Your Employees will Take Care of Your Customers if you Take Care of Them.

 It has long been understood that retail companies that treat their staff properly also provide the greatest services to clients. And that holds true whether workers are at a customer service centre or on the shop floor. The difference between making a sale and losing a customer for life can be made by going above and beyond.

The situation has become more complicated because of the new lockdown-induced retail formats and the technology available to automate and enhance corporate processes. Many experienced retail workers were furloughed due to the pandemic and are now evaluating their jobs as they are also in increased demand, in addition to having to adapt the way they operated in stores and call centres.

Adapting to change

How can shops combine all three components when retail trends start to feel more typical again?

First, accept that internet buying will continue to be a common and practical choice. It was already expanding before the pandemic. Customers often like the option of curb side or store pickup, particularly for grocery or electrical products. Remote sales demos and assistance from store employees could possibly stick around for a while.

Retailers have had to rethink employment roles for staff, forcing them to be resilient and flexible in accepting new duties. Retailers must run a digital operation that equips their workforce with pertinent tools, as well as data and insights that help them engage with customers and exceed their expectations, to retain the best employees in a competitive market. This operation must also go beyond offering competitive salaries and benefits.

 

Retailers must therefore create an environment in their stores where working is as frictionless and productive as feasible. This might involve offering real-time, AI-powered tools and applications for task management, mobile scheduling, shift swapping and bidding, and real-time communication.

Another area that could help retain brilliant people is improving working circumstances through improved algorithmic merchandising so that warehouses and storefronts are optimized rather than being jammed full and challenging to search or replenish.

 

Retailers are simultaneously facing cost pressure due to growing costs, a lack of qualified employees, and shaky supply chains. They need to find a way to do everything listed above without having to spend money completely replacing their main IT systems.

digital workplace adoption

The pandemic showed how reliant retailers and consumers were on the work that store and contact centre staff do, and how important they continue to be in servicing customers safely and effectively. It also demonstrated how retailers that had already invested in digital transformation were in a much better position to pivot their operations than those that had not.

 

After years of underinvestment, many retailers are now playing catch-up to equip employees to provide high-quality commerce experiences, placing efficiency and enablement at the top of retail strategies. A third of retail respondents to Gartner’s 2021 CIO Survey indicate plans to increase spending on digital workplaces.

It has been demonstrated that investments in retail digital workspaces, especially those in physical-store environments, enhance sales and raise profitability, establishing a positive investment cycle and generating a sizable competitive advantage. Frontline workers must rank among a retailer's most important investments if it is to develop the skills of shop staff needed to meet customer expectations safely and effectively.

 

Getting paid off your investment.

In the US, Lowe's Home Improvement is one retailer that has established itself as a leader in this field. To make sure frontline employees have the resources and support necessary to do their duties in a difficult climate, investment has been greatly increased.

When the virus started to spread, Lowe's decided to hasten the implementation of curbside pickup across the country. In order to make this possible, it recently finished building an e-commerce platform and gave mobile devices to a third of its store employees. The firm has also placed a stronger emphasis on caring for its staff. During the epidemic, Lowe's invested millions to its retail employees and provided telemedicine, hourly pay hikes, profit-sharing bonuses, and other benefits.

 

As a result, during the previous few quarters, Lowe's sales performance has improved, and its customer satisfaction ratings have increased dramatically. Senior executives in the organization realized that it would be even more difficult to hire the finest candidates if bonuses and incentives were reduced.

Making more frequent and thorough evaluations of the human-machine labor portfolio will be necessary as part of increasing digital workplace investments and giving priority to the frontline personnel in the future. Building digital empowerment in the workplace requires using technology to delegate back-office and mundane tasks and free up people to take on more significant customer-facing roles.

 

However, to maximize corporate value, satisfy customer expectations, and develop and uphold staff trust, merchants must strike the right balance. This will involve taking into account the viability of cutting-edge technology, such as smart checkout, smart robotics, and micro-fulfillment.

 

Beginnings of employee investment

According to our experience working with retailers, the best place to start is by identifying and funding the operations that can have the biggest positive effects on the experiences of store managers and employees. Intelligent automation, for instance, can boost scheduling accuracy and productivity.

Using real-time communication solutions to encourage staff collaboration and information exchange in order to create a support network among store teams is another method to build on this.

Finally, it helps to work closely with the business and store operational leads to evaluate the connectivity of task management with end-to-end retail business processes, including merchandising, channel operations and fulfilment.

Ultimately, it will be a combination of smart digital technologies and empowered employees that will enable retailers to gain a competitive edge in the post-pandemic era of recovery and regrowth.