People in Places

Airports have long been a place of frustration for many travelers over the years. Come join us as we chat with Natasia Malaihollo, Co-founder at Wyzerr, on what her team is doing to elevate the customer experience using AI.

Imagine having to opt out of your grocery store automatically shipping you items you regularly purchase. Where they learn your buying habits so well that you actually have to opt out of delivery, not opt in. That's where Rachel Elias Wein, Founder and President of WeinPlus, sees the grocery sector heading.

Online and offline spaces were previously very segregated as separate business units, so these retailers weren't able to capture the full picture. Now, when you purchase something in stores, that sale is registered online and in the store to increase the power of the MSA. The separate business units are now inextricably linked.

That's why you see a new store opening increase online sales. And when you close a store, the online sales decrease dramatically. Rachel finds this evolution now shifting to the grocery sector.

Apparel evolved their online and offline presence at a time when the world was still getting comfortable with the idea of buying online. Now that there is widespread comfort, the grocery sector is finding its place. While many homes may still prefer to pick out the perfect strawberries on their own, Rachel sees habits quickly changing.

The customer has changed. Gone are the days of making a shopping list, heading to the mall and walking through a dozen stores to find what you want.

The marketplace is now online, and open 24-7. Customers expect to be able to shop when they want, where they want, for what they want. Retailers understand this. But what about the folks behind the retailers? What about the commercial property groups?

How do you revitalize a declining municipality?

Katie Meyer, Executive Director of Renaissance Covington, is on the front lines of this challenge in Covington, Kentucky. Her city's downtown shares a similar story to many others. An incredible historic infrastructure still stands, albeit empty. Over the years, their downtown has lost a lot of loss in small business and population, but she's working hard to preserve it before it's too late.

Her approach of choice? Smart city initiatives.

That's where our second guest comes in. Mike Grogan, Director of Mobile Strategy and Product Marketing at Cincinnati Bell, has partnered with RC to not only connect the downtown area with wifi, but collect data insights to improve strategy.

The biggest challenge Katie used to face with the revitalization efforts was proving the return on investment. Answering questions like, how many people did it attract or how did it influence business growth in the district? The new data would helped them clearly answer those questions and more.

The world of wireless networks has evolved from a commodity to a core part of data strategy, and early concerns about speed and security are being replaced with a desire to know what to do with all the data coming in. Özer Dondurmacıoğlu, VP of Location Services at HPE Aruba, joined the podcast to talk about why wireless networks are now key to your customer intelligence strategy.

Technology is not the end all be all, or the one silver bullet. Yes, it will really assist in solving your customer's problems, but it's just an enabler. This is wisdom Tim Weale and his company Mirvac Retail Solutions live by.

As a property group in Australia, they're out to solve their customer's problems with technology as an enabler. And with three different customer types (retailers, consumers, and business units), it's no easy feat. But when you think holistically about the problems, you discover more creative ways to solve.

Businesses with physical locations are shifting from being simply transactional to places where people can have meaningful experiences. Something you can't replicate in the digital world. But this isn't easy, especially when you're working within the fast-moving tech space.

This requires staying ahead of new technology, new approaches to understanding data, and even new thought leadership. And that's the goal of the new podcast People In Places by Skyfii. To be a resource that helps businesses close the gap between their physical and digital data.

We'll bring you experts in the industry to serve you important information you can utilize to improve your customer experience.