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and messages can be optimized for
better store navigation.
Leading retailers are all-too familiar
with the next in-store frustration, and
it’s why we’ve seen emphasis placed by
retail CIOs on tech-enablement of em-
ployees. More than six in 10 of those
surveyed by GapGemini list a lack of
guidance and demos from in-store as-
sociates among their top frustrations.
It connects directly back to one of the
main perceived benefits shoppers see
in coming into a store: human contact
and the ability, if I want it, to interact.
And when I do engage a floor staffer,
that employee better be more informed
than me (and hopefully more than Ama-
zon), but surveys suggest customers
don’t feel that is the case. More than
eight in 10 shoppers recently surveyed
by retail app provider Tulip Retail be-
lieve they’re more knowledgeable than
retail store associates. All the while,
79 percent of survey respondents say
knowledgeable store associates are “im-
portant” or “very important.”
There’s only so much technology
can do here. Good employees, quite
simply, will always be a product of
hiring, on-boarding, pay, retention,
local hiring pool, etc. (at least until the
robots come), and those who do HR
right tend to prosper. Nevertheless,
we expect to see continued investment
in the mobile empowerment of floor
staff. That’s largely because customers
can enter a store with more informa-
tion than ever could be learned and
retained by one person, no matter
how much product training and sales
instruction they’ve received. From pre-
visit research, customers can know
about prices, product availability, pur-
chase history, reviews, color options
and delivery dates. If they ask for help
from an employee, anything less than
that is less than impressive.
Ultimately, the in-store experience
is the product of a slower time; a time
when seeing folks at the general store
was an important social exercise and
browsing aisles was a past time. So it’s
not surprising that a reboot is in order.
The good news is today’s technol-
ogy often is delivered in whole new
ways. Cloud-based deployment and
as-a-service delivery mechanisms are
democratizing all sorts of IT resources,
including some cutting-edge stuff.
What was once a capital intensive
endeavor that required some inter-
nal expertise is now a fully managed
service delivered securely, with high
availability, from a provider’s hosted
facility. What once meant a heavy up-
front investment becomes a monthly
recurring cost that can include mainte-
nance, management and upgrades (no
worries about obsolescence).
At the same time, consumers seem
to be telling us, at least in surveys, that
when they are going to spend their
money, they want that “real” experi-
ence of physical touch and firsthand
sight, of human connection and im-
mediate gratification. So there may
be limits to how much “digital” they
are ready to have introduced into that
space. There’s less question about on-
line “smarts.” Consumers already bring
the information, endless aisle and
instantaneousness of online commerce
into physical stores. Those stores bet-
ter be ready to handle it.
Spring
2017
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Inside
Outdoor
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