S1E1 – The Retail Avengers & The Future of Frontline Staff, Part 1

Welcome to Season 1, Episode 1, the first-ever episode of The Retail Razor Show!

I’m your host, Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top 100 Retail Influencer, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and lead partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

And I’m your co-host, Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock and slayer of retail frankenstacks!

Together, we’re your guides on the retail transformation journey. Whether you're thinking digital and online, mobile, or brick & mortar stores, there'll be something for you!

In episode 1 we dive into the future of retail frontline workers, with none other than Ron Thurston, author of Retail Pride, The Guide to Celebrating Your Accidental Career. Ron joins our Retail Avengers team on Clubhouse to talk about what retailers need to do to foster the right environment for their store teams.

For more information about Ron, and how you can Take Pride Today in your retail career, visit Ron’s website: https://www.retailpride.com

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Host → Ricardo Belmar,

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Co-host → Casey Golden,

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Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCasey

TRANSCRIPT

The Retail Avengers & The Future of Frontline Staff, Part 1

[00:00:20] Ricardo: Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. No matter what time of day you're listening. Welcome. Welcome to season one, episode one, the first ever episode of the retail razor show. I'm your host Ricardo Belmar, a top 100 retail influencer and lead partner marketing advisor for retail and consumer goods at Microsoft.

[00:00:37] Casey: And I'm your co-host Casey Golden CEO of Luxlock and Slayer of retail frankenstacks, 

[00:00:43] Ricardo: retail, frankenstacks. I love that intro. I really need to get a tagline like that. Casey. 

[00:00:48] Casey: Slaying, frankenstacks. It's a messy job it's earned.

[00:00:51] Ricardo: Oh, I believe it!

[00:00:52] Casey: So I'm super stoked to kick off our first episode ever of the show! 

[00:00:56] Ricardo: I am too. I am too. So let's talk a little bit about what the show will be like. This all started some months ago with the retail razor club on clubhouse and a powerhouse group of retail experts and thought leaders to just talk retail, talk tech and host some really good deep discussions on what we think people in this industry need to make a difference and to be a change maker.

[00:01:14] Casey: Tell us more Ricardo, tell us more. I feel like we need some dramatic [00:01:20] music here 

[00:01:20] Ricardo: and maybe for episode two, we'll add some budget for dramatic music. So our goal is to cut through all the noise, cut through the clutter, make it all actionable. Let everybody learn from the people who've actually done things.

[00:01:33] Anyone who's solving challenges and not afraid to expose the hard truths.. 

[00:01:37] Casey: And best of all, since we started this on clubhouse, we made it interactive. So people could ask tough questions and voice their opinions. 

[00:01:44] Ricardo: A hundred percent, a hundred percent all the way. This is an open forum. One that really moves the industry forward.

[00:01:50] By sharing deep, deep knowledge, we started an amazing series of rooms initially called retail tech predictions 2025. But you know, our group quickly earned the nickname, the Retail Avengers, 

[00:02:00] Casey: Captain America., right here!

[00:02:02] Ricardo: And I am iron man, you know, you're right Casey. We really do need some dramatic music and we got to work on that 

[00:02:06] Casey: maybe by episode three next time, next time.

[00:02:10] Ricardo: Yeah, episode three, that I'm going to take, make a note of that. Okay. So in each episode listeners will hear one of our fabulous clubhouse rooms and we'll bring back [00:02:20] guests from those discussions for a few last words. But don't think that's all we have to offer in future episodes. We're going to introduce new segments, extra guests, and we'll also have some unique interview sessions that we're going to record in another app called Callin. 

[00:02:32] Casey: Can't wait for those. 

[00:02:34] So Ricardo, who's our special guests for the opening episode. 

[00:02:37] Ricardo: We are starting up strong with one of the best out there. Ron Thurston, the author of the book, Retail Pride, former head of stores at Intermix and quite possibly, one of our favorite retail executives out there.

[00:02:48] Right? Casey, 

[00:02:49] Casey: I'm a fan. Let's get to it! 

[00:02:50] Ricardo: Okay. So let's quickly introduce the rest of our Retail Avengers team and everyone will be hearing from them quite often in these sessions. So besides Casey and myself, we have Jeff Roster, fellow RETHINK Retail, top one hundred influencer and fellow advisory council member at the George Mason University Center for Retail Transformation and former analyst.

[00:03:11] Then we have Shish Shridhar, the global retail lead at Microsoft for Startups.

[00:03:16] Casey: And Brandon Rael transformation delivery strategy leader at [00:03:20] Reach Partners, and one of my faves, Trevor Sumner, CEO of Perch Interactive. 

[00:03:25] Ricardo: All right. So without further delay, let's give a listen to the Retail Avengers and the future of Frontline Staff, Part 1.

Clubhouse Session

[00:03:42] Ricardo: So with that my name is Ricardo Belmar. I host the retail razor club here on Clubhouse. Retail tech guy have been in retail tech for the better part of the last two decades, working at various different solution providers and managed service providers, and of course, I like to say the best technology in retail is the kind that's seamless and transparent that you don't even notice.

[00:04:02] Jeff: Hi Jeff Roster co-host of this week in innovation and serve on several advisory boards and a former Gartner and IHL retail sector analyst 

[00:04:11] Brandon: Hi, Brandon Rael here. I'm currently one of the transformation and delivery and strategy leaders here at Reach Partners a consultancy. My background is retail and consumer products, industries, and I've been working in the strategy consulting space, focusing predominantly on digital and it's impact on organizations and helping companies transform and evolve.

[00:04:29] Casey: Hi, Casey here, founder of Luxlock we're a retail experience platform and we are deploying an independent workforce and re-skilling them. So I love this topic of the conversation. Worked a lot in enterprise retail tech [00:04:42] and on the e-commerce side. So excited to be here you guys, fun conversation! 

[00:04:46] Ricardo: Definitely will be! Shish. 

[00:04:47] Shish: Hi, good afternoon. I'm the retail lead at Microsoft for Startups and I'm actually working on building out a portfolio of retail tech B2B startups solving complex business challenges in retail. Absolutely love the topic that we're we're we're we're talking about today. Looking forward to it. Thank you. 

[00:05:03] Ricardo: I see Trevor has joined us. Trevor why don't you do a quick intro. 

[00:05:06] Trevor: My name is Trevor Sumner. I'm the CEO of perch. We do interactive displays in IOT that detect which products you touch and like minority report. They just wake up and start telling you about the product, they call them shelf talkers. So I've been deep in retail and retail tech for almost a decade now. So excited to be on board with everybody here. 

[00:05:26] Ricardo: All right. Wonderful. We have a special guest with us this week, Ron Thurston author of the book, retail pride, which I highly recommend.

[00:05:33] Ron, why don't you go ahead and give us your introduction 

[00:05:36] Ron: hi everyone. Thank you. Yes. My name is Ron Thurston and I am the author of Retail Pride, the guide to [00:05:42] celebrating your accidental career, which is really about recognizing the hard work that the millions of people that work in all of our stores all around the world do every day.

[00:05:50] And my full-time role is as the vice president of stores Intermix which officially today is a freestanding business on its own no longer under the Gap umbrella. And so we have a lot of exciting momentum behind us now being privately held and it will be an exciting adventure. And I sit on the board of directors of Goodwill here for New York and New Jersey, which also has a really exciting retail component to it, which I'm happy to talk about.

[00:06:18] So thanks for inviting me, Ricardo. 

[00:06:19] Ricardo: Fantastic. We're really happy to have you here with us today, Ron, this is a topic that I know many of us on the panel have been wanting to do for a while. Not the least of which is because of the added focus that retail frontline workers have seen over the past 15 months.

[00:06:34] Frontline Worker Sentiment

[00:06:34] Ricardo: I want to ask everybody on the panel, What's the sentiment these days about frontline workers, has it swung more positive to the point where [00:06:42] frontline workers are going to get the recognition that they deserve to have for the job they do and the service they provide to customers and retail brands? 

[00:06:49] Ron, I'm going to ask you to respond first because I'd really like to hear what your feeling is on that. 

[00:06:53] Ron: Sure. Thanks, Ricardo. I have probably never been more excited about the opportunity for store teams. And I think as customers have come back in and , every day it's getting bigger, the opportunity to recognize in many ways the increased skillset necessary to manage the emotional, the tougher part of retail in conjunction with more tech in conjunction with higher customer demands and kind of new ways to shop has put this pressure and, excitement back into stores and the training that's necessary. 

[00:07:29] The up skill in the hiring process has never been more important. They, kind of challenge of the value of the brick and mortar business in compared to e-commerce.

[00:07:39] This is the time where more [00:07:42] than ever, we need highly skilled people that are, that work in brick and mortar, retail, and are compensated for that work and the business models that are evolving out of it.

[00:07:52] And I think it's just every day, I'm more excited about what I'm seeing my own business and what I'm reading about every day.

[00:07:59] Brandon: I could not agree more with Ron. , if anything, the pandemic has accelerated the recognition of how critical the retail staff or brand ambassador to the store associates and how important they are to run the operation of building that trusted relationship with the customer.

[00:08:15] I consider that the retail associates, part of the last mile of fulfillment and not necessarily the product, but of the relationship of the brand or the brand equity. 

[00:08:23] people go to the store to engage, to get inspired, to discover. And, , I'm all digital first. We know everyone is digital first and shopping e-commerce, , percentage wise, it's still , 15% of the business is converted on ecommerce.

[00:08:36] The physical stores are as critical as ever to bridge that digital and physical gap and the journey [00:08:42]may begin in the store may ultimately end on the retailer's app, but the store associates plays a vital role in that relationship.

[00:08:47] Casey: A hundred percent. , one of our biggest goal, which was to deploy an on-demand distributed workforce and it's been pretty amazing to put a lot of people back to work and give them opportunities to sell products that they've never had access to because they worked at a single brand.

[00:09:02] Shish: agree with everyone I think there is going to be a big transformational element to it as well. I kind of look at the convenient spot of retail. There's a lot of things that has accelerated, during COVID, , BOPIS in particular. And I think that is going to change what the frontline workers do and, how to do it.

[00:09:23] For example, I think there's going to be so much more focused on click and collect orders, because, cashierless becoming more prominent and accelerated. I also think the assisting the self checkout will be one aspect that frontline workers will be doing more of. There might also be a lot of clientelling [00:09:42] that has accelerated as a result.

[00:09:43] And also I think from the experiential part of retail, that's going to be a lot more skills and expertise needed because that is leaning more towards that personalized, aspect of it where engaging with customers becomes more more of a requirement. 

[00:10:02] Trevor: Yeah. I agree with that. I think one of the transformational changes underlying is data. Because of the need for real-time inventory and product information for BOPIS for better supply chain management and COVID is an accelerator for that.

[00:10:17] All of a sudden, we've normalized all this data that we can now put in the hands of sales associates. It's not their fault. If you go to a Macy's and you ask your question about what inventory looks like. Yeah, go look at those screens. They're green screens, right? I think they were programmed with punch cards.

[00:10:29] Now that has all been changing, right? So the data is now available in normalized and formatted. It's now accessible, not just to be a tablets and iPads in the hands of sales associates, but, even like with Theatro in [00:10:42] a, in a mic format in an ear piece. So that's one piece of it. The second Shish hit on around you have the experiential being more part of it.

[00:10:49] And that means being able to do brand storytelling. And while I love the thought that that's all gonna be done by purchasing digital tools like that, I, the role as a sales associate is going to be critical.

[00:10:56] Ricardo: Interesting points there about the added roles for store associates to do, especially in light of things like picking up online orders in the store, other operational processes, either for picking product off the shelf to fulfill those orders, that these are new roles, new skills, new functions, we're asking those store associates to do and asking them to leverage real-time data about customers they're working with or items in the store, whether it's product information or other operational components.

[00:11:23] Frontline Roles

[00:11:23] Ricardo: One of the things that I would like to get into next is what are some of these additional roles? We've mentioned a few now, which were brought about by the nature of the pandemic, but what other new roles are we going to see frontline workers in retail taking on and particularly what are the required skills and I'll reference, really interesting article that I believe was in the wall street [00:11:42] journal about Levi's offering machine learning training for their retail workers. Presumably because it's a recognition that the need to understand data is going to become so much more important in how these frontline workers work with customers.

[00:11:56] So what does everyone think of that? 

[00:11:58] Ron: I can jump in Ricardo , it's Ron. I actually think that the, width of the skillset has become so wide today that it's kind of become less about we're all cross-trained and we're all good in retail. We could work in stock room and we can work on the sales floor and we can do visual merchandising.

[00:12:15] I think it's actually become a little more segmented than said if I have a skillset that is highly engaged and motivated and I'm good on camera for live selling, I'm good in front of customers, I can sell via chat that you have that level of personality. It's actually fully embracing that and saying, let's give you

[00:12:34] that kind of customer facing roles or chat roles and not try to expect you to also run out to the curb and do a BOPIS [00:12:42] order and also fulfill a web order in the stock room, or when can you work an overnight to change the visual merchandising? I think we have to say, we have a team of people who are really good at tech people who are maybe good at tasks and people who are highly customer centric because what's coming with the customer coming in today more than ever wants a level of engagement.

[00:13:03] And has it's curious, wants to be educated, wants to be styled once all the things that they haven't had. And that, that skill is really high. So I'm actually even looking at my own organization and saying, it's actually less about cross training and more about specialization and being the best version of that specialty based on your skills and your experience and your personality.

[00:13:26] Because today, we're also expecting you to be on Instagram. We expect you to live sell. We expect you to, kind of show up every day in a new most highest version of what that would look like in the past. 

[00:13:39] Trevor: I really loved that. And one of the reasons [00:13:42] is because, I think this provides a new sense of career pathing, and compensation structures.

[00:13:48] And so, Ron, I would love to, to understand better how you start thinking through that as the head of stores at the end, you get certified as, an influencer or as a live seller, or for example, there are technologies where during your downtime, you might do online clientelling and reach out in on a one-to-one basis.

[00:14:05] Are you.becoming a certified personal shopper. And each of these, has a course associated with that. Some type of certification, some real-time training and evaluation, but also a better pay, better training. And not feeling like you're stuck in a specific kind of job that says a generalist with no place to go.

[00:14:25] Ron: I was just going to say it, and having led apple stores. That's very much the apple model. You are a specialist and maybe you in phone or Mac or in software, and then you're next. kind of even more of a specialty or in training or in genius bar. [00:14:42] And that every step is a career trajectory. And I think in fashion, we've also kind of thought of it as we all have to be good at everything.

[00:14:50] And I actually think it's more of the apple model, which is very structured and create benchmarks for growth. I agree with you, Trevor.

[00:14:59] Casey: I was just going to say that, now that sales associates are able to sell online and get that commission tracked and productivity tracked, it changes the entire model of every single salesperson is able and has the opportunity to become a million dollar seller and not make $35,000 a year or 40,000, $50,000 a year.

[00:15:20] We've seen the most of having what the industry used stylists for before, which is doing content on a, on an Instagram or putting lookbooks together or working in, like a stitch fix model and putting outfits or clothes into a box. They're coming to us and they have the passion. They have the skillset, they have the know-how, but they've never talked to a customer before.

[00:15:41] And [00:15:42] so they don't know fit, they just get returned. And so, being able to communicate with the client, maintain that relationship over time and learn fit. We've actually had to start segmenting just like Trevor was saying is we're essentially segmenting talent into different talent pools and putting programs together to bring people who have worked at Citrix for the last six years into being able that they would be skilled enough to walk into Gucci on the floor and do a million dollars in sales. And so it's been really interesting and I think that there's going to be a lot of, differentiation between I'm a stylist versus I'm a sales person or a personal shopper right now.

[00:16:24] I can't get a single person to agree on what they want to be called because salespeople don't want to be called the stylist and everybody gets called and everybody's called the stylist on Instagram. If you can put an outfit together. So it's like almost [00:16:42] diluted that job title almost in a way where no, I'm more than that. It's been interesting. We're still trying to figure out what. What everybody is going to be called.

[00:16:54] Brandon: Is this the transformation evolution of what a store associate really is? I think to Ron's point and Trevor's point, there certainly is doing an operation stocking shelves or whatever else. Actually, what I want engagement with the customer is blended with the arts and sciences of social media, digital marketing, and micro influencing 

[00:17:14] Ricardo: I agree. I think it's fascinating point here about segmenting and the skills and Ron I like how you compare that to an apple model. One of the things that comes to my mind when I hear everyone saying that is a sort of implies a need for more staff in the store, as you get more specialized, depending of course, on what kind of store it is for format. It is the size of the store. The product categories are in, but if I were to generalize it, it makes me believe that I'm going to need [00:17:42] more staff. The more I specialize in to handle each of these different aspects. And if I compare again to an apple store for me as a consumer, walking into an apple store, there's an overwhelming number of staff.

[00:17:52] Trevor: And also think about the revenue per square foot. 

[00:17:55] Ricardo: That too. Exactly. 

[00:17:57] Ron: I think that 

[00:17:58] on a really high margin business, you do have more room for that.

[00:18:04] Ricardo: So you distinguish between luxury retailers at that point versus a discounter value retailer, where the model may be sufficiently different, that you don't need to apply that. segmentation or specialization of skills. 

[00:18:15] Trevor: You mean there's not going to be stylists at dollar stores

[00:18:21] Ricardo: that would be, the question, 

[00:18:22] Shish: natural progression, but there is a customer expectation, which is generally followed by retail tech, responding to it. And one of the aspects that's really happening out there is technologies providing capabilities to address some of these things. For example, expertise in stores.

[00:18:39] Today there is an expectation for [00:18:42] expertise. When you go into a store, a specialized store where, electronics or something like that, where you need a store associates to have a lot more knowledge, but with technology capabilities, it is possible to sort of democratize that make available. The expertise from different stores right across all of the stores. And those kinds of things are really making it possible to, to address those expectations as well. 

[00:19:09] Trevor: Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I'm a big fan of is that's kind of pushing out a technology to the edge. And certainly I look at this through my perch lens.

[00:19:17] Which is, when you think about putting the digital experience has guided product storytelling that is available to obviously all the consumers on their own, but also the sales associates. But similarly, if you've got an iPad in your hand, that's a training device for downtime.

[00:19:31] That's a career pathing and improvement device. and you can make the most of the hours that you're in store. So I think this pushing technology to the edge and into the fingertips of everyone, has the ability for those [00:19:42] who have the motivation and the desire to hold those skillsets up rapidly than what was available to them in the past.

[00:19:48] Ron: A bit of a counter to the, more is better is that this is an industry in brick and mortar retail that has not always been given the accolade as a career that it deserves.

[00:19:59] And sometimes this, people that are highly committed and highly skilled, and this is very much an intentional career become that much better at their job. They are retained longer and sometimes it's kind of a quality versus quantity. And so you could actually have a smaller team that's highly skilled, very engaged, works really well under, whatever kind of product categories you're selling and the culture of the company, but provide a level of service because of their expertise and their commitment to the industry.

[00:20:30] And that's, I think the kind of temporary nature sometimes of people in stores then requires, more of them versus fewer that are highly skilled. And then, so it's a conversation and a balance that I [00:20:42] think every retailer, is talking about today. 

[00:20:44] Ricardo: I think that's true. I agree with you I like to view the technology piece of that in many cases, equalizer, sometimes to address the point, you just mentioned about the temporary aspect of people coming and going, and then the turnover and some ways if done properly and seamlessly enough, I think the technology can help normalize that approach a little bit and compensate for loss of skill. When you have people that leave that were perhaps one of those high-end skilled individuals that really knew how to do that job. And therefore they could handle working with many customers at once versus perhaps some of the other staff that are newer at the role might only be able to handle one or two at a time, depending on the type of store environment that you were in.

[00:21:25] Question from Evan Kirstel

[00:21:25] Ricardo: I want to turn attention over to, Evan who's joined us on stage. Why don't you go ahead and give us your question for the panel. 

[00:21:30] Evan Kirstel: Yeah. Happy Friday, everyone. I've been most interested in the technology side of retail behind the scenes. I laughed out loud, referenced to green CRT screen [00:21:42] flashing. Sadly, see that far too often. 

[00:21:46] Ricardo: still see that too often. I agree. 

[00:21:48] Evan Kirstel: Yeah. Well, the other hand, I talked to a lot of clients who are participating in the kind of digital transformation of retail. And I'd love your opinion on who were some of the players to watch.

[00:21:58] I mean, when I'm talking to a lot lately with Facebook workplace or workplace from Facebook, it's their enterprise communications division. So basically taking all of their messaging and video and apps and tools and enabling, or powering retailers like Petco and Domino's and others to improve the employee experience.

[00:22:18] So think about, group messaging and calling video tension, live video streaming education, all kinds of analytics around that as well. Are you seeing adoption of more modern communication tools like that or others or what's most interesting to you when it comes to, real-time communication messaging, voice, video, or other apps within the frontline for the workers. 

[00:22:40] Jeff: Are we talking about [00:22:42] retailers or are we talking about services, service providers to retail? 

[00:22:45] Evan Kirstel: Yeah, the retailers are adopting a lot of these tools with their frontline employees, for employee engagement, employee communications messaging. We used to call the intranet, but it's basically apps on phones now.

[00:22:57] Ricardo: And so we could look at this from both perspectives. I think Jeff, from the prospective of which retailers are doing this well, and what kind of technology are they using?

[00:23:04] Ron: I mean, I can share what I use on today, which is retail zip-line line, which is actually used by all of gap, Inc. which is an incredible platform and not an intranet. But it's a communication tool. It's a tracking tool. It's a way to send out quick messages. There's a lot of functionality from multiple reasons. But I think within the store team at every level, day in day out, I've not actually not seen one that does that, come seamlessly that everyone uses without providing, devices to everyone, which is depending on the state and depending on what's happening, that can be a tricky conversation.

[00:23:38] But so far that's what I've seen and, has worked really well for me. 

[00:23:41] Casey: [00:23:42] I'm obviously biased, but, there's going to be a lot more tools that are going to be coming in over the next, 12 to 18 months just because this was a really hard product to sell into a brand three years ago.

[00:23:55] A lot of people, in this space that wanted to do it, had to pivot into doing something else because it was just a hard sell. But now I think that, It's going to be a requirement. Just as standard as, having a computer at work, if you have sales associates, and they're going to have to have a tool.

[00:24:12] So I think we're going to see more of a standardized school. That's going to be coming out that more brands will start using the same one. But right now everybody's kind of spread all across the board. And there's reasons that brands are choosing one over the other. There hasn't really been one that does everything necessarily doesn't necessarily even do everything well, but obviously I'm biased with my own, but, there's pros and cons to kind of everything right now.

[00:24:35] I think we'll see the leader next year. 

[00:24:36] Shish: And a lot of examples that I've seen, one of them is a startup that I'm working with, called askSID[00:24:42] they have to QR code, on wine bottles or the shelves and customers can scan it and it instantly brings an expert to them and they can ask questions have a conversation.

[00:24:52] So this is one way that retailers have actually, really figured out how can they have experts in every store that knows their wines really well without necessarily staffing every store. 

[00:25:04] Another example I've seen as for call centers itself, where, the expertise that they wanted to provide was to a chat bot. So when a customer calls a call center, the challenges the call center person is looking up information. There's a lot of delays. They're following up an app in the background, doing the search, trying to find the answers to the question the customer wants. So what they're doing to empower this is there is a chat bot and AI based chat bot that is picking up the customer call at the same time in parallel to the human operator.

[00:25:39] And the chat bot is [00:25:42] transcribing the call, learning the intent of the questions that the customer is asking, connecting to backe nd showing it to the call center operator at the same time. And this essentially means that the call center operators is far more intelligent in his responses is able to respond very quickly and efficiently to the customer.

[00:25:59] So that was one area from a communications perspective that I thought was, very interesting. The third one is really empowering the store associates and, and today there's many companies that provide communication devices. for example, there's a company called Theatro that does a headset based communication device for store associates.

[00:26:20] yeah, 

[00:26:23] Ricardo: love their solution.. 

[00:26:25] Shish: Turnpike turnpike is out of Sweden and they have, , a, wearable. DASSI wristwatches that send information over to the store associates and it's generally far more discrete, , and store associates can actually use those communication devices to talk to systems in the back [00:26:42] end.

[00:26:42] So if they have a question about, do we have a certain product in stock right now? They can ask a chat bot the chat bot will look up the systems instantaneously and be able to get the responses. And this again, I think is another thing that's really transforming the frontline worker, in a way, making them far more efficient , with tools like this.

[00:27:03] Jeff: Yep. Hang on, hang on a sec. Let me follow up on that question. Are you doing anything with voice, voice AI? 

[00:27:10] Shish: Yes. there is, a lot of, I would say controversy around voice. So in terms of voice, for store associates, the one scenario that I talked about last was one where store associates are actually using the headsets to talk to a chat bot.

[00:27:27] So if a customer is looking for a certain product, typically what they would do is radio someone in the back room to say, do we have that in the back room? Or is it an order or something like that. But, in this situation they're actually using voice [00:27:42] to talk to a chat bot that is connecting to backend systems to determine if something is in the backroom.

[00:27:48] If it does an order, if it's in a nearby store and it is providing the response by voice immediately to the store associate. And that to me is extremely powerful, where the store associates are empowered, but all that information that they using voice queries to query back end systems. 

[00:28:05] Jeff: How about sentiment or, sense of, either happiness or urgency in the invoice. I'm actually going to be talking to a couple of startups that are actually going to that level of sophistication.

[00:28:16] Shish: So, , in call center, there is, I've seen situations where, when, someone calls a call center and the operators talking to that person, there is AI models that the chat bot that it was talking about earlier, that it's, transcribing the call looking at the intent of the questions. At the same time, it is also detecting the sentiment, of each speaker. So if there is, frustration, for example, it'll detect that and it will [00:28:42] notify the call center supervisor that here's the call where there's potentially a problem, and you want to listen to what you want to intervene. So it's actually detecting all of that.

[00:28:52] Jeff: Yeah. Interesting.

[00:28:53] Brandon: We also need to consider the human element of the organization, the frontline associates, or our ambassadors, how we want to refer to them. The stylist interacting with the customer technology are all referencing it innovative is right up there and on trend and having this be powered by AI AR , virtual reality or critical components of driving personalization, seamless, intuitive, and we're driving adoption rate by the store associates of stylists and the way.

[00:29:25] Their ability to effectively serve the customer and effectively providing outstanding customer experience in store and connect that digital aspect of it as well. And help drive conversion as customers come to the store for advice or engagement or a building connection to the brand.

[00:29:41] Ricardo: Yeah, [00:29:42] there's an interesting element there I'm reminded of one retailer I talked to a few years back who was deploying devices just as we're talking about and some of the feedback they had from their associates in the pilot stores, is that they were starting to feel like Batman wearing a utility belt because they were being asked to carry all this technology everywhere they went around the store. That tells us there's a threshold somewhere where it becomes too cumbersome to just hand over technology to the associates that way. I think that's a consideration, Brandon, maybe that's what you're getting at as far as paying attention to the human component of this, you can't just ask a store associate to say, here's three devices you need to carry around all day to do these three different tasks. Or there has to be a little bit more thought behind how transparent the technology is and how seamlessly it can be incorporated into their workflow in a way that makes sense. 

[00:30:28] Brandon: Correct. And we see companies do clienteling and then trying to streamline it to one app or one ipad or mobile first and it's worked for most situations, but again, it has to be connected to the [00:30:42] customer, empowering the store associates and driving outstanding customer experience.

[00:30:46] Then I'd love to hear Ron's perspective on that. How technology can help the store associates drive a outstanding customer experience. 

[00:30:52] Ron: Yeah, no, thanks, Brandon. And you're exactly right. And I think the experience that is most, I think, recognized and celebrated by the customer is, how much history you have to the idea of in clientelling, which, the facts show that the average spend is that much higher.

[00:31:10] The retention rate is higher. The return rate is lower. Like the benefits are enormous, but if you can say to someone, oh my gosh, like, let me. Quickly look at your purchase history on my phone, on my iPad that I have in my hand. Wow. It looks like you were here last month and this is what you bought. I have some things I know you're going to love.

[00:31:28] And so you begin this relationship building with facts and with information that arms you to provide an exceptional experience. And so the technology kind of in your pocket provides you [00:31:42] information and then you can go and then, the client is entirely engaged because they, feel seen and heard.

[00:31:49] They know that their business is appreciated. You can say that kind of along the way. I'm so glad that you came back. I'd really love to help you build on those wardrobe pieces or add that, that other. You know, the technology piece too. your last purchase here at apple. So there's, there's a lot that can happen with technology that just supports relationship building and all of the data in how that benefits an overall company is all positive.

[00:32:15] There's no downside to it when done well, other than overwhelming at the store team. And that's where I think you can dial back and say, well, actually who's really good at this let's arm them. This person actually is much better just converting on the sales floor. Doesn't need to have the full deck in front of them.

[00:32:34] So I think great leaders can look at that. I do at my own using hero in chat functions and who does confinements, who [00:32:42] converts, who sells more? You can dial in, and it's not one size fits all. And that's where people really, that retention piece starts to escalate because you would say thank you for recognizing that I'm actually not comfortable using this technology, but I'm really good doing this.

[00:33:00] Let me do this more. That's a winning formula to retaining your team, building great client relationships and growing your business. But , that's where I put a lot of effort and time today. And, I believe that it really pays off. 

[00:33:14] Ricardo: That's not even advice specific to retailers organization, but many businesses adopt that approach and, let's call it company culture around how to encourage certain behaviors and how to reward people who are doing the job the best way they can. And also to create an environment that promotes this, the ability to do better and do more, whether it's with technology or without, or is that really, isn't the point, right?

[00:33:39] This comes back to your earlier point Ron, about more [00:33:42] specialization and segmentation and the skills and the roles within the store. 

[00:33:46] All of this plays together into building that better company culture that fosters an environment that encourages this kind of activity and rewards people in these roles because they're filling a really important need for the retailer.

[00:34:00] Ron: Yeah. I think that's where we had sometimes dug ourselves into our own trap of saying everyone needs to be good at everything. And then it'd be kind of to become a generalist as at all of it. And the customer's ability to remember their experience is diluted because no one really stood out in their mind, but we created that ourselves.

[00:34:21] We created this kind of generic retail, you know, everyone's nice. Are you finding everything? Okay. And then you walk away and that, kind of generic version of retail, you know, Steve, Dennis likes to talk about Is what got us in trouble. And so that's where I'm saying it should not be generic. It should actually be very specialized.

[00:34:41] We should hire [00:34:42] people with specialty, and invest in them and be better at what you hired them to do. And those are the people when you see NPS surveys that mention people by name, and I see it every day, you don't go home and write a survey about your experience and reference people's names. If you didn't have an experience that created, it's not through a business card in your shopping bag, you remembered their name because you were so engaged.

[00:35:08] That's what happens when you invest in them. And then they deliver that to the customer. And it's like this winning cycle. But not everyone plays that game. And that, is so much fun because you see it in your business. And that's what we're all trying to reestablish today in our industry. 

[00:35:24] Ricardo: That is so well said, Ron, it's all about embracing the uniqueness and the skill sets that you're bringing into the environment and to the team and encouraging more of that to make the entire team better and ultimately that's reflected in the revenue that you're going to generate through that team, because they're such a [00:35:42] critical part of that process. 

[00:35:44] Question from Jeff Brand

[00:35:44] Ricardo: I, I've, brought a few more folks up on stage so I'm Jeff, I'm going to go to you next , what was your comment for us? 

[00:35:50] Jeff Brand: Yeah, thank you. I'm an owner of a brick and mortar retail buildings. I'm a landlord, but I'm also a consumer and something that Trevor said, which was interesting to me is that his goal is to create engaging content for consumers that would draw them into the store, but giving them a lot of information to really engage them.

[00:36:11] So what I wanted to find out about frontline workers, how do you make sure that the frontline worker knows more than the consumer does when they walk in the store? Because the consumer has the ability to research ad nauseum about the products they're going to shop for. 

[00:36:28] Trevor: I think that's a great question. I think about that often, right. 70% of shoppers think that they know more than the sales associates, because they have access to that very data. so I think there, are a couple of different ways to think through this. One is, making sure you've got all the [00:36:42] learning management systems for your sales associates, but the other way to think about it is to really think through proprietary tools that walk you through the category.

[00:36:51] Most of this content out there is product by product. And what I'm seeing a lot of is digital tools that are being deployed in store and online to do a needs analysis and walk you through the category. I'll give you an example. If I'm buying a drill at home Depot, you got all the drills on the shelf.

[00:37:09] But, I don't want to pick control, oh, this is this many Watts and this is that many Watts and great, well, what does that mean? , I don't know the difference between the wattage's . And , what will I be able to do or not be able to do what, walk me through, like, what do I need to strive for?

[00:37:23] It's just like, Hey, Trevor just needs to make sure not to call the handyman too much, you know? And, and to look good in front of his wife, that he can fix some things or Trevor, you're really into home improvement projects to do a lot of serious work. And so, thinking through a category type tour and a needs [00:37:42] analysis and providing some of these proprietary tools, I think we'll create a type of guided experience that ends up lending itself in a differentiated way to what you can find out.

[00:37:50] Jeff: And I also think we're really getting to , a paradigm where we shouldn't expect store associates to know more than customers coming in. If it's a passionate purchase. When I bought my kayak, I knew probably more about that. I guarantee you, I knew more about that kayak that I settled on, than the REI associates, because I researched it.

[00:38:07] I spent days researching it. And so I think, we're sort of at that point where retailers just have to be comfortable with, sort of that, that maybe shift in knowledge and, accelerate and work with that and not necessarily try to fight against it.

[00:38:19] Jeff Brand: That's very interesting. Thank you.

[00:38:21] Ron: Yeah. And, I think apple again, does a really nice job of putting so much effort into training and yes, clients come in all day. And I remember when I joined apple as a store manager, The launch of iPhone two, and I was really nervous about, I don't know how this is going to work.

[00:38:40] And [00:38:42] the calming kind of words are, they, customers will always know more than you do about the product. People are obsessed with this brand, but to say, you know what? I don't know, but I'm going to find out I'm going to help you learn how to use this. I'm going to find someone who's an expert in this particular skill of what you're looking for.

[00:39:01] And if you can say, you know what, I don't have any idea how to do that, but I'm going to find someone that does, can calm it down. And the customer's like great, happy to make that happen. So I also think we don't always want to put so much pressure on ourselves. Everyone at every store has to be an expert in everything it's not realistic, but we can just drill down and think about expertise and putting the right people with the right customers for that specific ask that applies in all of our businesses, including, fashion for me. And I love this idea of it. Every experience should be unique and individual based on what the customer came in looking for.

[00:39:41] Ricardo: [00:39:42] Yeah. I agree with that absolutely critical to deliver a great service that you want to have in your store. So Jeff, thank you for that question. 

[00:39:50] Question from Tim Tang

[00:39:50] Ricardo: Tim, do you have a comment or question for us? 

[00:39:52] Tim Tang: Yeah, the question I wanted to ask you was, when we think about retail and we think about employment, frontline workers in retail, there's an enormously high turnover rate, as well as, some studies suggest, suggested very low engagement rate.

[00:40:06] And I was wondering if you were aware of any progress or any meaningful innovations or any changes, in recent years on those two fronts.

[00:40:15] Ron: Hi Tim. To answer your question on, on evolutions of the, great part about some of the technology that we're talking about, that there are ways to survey teams more quickly. So there's, apps like butterfly that where you can, you're in constant contact of how, how are you feeling today?

[00:40:34] Kind of on a, on a scale of different faces or on numbers. How are let's check in with you about how [00:40:42] you're feeling, which is a really important, component to emotional leadership today, emotional intelligence. So you're, kind of constant checking in and, feeling connected, but I think , more importantly than anything that the quality and the intent of retail leadership today at the store level specifically, but at the multi-store space that all of us today in any kind of retail leadership that touches store teams and has influence on that experience, it is really our responsibility to do that in a way that is more emotionally, engaged than ever before.

[00:41:20] And I think the idea of store visits that are checklist of numbers and. Store operations and audits and things that seem very tactical are really a thing of the past. And today I just, I was in stores all week. And what I did was spend time on the floor, talking to the teams, engaging with customers side by [00:41:42] side, learning how they're, how they feel learning, how they're experiencing the math challenge of week two and what it all means.

[00:41:52] And that actually goes a really long way to engaging with those teams and say, I really appreciate that. Ron spent the day on the floor with selling with us today, and 

[00:42:01] I was able to ask questions and I was able to get solutions and hear what's happening at the company today. We just have to be closer than we've ever been before to what's really happening face-to-face with the customer and we have to listen and learn and act and engage and be curious more than ever before. And that's, that's what will change our industry. And that's how teams are repaying. And you, you learn, I come back to the office today with armed, with so much information about spending the week on the sales floor and about how people really feel.

[00:42:37] And I can pretty much guarantee that those people I engage with [00:42:42] are happy that someone listened to them this week. I hope that answers your question.

[00:42:48] Tim Tang: I think that's an interesting perspective, I mean that it's, if I'm hearing you correctly, it's the idea of using that customer feedback. That's kind of a motivator for the employees and you mean something to be celebrated, something to be highlighted, but it's, that kind of, positive feedback to get encouraged more out of the employee base.

[00:43:06] Ron: Yeah. I actually think the employee feedback is more important than customer feedback sometimes. So that's the first thing that I would ask is how do you feel, how was your experience working here right now? How you feel having the math conversation it's uncomfortable. Let's do this together so that you can feel more comfortable when someone comes in and, wants to have a more difficult conversation.

[00:43:27] So their feedback about their experience as an employee drives the customer experience that drives the business. And that's, why I would talk about surveys or being really close to them. That's what's going to change the game 

[00:43:39] Brandon: That ties back, Ron [00:43:42] to outstanding employee experience, customer experience. And you, you can say once that the, this empowered customer who has access to data to other brands and social media channels picked up once at the head of them and really personalize things.

[00:44:05] Ricardo: That's a pretty impressive approach. And I say that Ron because listening to you describe how you've gone and collected that feedback on the floor reminds me of many retailer conversations that I had in years past and Tim may even remember some of these as in full disclosure for the audience, here Tim, and I used to work together.

[00:44:26] And he may remember that being in some retailer meetings where we would ask them the question. When was the last time you were walked your store floor and understood both your customer and employee experience? And there, I think too many times that I remember being met with blank faces, when asking that [00:44:42] question?

[00:44:42] And I always thought to myself, wondering how could they not have had a response for that? How could we be in a room full of retail executives that didn't have an immediate answer as to not only when was the last time they did this, what kind of feedback did they get? I would expect this is something you should know, because you're not going to be able to improve on your associates environment.

[00:45:01] You're not going to be able to improve on that customer experience without ongoing feedback. And I don't think it's sufficient to claim that the feedback process could just be asking customers to fill out a response form and an email post-transaction or asking employees to do the same thing at the end of their Workday.

[00:45:19] So please go in and fill out this survey form, but tell us how the day went. You really want to get that direct one-on-one feedback to really understand exactly how things are going. 

[00:45:29] Ron: And I would just add the store teams know that. And when decisions are made in the C-suite by people who have not spent time in stores and it impacts them, that's where [00:45:42] the problem lies is in the turnover happens because the responses will, did they not understand what we do every day? How hard this is the conversations that we have to have, and the workload that happens every day in brick and mortar stores. There's an assumption that people that sit in our leadership chairs don't understand that. And if you can demonstrate your at least willingness to show up and listen, you may not be able to solve every problem. If you use just show up and you say hello, I went to Greenwich the other day and some new team members.

[00:46:14] And just to be able to sit in the morning, have a coffee, listen, where did you work before? I'll like, that will keep them going for months. And it was very little effort on my part and a huge return. And that's what all of us in leadership, we have to do that more. And particularly today, they're in a very difficult situation of being customer engaging.

[00:46:37] Not only last year, it's still hard today. And that's why I just [00:46:42] encourage everyone be as close as you can, to the people doing the work technology aside. The human conversation goes a really long way. 

[00:46:49] Shish: Yeah. That's the great point also from the employee perspective, one of the things I'm looking at is, stores are putting more emphasis on customer engagement and employee spending more time with customers versus doing mundane jobs. And that's another transformation I'm seeing where automation comes in.

[00:47:09] A very common example that I'm seeing in terms of automation is, on-shelf availability where almost every retailer is. Automating that in the past, it was, employees going round and making sure that the products are on shelf. And today they're looking at cameras and sensors to do that job so that the store associates can spend that time engaging with customers rather than doing that.

[00:47:35] Ricardo: Yeah, that is absolutely an interesting point. And we could probably another room just on that topic alone and [00:47:42] going through the reality versus perceptions, right, automation, AI, and machine learning. What does that mean for other jobs? Whether we're talking about frontline staff or other roles within a retail organization, where's the balance you can draw between those areas.

[00:48:00] So thanks Tim . That was a great, topic to touch on.

[00:48:02] Question from Jeff Sward

[00:48:02] Ricardo: Jeff, What was your question or comment for us and welcome to the stage. 

[00:48:06] Jeff Sward: Actually, the last conversation is going to be a perfect segue for my question, which is how does the frontline associates become, more useful, I guess, in helping the whole company understand the why of best sellers and worst sellers. Ron was describing these great interactions between sellers and customers that are data-driven about past history and prior purchases. So when the customer buys something, the system captures all the hard information, but it doesn't capture is the [00:48:42] why, why was something that bestseller, why was something a worst seller. Nobody sets out and puts worst sellers in the stores to begin with. So what happens? 

[00:48:53] Brandon: It's a great question. And I think that that's where it'd be social selling aspect comes in, that the sentiments could be the emotional multisensory sentiments through Instagram and Twitter and other feedback loop that retailers will receive from the customers. And it's not captured within the transactional systems, ERP systems, et cetera, social commerce, digital marketing is where that system lies.

[00:49:18] So I think it's a very complex challenge to capture all the emotional sentiment, but that might be a place to start.

[00:49:24] Shish: I totally agree. I think it's a data challenge. Many of the retailers that I work with, look at the other influencing data factors that will tell them why something a best seller. And this could be anything from the demographics around the store and the correlation of a certain [00:49:42] product or plan with that demographic, being the cause, it could be something going viral on the internet.

[00:49:49] It could be other factors and influences that make something a best seller. And a lot of times is the inference models that they build from the combinations of data. And that typically is one of the approaches that many retailers use. 

[00:50:05] Ron: Yeah. And it's Ron. I would just add, I think again, Jeff, the more we can engage with the sales teams that are selling the product the better. So there's definitely feedback that can come through customers on social, or maybe it's live selling and you can capture information via chat.

[00:50:22] There's a lot of ways to learn, but my office that's right out in front of, the design team for our own private label at intermix. And, you know, I spend a lot of time with them about this is what I've seen. This is what I've heard. Let's bring a team of New York stylist to the office and give you feedback from sketch review.

[00:50:41] Like I [00:50:42] I'm, we're doing walkthroughs on sketches before they even become samples before fit before production. Like we stayed so close to it every step of the way so that we try to minimize the risks and the misses. I recognize that that's a small business compared to many people on this phone, but it's important that at every and every part that we've listened and we've learned and we've acted accordingly. , and I think the benefit from that is enormous.

[00:51:11] Jeff Sward: Great, thanks, Ron. 

[00:51:12] Ricardo: Thanks, Jeff. For that question - good discussion topic, 

[00:51:16] Question from Amanda Fetch

[00:51:16] Ricardo: Amanda, what is your question or comment for us? 

[00:51:19] Amanda Fetch: Yeah. Hello, thank you so much for the opportunity to join the stage. I know that the wave of the future has been to the point of the topic of the room, the future of frontline staff and how that's been sort of disappearing. We had, for example, Amazon Go in Rock Center where there is nobody to basically check you out. And, how now we have tech companies pivoting off of Amazon, like Facebook, [00:51:42] who is looking to have the live shopping Fridays and things like that.

[00:51:45] Where again, it's not totally eliminating what we want to call a checkout. There's a human being involved, but again, it's online. So you still have the tech aspects, but so what I wanted to present to the panel and hear your thoughts on is what about, the customer of, for example, a Lulu lemon where their core is assisting the customer, what they like to call was more educating their customer on the fabrics and on the brand of things of that nature.

[00:52:10] So I'm curious to hear your thoughts on companies like that. As the world's going to this really tech and to the point of the room, you know, future front Line staff.

[00:52:18] If they start disappearing, what happens to companies or retailers like Lulu lemon, will they survive if we start seeing less and less of these, how do you see companies like that weathering this sort of tech storm that's coming on the horizon there? 

[00:52:33] Ricardo: Thank you for bringing up this topic. Where are we headed in the reality of more automation versus human interaction the [00:52:42] way frontline staff operationally works in a store as well as interacts with customers, as well as what's the customer preference going to be.

[00:52:49] If we think about our consumers and what they expect when they come to the store. I think a lot of this depends on what the brand relationship is with the consumer I would argue that, for a Lululemon there is a consumer expectation that when they come to the store, they know they can count on the staff there.

[00:53:05] Would that same customer have a similar expectation if they knew that they were going to be greeted by some kind of AI or a bot or some other automated process instead of a human being, I don't know that that would meet the customer's satisfaction for a brand like Lululemon.

[00:53:21] I think that becomes a differentiator. So while there could be a discussion in a board room at Lulu lemon that says. You know, is our labor costs getting too high? Do we need to balance our a rising labor costs with some form of automation to handle certain customer interactions? I think they're going to conclude that they can't just [00:53:42] ignore this aspect.

[00:53:43] I think that the filter you can apply to this is to say, is the brand relationship purely transactional.

[00:53:49] If it is, then chances are a lot of that relationship could be replaced with automation, and to the retailer that's probably a cost saving exercise at some level. If that relationship is not purely transactional, if it's really based on what I think everybody on the stage would define as a real brand relationship where there's an emotional connection for the customer.

[00:54:10] I personally don't believe that those relationships can be easily replaced with automation in that way. I think it requires a person to be involved, and I think it's required from the customer's point of view, but would younger generations be more okay with the thought of being greeted by some form of AI or automation rather than a human being versus an older generation?

[00:54:33] I don't know that I can predict. But I think that would just be another interesting way to look at. 

[00:54:38] Jeff: I love that question so much because, I get asked all the [00:54:42] time is, so what is retail doing? Literally they're doing everything at all all the same time. So when I start thinking about, the role of automation and AI, there's clearly going to be a very significant chunk of retail that is going to embrace that. And there's going to be clearly another chunk of retail that's not. It's going to be high touch, high experience. And the best example I can point to right now is in an in and out burger, in and out burger has always paid well above market rate for, for really fast food jobs. And people go there. Me included, literally go by far cheaper solutions and sit in pretty darn long lines because we want that experience.

[00:55:16] And I love the fact that people like that experience. And I love the fact that a retailer has created an opportunity for fast food workers to actually become, real career opportunities and a whole lot of people that are going to be running companies in 10 or 15 or 20 years really got their start there under that training.

[00:55:32] So the answer is, we're going to see it's going to be the future is going to be all of the above. The key thing is what do people want and what do people want from their [00:55:42] retail experience. That's also going to be the big driver. So if, if all of a sudden the next three or four years people say, you know, I like the human touch. I don't want to be greeted by an AI. Retailers will respond. I think there clearly will be a lot more automation and there's clearly going to be a lot more people involved.

[00:55:58] Ron: I definitely agree with, Jeff. I think it will depend on the business, but I would say today where we sit in the way the client is behaving, that her expectation of engagement and the time spent in the store and the amount of energy that goes into these very human interactions has never been higher.

[00:56:18] And that may be a surge of, having spent 18 months online and really craving that human interaction. But I don't think it's going to completely pendulum swing the other way. I think there will always be a need for great human engaged selling, educational, retail. And for me that, that the best version of that, not just [00:56:42] in luxury will be the ones that kind of set the bar for how this industry evolves.

[00:56:46] Ricardo: Yeah. I think that's absolutely spot on you need to be paying attention to what your customers expect with respect to technology automation.

[00:56:52] And if you're not responding accordingly, then you're not likely to keep those customers in the future. I think that's a critical component of that. 

[00:57:01] When it comes to the future of frontline staff, I think there was so many other aspects around automation that we haven't even touched on in today's session . So I think we'll use this point. To close out the room. Ron, I want to thank you for having joined us today.

[00:57:15] I love hearing your insights and perspective on frontline staff. I wish that, more retailers would take the viewpoint that you have as to how they run their retail business and how they look at their employees as a critical part of that business. So really appreciate you being here with us today.

[00:57:32] Ron: It was my pleasure anytime. Thanks Ricardo. 

[00:57:35] Ricardo: Thanks, we hope to have you back soon! 

Ron Thurston interview

[00:57:41] Ricardo Belmar: welcome back everybody. We're here with our special guest, Ron Thurston. 

[00:57:47] Casey Golden: Welcome to the show, Ron. Always a pleasure. 

[00:57:49] Ron Thurston: Thank you. Good to see both of you see here. All of it good to be here. 

[00:57:54] Ricardo Belmar: All of the above. So Ron, that clubhouse session was a few months back and I know you've been quite busy since then and have some new projects brewing, but I'm going to keep our listeners in suspense on that for little bit.

[00:58:07] Let's dig in a bit more on some of the topics we just heard about. When it comes to frontline staff, what are your top takeaways for retail execs today? What should they be doing in light of, you know, the labor shortages and everything else happening right now? 

[00:58:21] Ron Thurston: Yeah. So we, you know, this is a very interesting time in the industry from, from many different angles, from a supply chain, from a kind of unpredictable traffic patterns to hiring to culture, kind of new product ideas.

[00:58:38] It's a fascinating time in our industry. And I, [00:58:41] I think what I would recommend is that all of the answers to the tests are. Within the four walls of your brick and mortar businesses. And that's the more time you can spend in stores and ask questions, kind of dig into what is the customer saying? What is the customer feeling?

[00:59:02] What is their response to product? What is 20 to 2023 look like for your customers? How are they expecting to live their life? All, all of that can be found in the four walls of your. By your teams who are engaging with customers every day. And I do think we rely often on the corporate side too heavily on kind of the data behind and, and kind of all the CRM insights, maybe NPS, certainly sales and traffic.

[00:59:34] And we, we try to build a story with data and I think that's really important, but [00:59:41] the teams in stores today have been on the front lines since. Early last year and are still now on the front lines. And the more time you can spend in stores, just saying thank you and listening and sharing strategies and engaging those teams.

[01:00:02] That is the solution to part of the hiring challenge of be a brand that. Is this merge of the worlds of headquarters in stores, which for the three plus decades I've been in retail. And Casey would certainly back me up on this is that it's not always the most collaborative. relationship and it's actually never been more important to be as collaborative and engaged and grateful, than today with those store teams, because they are representing the face of your brand.

[01:00:37] And it has not been an easy year for them. 

[01:00:40] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I think we even [01:00:41] touched on that right in the clubhouse too. Right. That you've got to have, you know, what wins it's like when you walked into a meeting with retail executives and you ask them, when was the last time you walked into your store and talked to the team?

[01:00:52] Ron Thurston: It's true. I mean, I was on stage a couple of weeks ago at a conference that was primarily C-suite and. My message was every single one of you in this room. If you have a store in New York city, you need to leave this conference and go visit a store. And that seems like a strange thing to request from someone like me, but like, they want to see you, they, and they don't want the show. They want to see you. And they want you to say, thank you. And that's it.And I want you to be grateful for what those teams have going through because many of those brands are not back in the office full time, maybe a couple of days a week and store teams don't have that choice. And the more that we can just be grateful, then those employees go out and tell their friends of [01:01:41] like, or the CEO of the company just stopped by tonight after a conference.

[01:01:45] They because Ron told them to, and then they tell their friends like, wow. And he sat down and he listened and he asked them questions and he got back to me and said, thank you so much, Casey, for what you shared, based on that, we're going to do something differently, what that does to empower store teams.

[01:02:04] And that shares their love of working for that brand is immeasurable. And the minute you come into New York city and they know you're in town and you go to a conference. You jump. They know that I've been on the other side. I've been that guy who was waiting for a visit because the CEO was in town and it didn't happen.

[01:02:25] I just think we've got to take sometimes our title off and just get human again. 

[01:02:32] Casey Golden: I agree. So many times I woke up because I was excited to see my customers and I loved them and they loved [01:02:41] me. I liked the brand. I loved my job, but I got out of bed because I had clients coming in today. I was so excited to see them.

[01:02:50] And, there's nothing better than to know that corporate appreciates that energy. And that you are caring for their customers. Ron, how do you approach technology initiatives when it comes to the frontline staff? We can't just hand over new tech to sales associates and hope for the best, or actually we can, but how do you incorporate that feedback

[01:03:14] from the store teams and really look at enabling them. To be able to sell, be able to adopt technology. But a lot of times it's counter counterintuitive. 

[01:03:24] Ron Thurston: Yeah. You know, I would kind of go back to what I had just referenced before, you know, the adoption of, of new technology is at its best when you have built it based on feedback from the people that are going to use it and say, what [01:03:41] do you need to do your job?

[01:03:42] So, if you could have anything in the world, what, what is the hardware? What is the software? What's the experience? What do you need to be the best version of your self in your role and for your customers? And then you build that or you go and find that and provide it. So I think what often then has happened, which I've seen myself as technology, or the theory of.

[01:04:07] What the C-suite thinks the stores need is then delivered. And the store is like, I don't, what is this for? I don't understand. I didn't, I didn't need this. And so the adoption rate is low and then brands are frustrated and like, it's this circle of negativity. And instead say, how can I, as a leader support you, what can I provide you?

[01:04:31] Well, great. Thank you for your feedback. We're going to go back and bring some more, some ideas, but I'd love for you to come into the office with several of your peers. And let's whiteboard this, or [01:04:41] let's talk about this and then let's use the six of you just making stuff up as the pilot sores. And let's pilot with you and capture your feedback and then pivot, and then we're going to roll it out to 10 more, and then we're going to roll it out to a hundred more.

[01:04:55] And you're going to be the leaders of training and rolling this out to your peer group, because you're the users of this product. Like if you did all of that, every new technology that was introduced in stores was done that way the adoption rates would be through the roof because 

[01:05:13] provided something they wanted.

[01:05:16] Casey Golden: We, I would never build anything without my users because we talk to end users and it's so much of, it's so much of a, a tech culture and maybe a Silicon valley culture that's been there that you call and talk to your end users. You don't call corporate. You, you go down to your end users and you talk to them on a regular basis and get that feedback and ask them to [01:05:41] whiteboard.

[01:05:41] But, gosh, do you imagine sales associates being, being invited to corporate to whiteboard? 

[01:05:47] Ron Thurston: I mean, it seems like a dream, but it actually should be the reality. And it should be the norm. I've done that when I've had the opportunity and I can speak from experience that the buy-in from that is enormous because then it's like, actually we didn't need this, or we need more of this, but this functionality is how we've kind of scrapped this together on our own.

[01:06:10] So build that. And so all of the different systems of like how we're hiring. Um, so I'm involved with a couple of different platforms around embracing the gig economy workforce with retail teams on demand, video based hiring platforms, you know, like we're solving for solutions, we're solving for problems that exist in stores because no show rates on job interviews are really high in stores.

[01:06:39] Candidates that are asking for [01:06:41] flexible work schedules today, more than ever, then let's provide a solution that actually solves the problem. Don't just throw your hands up and say, well, nobody wants to work in retail and work because I'm hearing that in the news. And in fact, that is entirely false. They don't actually want to work in a way that they've been asked to work for the last. decade

[01:07:00] They want to work in a way that's right. For them and for you, but you have, it's your responsibility as the brand to find the solution, not for the candidates to bend over and say sure, like no problem. I'll work every, every weekend for the rest of my life. Like not, not an option anymore. 

[01:07:18] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, it's amazing how, all of these things, whether it's technology or anything else in this industry, we forget about the human factor and how important that is in just about every aspect of the business.

[01:07:28] Right. So, Ron, last question for you, I'm curious, who do you think is doing this well? Who do you hold up as the example that other retailers should follow or at least look to as setting the standard for how they support [01:07:41]their front line staff? 

[01:07:42] Ron Thurston: I love this question, Ricardo, because there's no answer.

[01:07:46] And I'll tell you why, because everything that I've just spoken about is there are great brand great brands who have limited funds who have built infrastructures of. Really great stores who have incredible store managers who motivated team can recruit and hire. can develop their team to next can engage with customers and have high NPS scores and probably really good results.

[01:08:22] And that same brand can have a store manager. That's not doing any of those things and is not as motivated and not as inspired and may not be a great recruiter. And it's probably delivering average results and it's for the exact same company and that the company doesn't always dictate. [01:08:41] That every, doesn't say every store is going to be great.

[01:08:43] What the true root of that is lies in the hands of the store leadership team. And they have the biggest influence on the impact. And there could be brands that you have perceptions that maybe are. Not the greatest places to work. And, you know, I don't want to call any of them out, but maybe they're discount retailers.

[01:09:05] Maybe you're got low price retailers, pharmacies, you think, wow, that doesn't seem great. I will tell you, I get messages from people at brands like the dollar store and TJ Maxx. That have read retail pride, who then come back and tell me how much they love working at the dollar store and how proud they are to work at the dollar store and that how excited they are to go to work every day.

[01:09:29] And it's because they have really great leaders in that particular store. I can't speak for the company because I'm sure there's some stores where the employees are in a chat room somewhere [01:09:41] talking about how horrible it is, but there are also those. Probably districts and stores full of great people who love what they do and the company doesn't dictate that.

[01:09:52] And you think we have to put that power and energy back into stores again and say, you are the owner of this business. Your name might not be on the door, but you are entirely responsible for what happens to every customer that walks into the store today. It's not the company it's you. And when you say that to a store manager, of, I'm giving you the power to represent this brand and the, team around you.

[01:10:21] And I'm here to support you. Magic happens. And I firmly believe that it's never about the brand. It's about the people you hire and how you inspire them and the culture you create around it. And I love that it's that there aren't winners or losers it's that everybody can win. It's just giving them what [01:10:41] they, what they, the tools they need to do that. 

[01:10:43] Ricardo Belmar: That really is all about how you empower them in the end. Right. And how you enable everyone to do their best. 

[01:10:48] Ron Thurston: Yep. 

[01:10:49] Casey Golden: Well Ron,, it's never enough time, but always a good one. Thank you for joining us.

[01:10:55] Ron Thurston: My pleasure. Any time. 

[01:10:58] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, it's really a pleasure. I wish we're retail executives took the same viewpoints that you're spending so much time and energy kind of spreading the good word about it's really refreshing and inspiring.

[01:11:10] I think for everyone. In the industry. Now we're really looking forward to having you come back for episode two, where I think they'll have some other, announcements to share maybe as a quick tease for our listeners. 

[01:11:20] Ron Thurston: Amazing. Thank you so much. I look forward to it, 

[01:11:23] Ricardo Belmar: And with that 

Thank you, Clubhouse

[01:11:22] Ricardo: I want to take this time to thank everyone who joined us on stage on Clubhouse and ask Ron and the panel questions. So a big thank you to Mr. B2B tech influencer himself. Evan Kirstel. To Jeff Brand managing partner at Brand Partners. Tim Tang from Hughes Jeff Sward, CEO of Merchandising Metrics. And analytics and data science expert and influencer, Amanda Fetch. Thanks to all of you. And with that, it's time to close out our first ever episode.

Show Close

[01:11:49] Casey: if you enjoyed our show, please consider giving us a five-star rating and post a review on apple podcasts. Hit that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player. So you don't miss a minute. Want to know more about what we talked about today? Take a look at the show notes for handy links and more deets.

[01:12:06] I'm your cohost Casey Golden.

[01:12:07] Ricardo: And I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar. If you'd like to connect with us, follow us on Twitter at caseycgolden and ricardo_belmar, or find us on LinkedIn. Be sure and follow the show on Twitter at retail razor on LinkedIn and on our YouTube channel for sneak peeks at future episodes and bonus content.

[01:12:24] Casey: Thanks for joining us. 

[01:12:26] Ricardo: And remember, there's never been a better time to be in retail, IF, you cut through the clutter - until next time, THIS is the Retail Razor Show!