stay relevant in this digital era?
Firstly, we have to acknowledge that there will be a divergence between the pioneers and the laggards. The winners are going to be those who make their physical stores an incredible experience by offering advice and levels of service that e-commerce companies cannot provide, while simultaneously repurposing their stores to become fulfilment and collection hubs.
Online retailers have historically had a huge data advantage but there is now an opportunity to leverage in-store data to optimise the customer experience. Take grocery, for example. E-commerce might be just 5-10% of a supermarket’s sales. Imagine all of the rich insights you could get if you actually transform your stores, where the bulk of sales actually take place, in a way that makes capturing that data possible in the first instance?
Right now, the only way retailers make money is to sell products. They are missing a clear opportunity to capitalise on shopper traffic. In-store retail media is a major opportunity. By digitising the shelf edge, retailers are able to provide very efficient advertising real estate to brands and create new sources of revenue which, in turn, can fund further store transformation. None of this is easy but the time has come. There is more opportunity today to implement such a vision than there has ever been.
Thierry Gadou, Chairman & CEO of SES-imagotag
So how can retailers leverage in-store data and what are the benefits?
Physical retailers have a good understanding of the products that have sold, but what about the ones that didn’t? We are helping retailers to produce more data in-store by monitoring the shelves, automating the detection of stockouts and enabling mobile interactions. In the cookie-less world that we are entering, first party data is going to be the rule of the game.
There are two aspects to this. Firstly, the in-store operational data – this is what happens at the shelf. So, it’s stockouts, facings, planogram compliance. Brands today are still sending tens of thousands of people into the field to manually check for themselves. We’ve seen enormous improvements to the supply chain over the past 20 years, but the reality is that the level of stockouts has remained unchanged. And that’s down to the inaccuracy of inventory data in stores. Retailers are sitting on an absolute goldmine, but they need to go after it. How do you get the data right? Through sensors and computer vision.
And this is a win-win-win opportunity. It provides an additional source of revenue for retailers, a huge cost savings for brands and a superior experience for customers in the form of fresher products and better availability.
The second aspect here is customer data. With digitised shelf edges, you are able to communicate with customers at the very strategic moment of purchase. You can reach them with very targeted, relevant messaging which can be further personalised by their mobiles.
We have scaled this and we know it works. Brands are seeing better CPMs (Cost per Mille) and higher conversion rates in stores. All of this is within reach today.
Let’s talk more about hyper-personalisation. Will we see a shift towards more tailored, real-time promotions in the future?
One of the great aspects of the physical store experience is discovery. In five minutes in a store, you can discover so many more products than you would if you were scrolling on your phone. So, that’s great but the range can also be overwhelming and hard to navigate.
We have worked with Monoprix, for example, to digitise the shelf edge and enable a highly tailored in-store experience. The customer can set their criteria, for example cheapest, organic-only or items with a low carbon footprint. The app will direct the customer to the aisle and, once there, he/she just presses a button on their smartphone and the products that correspond to the previously set criteria will flash in the aisle.
Another example is when you get closer to a product that you’re interested in, you’ll receive a tailored message to scan the QR code with your phone and perhaps receive a special promotion that is exclusively for you. So, when we talk about the shift towards personalised pricing, that’s going to be very mobile-centric. The use of mobile and NFC (Near Field Communication) or QR codes is going to get you that level of personalisation, even in a mass market setting.
These services encourage the customer to use their smartphone in the store and the magic is then that the customer is providing retailers and brands with valuable first party data, further fuelling the retail media opportunity.
As the boundaries between online and offline continue to blur, perhaps we need to stop referring to stores as “physical retail”?
Physical commerce is the wrong word; it’s human commerce. Shoppers today want convenience and tolerance to any form of friction is history, but shopping is still a social experience. It’s a five senses experience. It’s so much more than just the product on shelf. The problem is that stores today don’t often provide that experience. Automation, AI and data can make the store much easier to operate, which frees up staff time to be more available to customers and have those meaningful engagements. It’s all about the technology behind the scenes that enables this 21st century experience.
Retailers have accelerated digital transformation strategies over the past few years. How have you seen the industry evolve?
Retail is in the process of redefining itself and we continue to see the repurposing of the physical store in this new digital world. You can leverage more aspects of a physical store compared to a purely online engagement. This is why retailers need to view their stores as assets, rather than just a weight of costs. It doesn’t matter if people buy while in the store; what matters is we influence them.
The industry is now in a more complex phase than at any other point in its history, but retailers don’t want technology companies throwing solutions at them. What they want to know: is who is doing it well? Who should we look at and how do we get there?
Ten years ago, everybody trekked off to New York in January [for the NRF show] because the US was leading the way in technology. I think that’s kind of changed now. European retailers have become trailblazers, especially when it comes to online adoption in places like the UK, Netherlands and the Nordics.
Let’s talk automation. It gets a bad rap at times, so can you talk us through the drivers and benefits?
When I talk about automation and productivity solutions, I always get asked: “Doesn’t that just put people out of work?” Well, a lot of retailers are struggling to find people. It’s not a case of retailers wanting to reduce the staff they have, it’s just that they can’t attract people in the first place. People today don’t want to work a 40-hour-plus week in a retail environment, so retailers are left trying to find ways to improve productivity among their existing staff.
Also, with wages increasing rapidly, the cost per employee has also increased, meaning higher productivity is a key goal. Retailers are there to provide the goods, services, and experiences that consumers want, but they also need to make a profit for the business. And everywhere you look today – supply chain, fuel, lighting, labour – input costs are going up.
In conjunction with this, shoppers are increasingly choosing self-service options and retailers have to implement automation technologies to support that, from self-scanning to electronic shelf edge labels as well as robotics. All play a part, but staff will continue to be crucial in delivering the best experience, so I see a hybrid future.
I totally agree. Tech-enabled human touch is going to separate the winners from the losers going forward. How can mobile technology in particular improve the associate experience?
We have to move to a situation where all staff are connected – to communicate with other members of staff, to self-serve in terms of their scheduling, just to name a couple of examples.
Believe it or not, many store associates today are using WhatsApp groups to communicate. The retailers I’ve spoken to don’t officially allow it but they’re essentially turning a blind eye to it because that is currently the best way to boost productivity and collaboration. Store managers are still spending several hours a week creating rotas in Excel. And we’re still running and monitoring stores based on old measures, for example asking staff to leave their mobile phones in their lockers.
Staff want more flexibility. They want to choose if they want to work on Saturday night. They want to look for a shift rather than being told to work one. The bulk of today’s retail workforce have grown up with technology, so automation is well suited to meet their needs and, at the same time, it helps retailers to manage their productivity and profitability. It will generally make the workplace a better place to be because you’ll end up with happier customers.
Let’s explore that in more detail. Customer experience is becoming the new battleground in retail. How might the role of store staff need to change to support this shift?
There’s only one way to an amazing customer experience and that is staff experience. If you employ the right staff, train and incentivise them in the right way, and give them the right tools to get the job done… then they become your ambassadors.
When a customer leaves the store dissatisfied, it’s usually due to 1 of 2 reasons: either they can’t find the product they’re looking for or the staff were unable to help. As an industry, we need to address this. Retail has become very operational and functional. It’s no longer somewhere people look to as a career. This has to change – how do you make retail an attractive career? There needs to be progression and it needs to be enjoyable.
But store staff today have more tasks than they did 5-10 years ago. Complexity and workloads for retailers have increased to incorporate not only store operations but also for online fulfillment, so staff are now tasked with serving customers while also handling collections, processing returns, etc. As soon as they get any free time, they’re filling gaps on the shelves. There’s no down time. A decade ago, it was a more relaxed environment. Still pressured but nothing like today. You can’t throw more staff at this problem, you need technology.
We want happy customers. We want to be able to predict exactly what those customers want. We don’t want to have too few products. We also don’t want to have too many. The more technology you add to your store, the more data you generate which you can then analyse further to improve the set-up, process, assortment and staffing.
Let’s close by discussing RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). Has its time finally come and, if so, why now?
It’s a great question and one I get asked every year. Retailers across all sectors know the technology and at some point have looked into it. The drivers now are different, and I think this will see a renewed growth of adoption.
RFID enables greater confidence in store stocks allowing the store to be a distributed online fulfilment centre. Higher stock accuracy levels reduce overstocks, which improves the bottom line (critical at this challenging financial time). Customer satisfaction improves too, as they have better visibility of items available. Meanwhile, retail staff are able to quickly respond to out-of-stocks by ordering the product from another store or the DC and having it delivered (what we call “saving the sale”). Everybody wins. The technology is tried and tested but as the benefits and implementation elements hit multiple departments, the project needs high level support. When a project gets this, it’s transformational.
Mark and his team at Zebra have just launched a Retail Maturity Model to help retailers on their technology journey. Learn more about the roadmap and how it can help retailers to improve inventory visibility and labour management.
Imagine a world where shoppers can walk into a clothing store, scan the price tag on a dress, and complete payment on the spot. Imagine a world where virtual stylists allow shoppers to seamlessly pay by link, or a world where instore shoppers collecting their online orders aren’t just handed a package but are greeted with personalised recommendations to complement their purchase.
This world isn’t so far off, according to Manhattan Associates Solutions Executive Joe Kamara. “We’ve built a unified platform that brings the best of traditional Point of Sale (POS), order management and store operations together so you can orchestrate these different flows.”
In conversation with Natalie Berg, Retail Analyst and Founder of NBK Retail, Kamara said that the next generation POS is being accelerated by the pandemic-driven shift to digital. While in crisis mode last year, retailers quickly pivoted to ensure that stores could continue serving customers via click & collect and kerbside pickup, while simultaneously processing online returns instore. Kamara believes that this behaviour will outlast the pandemic, reinforcing the need for retailers to ensure they are equipped with the right tools to seamlessly serve the customer across multiple touchpoints.
Considering POS as part of the customer experience journey
For many retailers around the globe, this is becoming basic hygiene. Even in the years leading up to the pandemic, the role of POS was being drastically redefined as the industry adapted for the digital era.
Pre-purchase – traditionally, retailers took a store-only view of the customer and the sharing of data and shopper preferences across channels was limited. Today, there is an enterprise view of the customer, and retailers have full visibility into purchase history as well as sharing of digital data.
Purchase– when it came to out-of-stocks, the experience used to be “filled with roadblocks and friction”, according to Kamara. Today, however, thanks to retailers’ endless aisle capabilities, shoppers can make a single purchase for items that are available both in and out of the store.
Post-purchase – it’s difficult to cast our minds back to a time when stores would not accept online returns, given the ease and proliferation of choice today when it comes to returning goods purchased online.
The industry has come a long way to meet the needs of the 21st century shopper who wants to shop on their terms, irrespective of device or channel used. But, as we witness a post-pandemic acceleration in the convergence of physical and digital retail, it’s imperative that retailers continue to move the dial, removing any remaining friction points from the instore experience. This is no time for complacency.
For example, if we go back to the perennial problem of out-of-stocks, it’s hard to believe that even in this day and age, only a small minority of retailers are capable of offering in-store purchasing from another store’s inventory. From a customer experience perspective, this feels entirely unacceptable given the industry’s broader efforts to digitize the physical store. Not only do retailers risk losing the sale but it can be detrimental to brand loyalty in the long-term too.
In order to meet customers’ supercharged expectations, retailers must adopt a sell/fulfil/engage anywhere mentality. However, when it comes to future-ready POS implementation, retailers often make three common mistakes, according to Kamara:
Adopting a store-only plan, damaging future agility
Minimal investment in change (e.g. limited budget for user training; limited project communication plan)
Selecting a “proven” vendor with old technology
All too often, retail organisations are still thinking in silos. Instead, Kamara recommends that retailers develop a unified commerce roadmap (POS + order management), make a clear plan for organisational change and select the right vendor capable of delivering on the long-term.
You can find out more about Manhattan Associates’ POS solutions here.
In the second of a three-part whitepaper series fromRed AntandNBK Retail, we explore the rise of the experiential store, why retailers must adopt an ‘admission fee’ mentality, and how customer experience is fast becoming the new currency in retail.
Despite the high-profile casualties we’ve seen on the high street, it’s clear that shoppers still crave the experience of visiting stores. But the service they receive in store must surpass what they would find online. We’re currently in a moment of transition, where the physical store is shifting from transactional to experiential.
Kill the friction, not the experience
Today, there’s still a sense of novelty when shoppers encounter a frictionless store experience, but in the future, digitally enabled store experiences will become the norm.
The option to bypass the checkout, for example, will simply become an expectation. This will be ‘basic hygiene’ that retailers must follow to remain relevant to their customers.
While it’s essential to invest in the right technology to facilitate a seamless in-store experience, retailers must also ensure ‘seamless’ doesn’t translate as ‘soulless’.
Retailers are experimenting with a plethora of technologies to enhance their environments and to finally bring the physical store into the 21st century. However, they must guarantee that it’s friction that they’re killing, and not the experience.
Democratising the white glove service
Just as the role of the store must evolve, so must the role of the store associate. They must be able to demonstrate genuine expertise, offering advice and personal recommendations to become a ‘trusted shopping companion’.
“29% of consumers said they would spend more money if a sales associate recommended something to complement their purchase”
In the future, what was once considered a VIP service will be democratised as more mainstream retailers recognise the benefits of providing concierge-level service.
John Lewis has already begun sending staff to theatrical training to improve customer experience, and the department store chain is also giving employees a voice by allowing them to directly engage on social media.
Retailers must aim to provide that white glove service because customer-led clienteling pays. Being able to provide a one-to-one, face-to-face personalised service has the power to increase sales and drive loyalty.
In our own OnePoll survey, 27% of consumers said that having an expert to talk to would make going into a shop worth their while.
And 29% of respondents agreed that they would spend more money if a sales associate recommended something to complement their purchase (based on what they had previously bought or had on their wish list).
The value of human interaction
At the end of the day, the most important rule in retail is being relevant to your customers.
Technology can help retailers augment the human touch, allowing them to adapt and thrive in the digital world. Today’s consumers may be hyper-informed and accustomed to shopping on their terms, but they still value human interaction – particularly when it comes to advice and inspiration.
“Employees are retailers’ most valuable resource”
With so much change afoot, it may be overwhelming for retailers to know where exactly to begin but they should start with their most valuable resource – their employees.
Retailers can democratise the VIP experience by equipping staff with the technology they need to offer specialist, personalised advice and information.
Consumers are no longer tolerant of mediocre service, so retailers must raise their game if they want to differentiate from online rivals and survive in this digital era. Clienteling and consultancy should not be beyond the reach of any retailer that wants to build an experience.
