As front-end specialists working with the world’s biggest retailers to improve efficiencies and elevate customer experiences, we are seeing lots of transformation whether that’s a POS upgrade, a new checkout solution, and the latest in technology that detects unusual behaviours such as smart gates and video analytics (Skip Scan/AI).
However, we are not seeing enough investment in adoption, that is, taking the time to truly understand the impact of the change to your people, co-designing a plan to engage so everyone knows why and how to make the change whether that’s using the new system and technology, following process and exhibiting desired behaviours.
To truly optimise the benefits of your investment, we need buy-in from all levels of the business so everyone can understand the change and their role in making it successful.
What do we mean by this?
We work with a lot of retailers, and always in stores.
We see:
- Checkout solutions not used – stores don’t open the new checkout and it remains unused.
- Security tags on high value items such as meat removed at self checkouts by team members without checking/confirming payment.
- Stores with smart gates that leave the gates open (therefore, not used to minimise loss).
- Of the stores that have smart gates and are using them, team members manually open them without a receipt check.
- Self-checkouts interventions are cleared for the customer with no investigation and/or no coaching from the team member.
Why does this matter?
It is the difference between people using your multimillion-dollar investment in technology.
It is the success of the project and its ability to deliver the benefits called out in the business case.
It is going ‘half in’ – you’ve invested in the technology and your organisation’s time and effort, but you haven’t effectively conveyed what it means to your people or inspired or influenced any change.
Ultimately, it impacts customer experience. If your team isn’t sure of the benefits, then they are unlikely to know how to effectively support your customers with the change.
Why does this happen?
The reasons are varied but from our global retail experience, it is usually a mix of the following:
- A focus on implementation of new technology, on time and to budget at the expense of investment that truly understands how it impacts customers and team members.
- A misunderstanding of the new ways of working and a lack of commitment to improve customer service behaviours prior to introducing further change.
- End-to-end process is not thought through and therefore poorly articulated.
- An assumption that managers and leaders have the skills and capability to lead change.
- An assumption that team members have the will, skills and capability to change.
- A lack of understanding of the retail workforce at all levels of the organisation from store support centre to stores, their goals and aspirations – what drives them, what inspires them, what motivates them.
- Training is created as an add-on or afterthought, resulting in hastily created content, mixed messaging, and information overload on floor teams.
- Your initiative/project is ‘flavour of the month’ and not embedded into existing customer service frameworks or principles or business-as-usual training such as induction and refresher training.
What can you do about this?
At CLX, we are specialists in influencing and embedding behaviour change in retail, specifically focusing on front-end transformation.
Our change and training experts have extensive experience in designing and delivering lasting solutions that motivates and upskills a retail workforce because we know what works, we know retail and we have proven success in landing change.
Let us prepare your people for faster adoption and maximum return on investment.
Contact:
Sarah Campbell, Managing Director, Emerging Markets, Strategy and Partnerships –sarah@clxprofessionals.com
Lucille Wong, Global Change Manager – lucille@clxprofessionals.com
