S1E2 – The Retail Avengers & The Future of Frontline Staff, Part 2
Welcome to Season 1, Episode 2, the second 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 2 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 the impact of AI and automation on store teams and how retailers can, and should, equip their frontline staff with technology. Plus, Ron gives us a preview of his latest project, kicking off in 2022 – Retail In America!
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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TRANSCRIPT
S1E2 Retail Avengers & The Future of Frontline Staff, Part 2[00:00:20] Ricardo Belmar: Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. No matter what time of day you're listening. Welcome. Welcome to season one, episode two, the second ever episode of the Retail Razor Show. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar, one of RIS News top 10 movers and shakers in retail for 2021 and lead partner marketing advisor for retail and consumer goods at Microsoft.
[00:00:42] Casey Golden: And I'm your co-host Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock obsessed with the customer relationship between a brand and the consumer. I spend my days slaying franken-stacks.
[00:00:52] Ricardo Belmar: So Casey, how many franken-stacks have you slain since our last episode?
[00:00:55] Casey Golden: I can't even count right now.
[00:00:57] Ricardo Belmar: Okay. No worries. I think maybe our listeners are gonna want to start keeping track though, since we keep, , talking about it, maybe, maybe they'll start tweeting out to us, their guesses on how many between episodes.
[00:01:06] Casey Golden: I love a good tweet storm.
[00:01:07] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, me too. So any listeners out there who want to tweet a guess on how many franken-stacks Casey has slain since episode one. Be sure and tweet your guess and tag the Retail Razor account so we see it. We'll be sure to give a shout out to whoever [00:01:20] comes the closest next time we record our episode, right Casey?
[00:01:24] Casey Golden: I guess I'm going to have to start keeping count myself.
[00:01:26] Ricardo Belmar: There you go.
[00:01:29] Casey Golden: So regarding the last week we kicked off the show with our friend, Ron Thurston, author of retail pride, and he's joining us again this week
[00:01:36] Ricardo Belmar: that's right. This is part two of our Retail Avengers and the Future of Frontline Staff session. Last week, we focused on the current state of frontline workers in retail and how tech will become more and more of an integral part of that experience.
[00:01:49] And this week we tackle a few of the biggest issues that concern the retail workforce, around automation and AI versus the human staff, how to best leverage technology in the hands of store associates. And we take on some interesting questions from the clubhouse audience on digital versus analog experiences and in the human connection in retail.
[00:02:08] Casey Golden: These are tough topics. I'm a big proponent of human augmentation, but let's face it. We gotta automate the things we don't want to do.
[00:02:16] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. Yeah. , I totally hear you. And I completely agree. So [00:02:20] many people are getting scared of the automation that's coming, but I think that's the wrong way to look at it.
[00:02:25] And we'll, talk about that in this session, because there's so many benefits to having that automation do exactly what you just said, right. To get rid of all the tasks that are not the interesting fun ones and let's face it, not the ones that make the customer experience better.
[00:02:39] Casey Golden: Exactly. We've got to enable the heart of our business, which is that engagement between the consumer in the brand and the consumer never walks into corporate, you know, they walk into the stores and that's where their experiences. So I really believe, you know, scaling that part of the business and making sure that the heart has software. It's going to be able to just move everything further.
[00:03:11] They're not spending any time doing admin work. And there's ways to, for them to focus on what's really important to the business and what's important to the [00:03:20] consumer.
[00:03:20] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I totally agree. And even when we're talking about basic things like we're going to get to in this session about store associates, getting mobile devices to use when they engage with customers
[00:03:29] Casey Golden: Yeah, I love talking about frontline staff and Ron is one of the best people to dive into this topic. So glad he'll be joining us after we listen to the clubhouse recording, let's go get to it.
[00:03:39] Ricardo Belmar: You got it. So without further delay, let's give a listen to the Retail Avengers and the Future of Frontline Staff, Part 2.
Clubhouse Session
[00:03:54] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome everyone. Thank you for joining us here in the retail razor club room, we're continuing our conversation with special guest Ron Thurston, and about the future of frontline retail staff.
[00:04:04] So let's do some quick introductions. I'll start with our special guests, Ron Thurston, author of retail pride, and Ron, I know you have some special announcements that I'll let you share about what, you're going to be doing.
[00:04:16] I think then you've also got some special activities happening in New York this weekend share with us. So let me give you a moment to introduce yourself and tell us about those two things.
[00:04:25] Ron Thurston: Awesome. Thanks so much, Ricardo. I really appreciate it. So yes, I'm the author of retail pride, the guide to celebrating your accidental career, which is why I love to talk about everything, frontline worker retail related, and I'll start with myself.
[00:04:39] So yes, until last week I was the head of stores of intermix, as part of kind of their sale to private equity and such. It was a great time for me to launch my own brand. So I'm launching an umbrella, brand under Take Pride [00:04:54] Today, which will be consulting. And I'm speaking opportunities, additional books under the umbrella of retail pride.
[00:05:01] And I'm really excited to get this started, kind of building out the infrastructure for what that will look like. So thank you for, for helping me, get that out into the world.
[00:05:10] Ricardo Belmar: All right. Thank you for that, Ron. Appreciate it,
[00:05:13] Trevor welcome. Why don't you introduce yourself?
[00:05:15] Trevor Sumner: Hi, I'm Trevor Sumner. I'm the CEO of perch. We do interactive displays at retail.
[00:05:21] And what's cool about them is they use computer vision to detect which products you touch. So it's like minority report, it touch a product. And literally the shelf starts talking to you about the product ratings, reviews, videos, augmented reality, all that kind of stuff.
[00:05:33] Ricardo Belmar: All right, fantastic. And move on to Shish.
[00:05:35] Shish Shridhar: Hi, good morning. Good afternoon. I'm the retail lead, with Microsoft for startups and essentially create a portfolio of retail tech, early stage retail, tech startups, I'm, on the lookout for innovative startups in the space. I'm always meeting up with [00:05:54] startups and learning a lot as well in that process. I've been in retail for about 20 something years, 24 years in Microsoft.
[00:06:02] And about 15 of those years, working very closely with the top retailers around the world. Looking forward to the conversation today. Thank you..
[00:06:11] Ricardo Belmar: Thank you, Shish. Brandon.
[00:06:12] Brandon Rael: Hello everyone, my name is Brandan Rael.. I've been in around the retail industry, both within retail companies, across a variety of merchandising and planning.
[00:06:21] And I love that that role but I'm mostly on the other side now, currently I'm one of the transformation leaders at Reach Partners a boutique consultancy that works with the retailers, CPG companies, DTC companies to not only, stay ahead of disruption, but self disrupt themselves to really pivot their organizations and, provide an amazing customer experiences, both in store and online and, happy to be here.
[00:06:46] Ricardo Belmar: All right, thank you, Brandon. And Jeff.
[00:06:48] Jeff Roster: Hi, Jeff roster, a former Gartner and IHL retail sector analysts. Now, sit on several advisory [00:06:54] boards as well as the co-host for This week in Innovation podcast..
[00:06:57] Ricardo Belmar: Thank you, Jeff and I'm Ricardo Belmar. I founded the Retail Razor Club here on Clubhouse. I've been in retail tech for the better part of the last two decades, working for a different technology providers and service providers in retail, currently at Microsoft as a senior partner marketing advisor for retail and consumer goods.
[00:07:15] Recap of Part 1
[00:07:15] Ricardo Belmar: So let me do a quick recap of what we discussed at the last session. We've focused then on what new roles may emerge for frontline workers. We had an example of Levi's talking about, skills training and data science. We talked about new skills for clientelling supporting self-checkout and click and collect operations at the store. We came to a conclusion there was going to be a strong focus on supporting convenience services and experiential retail, which in this case led to a prediction that there will be more segmenting of staff into specialists or subject matter expert areas so that you won't see [00:07:54] a frontline position description might not just be as a sales associate, but it may include things like being a live streamer or doing something else around a particular area of product expertise based on what the store sells.
[00:08:06] And that segmenting is something that should lead to an embracing of uniqueness and diversity in the staff. And then we also covered some interesting new retail tech, that we thought front lines are going to be enabled with around collaboration, assisted selling, other store operational tools, things that would support fulfillment, particularly stores that may operate sort of a micro fulfillment area, in part of their footprint.
[00:08:30] And that led us to also talk about what the perception of roles would be. Ron had brought up an interesting point about frontline workers asking, what do I call my role? Because it was becoming much more than a traditional sales role. And again, that tied back to the area of segmenting.
[00:08:47] This week we're going to dive into a couple of different areas.
[00:08:50] The main one is going to be what the impact of [00:08:54] AI and automation will have on frontline staff. And we're also going to touch on things we think retailers could be doing to improve that work environment for front lines, but both in and out of the automation conversation. So for example, before we dive into those, I'm going to pose a question for the panel , we learned that Walmart is buying 740,000 Samsung smartphones for their frontline workers, that's going to include a very special integrated app. That's supposed to help them with all of their daily work tasks and, and managing everything related to being on the job essentially.
[00:09:27] And also they're going to give their frontline staff the option of adopting that device as their personal device. And the claim from Walmart is that they are not going to have any visibility or access to any of those personal data areas, on the device should you choose to use it that way.
[00:09:44] So I'm sure everyone has some thoughts on that. My question do you see this a, is this a trend? You know, we we've always talked in the past about how this was going to be the [00:09:54]year of associate enablement, whether it was technology or training.
[00:09:57] And it seemed every year that we would start the year talking about that, but we wouldn't see a lot of evidence from most retailers to do anything about that. And here comes Walmart with what I've seen, some calculations posted online that, depending on what Samsung's price was for these devices, it's easily a 350 to 380 million investment.
[00:10:16] Mobile Devices for Store Associates Trend
[00:10:16] Ricardo Belmar: Is this a trend? Is this a sort of a turning point that we're going to see retailers put frontline workers, in a better light and really focus on equipping them with the technology they need to put them on par with the technology, customers are walking into the store with, or is there some other meaning to this?
[00:10:33] For example, one of the app functions, is an AI based tool called ask Sam, which Walmart says has been heavily used in, trials already where workers can ask just about any question to this AI sort of a chat bot, I suppose, that helps them find answers and help customers. So with my long explanation there, Ron, [00:10:54] I'll start with you.
[00:10:54] What do you think of this?
[00:10:55] Ron Thurston: Thanks Ricardo. So I I'll approach it from two different sides. I think from the, from the Walmart side. And as, as someone who was kind of deep into also providing tech to employees, there, there are so many legal implications about the idea of offering you. I know the pilot was about bringing your own device and let's pilot this, but it's become increasingly difficult from a legal perspective to ask anyone to do anything off the clock as they shouldn't.
[00:11:25] And so when you think about the majority of these employees, significant majority are hourly employees, the ability for then Walmart to provide things like scheduling tools requesting time off, probably putting in something around like vacation days. You can do all of that on this device actually is really helpful for them to be able to just control the control the data control the, the use.
[00:11:53] It [00:11:54] sounds like it is only enabled when they're in the store. It's probably connected to the wifi, which is, pretty normal. And so I actually think it's a fantastic way for Walmart to have a recruiting advantage because that's also a huge call-out today of how do we attract and retain top talent, or, at least be able to fill all of our open jobs.
[00:12:15] And this is a great way to do that. And secondly, provide The opportunity for, kind of data collection data use and be able to provide tools that the employees have access to, where normally in scheduling, you'd have to kind of come into the store and make a phone call and you can't ask an employee to check their personal email, or even use their personal email accounts when they're off the clock.
[00:12:38] There's so many legal implications. And on the employee side, it's a huge perk for a low hourly frontline worker to have something you could use for your personal device, whether you think the company is, is tracking you or not, this is [00:12:54] TBD, but the benefits, I could see huge benefits on both sides.
[00:12:57] And I, applaud them for making the move. And I think it's the first of many, many to come in this, in this arena. And, I'm excited that they were the first to move.
[00:13:07] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, thanks, Ron. I agree with you , , I see this as a overall positive move, although certainly with plenty of potential gotchas and, I suspect Trevor has a few things to say about some of those gotchas.
[00:13:18] Trevor Sumner: I have I've, I've lots of things about many gotchas. I Ron, I think that's a really interesting point about, you know, kind of compliance and risk mitigation and, you know, even, making sure that off the clock, you have a device that they could use and could log and could track.
[00:13:34] And so they are properly compensated for such. And I don't know if they're going to start that it doesn't sound like they're starting there yet to be connected to wifi, but they may end up going in that direction. In terms of greater compliance, as we, continually kind of do CRM and one-to-one marketing and for sales associates outside of store,
[00:13:51] I think this is. There's [00:13:54] something else at play. Like I think this is great. And you know, there's no reason you can't have most of the utilities that they talked about in the release on, some type of web based app or, or support both iOS and Android and basically hit everything anyway. So why provide your own devices?
[00:14:10] And I think, you know, part of it's like the controlled environment it's access, but I also think the data play is really interesting. So I think about, like ask Sam and other tools that, I think voice interfaces are highly inefficient. A lot of these technologies need to be refined. A lot of data needs to be collected to optimize things.
[00:14:27] And all of a sudden you've got, basically you can track every sales associate in the store and where they are at all times. You can track if they're using ask Sam, you can look at the most common queries you can, you know, do a bunch of voice recognition. You can give yourself an advantage. Like one of the things that, Google, had a voice recognition advantage over a lot of people is that they already had all these voice recordings and all this voice data.
[00:14:49] So I think there's a data pipeline play here that they're going to use and, to [00:14:54] test bed different applications before they release them to consumers and, and use the sales associates as a testing ground, to improve the UX, the UI and the underlying technology, for everything that they do.
[00:15:04] And I think that that ultimately is the value because that makes everything they do from a technology perspective that they eventually released to the, to the end consumer, to be a much more mature. And well-vetted.
[00:15:15] Brandon Rael: No to add to that point, I think, there probably rarefied the amount of companies that can make these significant investments in digital technologies and sales associate enablement via technologies like mobile devices.
[00:15:28] So, it's can take, , such an investment like from a Walmart or potentially a Target that can actually, , invest in these capabilities, but also do the training necessary to empower store associates, to really make these a value added asset of what providing a, an outstanding associate experience, which w you know, Ron and others know, will translate over to a outstanding customer experience, then it, to help them enhance that relationship and enable the store associates to keep up with it, with, evolving [00:15:54] and always informed, and always empowered a customer who has a mobile device in their hands and access to information, review his competitor information prices.
[00:16:03] Why not empower and enable your store associates keep up with that changing paradigm.
[00:16:07] Shish Shridhar: I kind of think this is actually a very interesting move for Walmart. I've been, following the space and working on that space and empowering employees for a couple of years. And one of the points that Ron made about the legal implications, that was one of the big barriers in the past where they wanted, you know, The ability to control it, where the information and the task list and the ability to read work-based information outside of hours was a big concern.
[00:16:38] And today with the capabilities available of controlling that I think it is becoming more of a possibility. Then it was maybe about five to 10 years ago. And that is, I think one of the drivers as well. And the other [00:16:54] aspect is, if I look at it from a startup perspective, oldest startup are in the space.
[00:17:00] There's a lot of interesting technologies that are, that are being deployed. A lot of retailers are experimented with it primarily because the looking at, one, the more empowered the employees are, the happier customers are going to be. And also the other aspect of it, you know, when we look at it from the perspective of the future of frontline staff, And the, the evolving role of the frontline staff.
[00:17:25] This is an important element of that. And I think it is the start of that journey where a frontline staff is going to be empowered, but a lot of information that they need, as they grow into, into that new role of being subject matter experts, into that role. Really fitting into a higher level of customer expectation.
[00:17:49] So the features like the ask Sam, those are things that I'm seeing a lot of [00:17:54] where store associates can connect to real time information that can connect to conversational systems and be able to ask questions, get responses very quickly so that they're better informed and are able to help customers as a result.
[00:18:11] They know exactly whether a product is in stock than not. They know if it's in the back room. So that quick access to information is an important element of that evolving role of the, of the frontline worker. And I think this is, this is huge in a way. I've been working with companies like Theatro, for example, that use a headset based system.
[00:18:35] There's a company called Turnpike that is deployed in H and M. That is using wearables for companies that feel that, you know, a mobile device looks like a bit of a distraction. There is, other companies that use mobile devices and working with natural gourds that are using mobile devices. So there's multiple [00:18:54] formats that startups are experimenting with and also, what appeals to different types of retailers.
[00:19:00] And, and in my mind, this is actually the beginning of that journey of evolution for, for the frontline worker, where they become empowered and also become subject matter experts, not necessarily to knowledge they have, but the connection to the backend knowledge that enables them to be far more effective and, and cater to the, the evolving expectations.
[00:19:24] Trevor Sumner: Shish that actually just, inspired something, connecting the dots. When you talked about all these new startups doing interesting things, there's a startup out of VRA where I mentor, and they're called RilaVoice. And what they do is they mic up sales associates and they listen to every conversation they tag.
[00:19:41] They look at the most common questions they can provide compliance on whether sales associates are answering questions well, using the right keywords, et cetera. But, again, I focus on the sheer scale of [00:19:54] this network. And what if, Walmart couldn't do that with your own device, but they couldn't do that.
[00:19:58] I mean, we, we joke about how face you say something and all of a sudden you see Facebook ads for that thing. Like, there's no reason that Walmart couldn't enable these devices to listen all the time and start recording conversations and use that information in an interesting way. There's just so many tremendous opportunities to leverage this.
[00:20:16] Ron Thurston: Yeah. And it's Ron, I was going to jump into about what Shish said, because this kind of idea of being enabled and encouraged and empowered, I think what was likely happening is that customers were engaged in. With frontline asking questions and they were pulling their own phone out of their back pocket.
[00:20:35] And, and probably going to the website, probably looking at pricing, trying to do whatever they could to do that. And that there's legal risk put into that. So the idea of say, we're providing you all of these resources, we're empowering you with information and data. We're giving you everything that you need and let's leave your [00:20:54] personal phone in your locker when you get to work.
[00:20:56] Like there's a lot of, there's a lot of potential, kind of positive and positive employee sentiment doing something like this that can really help from a recruiting standpoint to,
[00:21:08] Brandon Rael: I also think to Ron's point, this generation is ready for this, these technologies and tools and solutions. We have a generation that's grown up, the next wave of retail, frontline workers who know nothing but digital. So why not empower these gen Z or, or the younger millennials to truly take on , and run with it because, when the guy came up with a customer who is light years ahead, so it's all about empowerment, it's all about enabling.
[00:21:32] It's all about trusting your associates and given the tools and capabilities and need to provide an experience that's extraordinary and really helped our discovery
[00:21:42] Ricardo Belmar: for the customers
[00:21:42] and isn't there an element of consistency , too?
[00:21:44] Because you want that experience to be consistent across associates, across stores, across customers.
[00:21:50] I'm just thinking of Ron's example of the associate pulling their own device [00:21:54] out of their pocket to try to answer a question for a customer. That just seems like it's always going to lead to inconsistency, right? Because you're not providing the associate with the right tool for the job to get that consistent response.
[00:22:06] And I have to believe that, if I'm Walmart, I want that consistency because what's my brand value to the customer. It's part of it is that consistency of experience that any Walmart you walk into, you know you're going to get this experience and if I'm not providing the tools to the staff, then how can I deliver that?
[00:22:23] Shish Shridhar: That actually reminds me of the conversation I had with the retailer couple of years ago, where, we found when we were working with that retailer, every one of the stores had a Facebook group for having internal conversations. And this was mainly because the company hadn't provided a platform for store associates to have those conversations, to sort of standardize it and not go rogue.
[00:22:46] And, and they kind of found that when they were able to provide that platform, there was sort of a control place, [00:22:54] but things could happen. This is secure and it's not out in the public. Many of these sites were actually out in the public and you could go into these Facebook groups, look at all the internal conversations and bright the was going on, within, within the store itself.
[00:23:09] That was, again, I think one of those things where companies decide we need to standardize and provide a consistent interface. Thank you.
[00:23:17] Trevor Sumner: Well, not just consistency, something that you can monitor. Right. And, that's one of the values and, and, and I thought the earlier point is great. It's like, let's be honest that a lot of Walmart, you know, sales associates, they're making minimum wage or close to it.
[00:23:31] So the notion of having, free phone service and a free device that's meaningful. Right? And if you think about the data rates that are probably pre negotiated by Walmart, they're probably getting a very good deal.
[00:23:43] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I think that speaks back to Ron's point earlier about the incentive as a recruiting incentive, right.
[00:23:48] To find more as we've heard, certainly in other rooms and in clubhouse at another news stories, there's [00:23:54] a big difficulty right now for a lot of retailers to recruit enough staff as stores have reopened and customers are coming back. So I think I do agree that that serves as a good incentive. I think Trevor, your point is right about that.
[00:24:06] I'm going to ask Jeff, you've been quiet and listening to everybody's comments. If you had anything that you disagreed with or wanted to add to this?
[00:24:13] Jeff Roster: Yeah, so really interesting. First, first thought is we've been waiting forever to really get into the BYO D discussion, bring your own device in this case, it's really not a BYO D it's a, B Y B Y CD.
[00:24:25] Bring your own company device. So there's gonna just be some amazing learnings that are going to come out of this huge fan of, of having associates have to have the tools, probably everyone in this, in this conversation. And obviously everyone on clubhouse has, has a powerful, a smartphone that they're using.
[00:24:40] Why shouldn't our, our store associates have it, that I pop on my loss prevention hat and think what happened. And so I agree with Trevor that there's some crazy interesting voice technology that's coming out, sentiment analysis, how, you know, tone of voice, all that sort of stuff. Before [00:24:54] listening to the conversations to help in that.
[00:24:56] What happens when you can recover some loss prevention problems, two associates, maybe, maybe talking a about stealing something or whatnot. What do we do there? Is there a privacy concern there? How do we turn that device off? When store associates have the expectation for, for a private conversation, don't have the answers, but this is going to be fascinating to watch.
[00:25:16] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I think that's a good point. It is absolutely going to be interesting to watch the deployment of this. I think it's gonna be fascinating to see what percentage of employees decide to use this device as their personal device.
[00:25:26] One of the things that I think is interesting in, in a couple of us touched on this . So, the ask Sam app is an example of that.
[00:25:33] AI Impact on Frontline Workers
[00:25:33] Ricardo Belmar: Where else do we see AI based technologies, stepping in whether in that case being billed as an augmentation or something to assist in associated, or you could see this as well in a clientelling scenario, and compare that with other automation technologies. And is this going to be competition for [00:25:54] frontline workers?
[00:25:54] Is it going to be an assistance? Is it a combination of the two there there's certainly a perception out there that certain types of automation technology are a threat to frontline jobs. Certainly if you start talking about robotics, you get lots of folks who will come back and say, the robots are going to take those jobs away from frontline workers.
[00:26:13] And if you think about a grocery store scenario where you're using a robot to do shelf counts, for example, people start to think there may be some truth in that statement. In other scenarios, you, you might respond to something like that and say, well, what's really happening is we're shifting the tasks.
[00:26:27] We're trying to eliminate the more mundane, repetitive tasks that don't really add to the employees. Productivity don't necessarily help that frontline worker help a customer and free them up to do those jobs. So we're, we're shifting tasks, not necessarily shifting labor. There there's arguments on all sides of this.
[00:26:46] I want to open up the discussion now to that point. Where do you see this, dividing line between. AI [00:26:54] technologies, automation, technologies being a threat versus it assisting frontline workers. And Ron, I'm going to start with you again, putting you on the spot.
[00:27:03] Ron Thurston: This is the complicated question, but you got to thank you. I mean, here's what, what I would say is that there, there has always been, and there will always be a high demand and a high expectation of people who are exceptional every day and committed to delivering great customer experiences.
[00:27:24] And, and maybe as the types of our businesses evolve and scale in different ways and you know, kind of evolution continues in retail. There will always be that side of it that needs great people who have incredible human interaction skills and they, they are unaffected by all of this because what they're hired for and what they're celebrated for is their ability to connect and sell.
[00:27:51] And then I think that there's a whole other [00:27:54] side of the pendulum that says, could some of these things be automated and, put through machines and done differently. Absolutely. Yes. And I think that that's fine, but when I look at it, I say, well, then there's an enormous training opportunity and ability to take, to up-skill people who may potentially frontline workers and then build their careers in retail, through training, and that they can become that person that becomes really invaluable to companies because of their ability to connect, because that's, what's bringing people back to stores today.
[00:28:28] And so that's how I kind of look at it of like the ultimate machine and the ultimate, lack of machinery that is entirely human.
[00:28:38] Trevor Sumner: Yeah. And, you know, I think that's really an interesting point because especially as you look at this pandemic and who did really, really well, Walmart target best buy all these guys took e-commerce share from Amazon because in part, because there's this identity of being local, being part of a local [00:28:54] community.
[00:28:54] And even as we talked about the 740,000 devices. Maybe that's a way that Walmart's looking at creating communities of its workers and those workers are a significant presence in the community. So I think this focus on community is absolutely right, whether it's, you know, sales associate to customer, whether it's sales, associate and worker to worker, I think there are new opportunities that are going to be uncovered as we create some of this automation to, to connect the connect the world.
[00:29:20] Brandon Rael: And I think a retail and especially the luxury sector, which can't wait to hear Casey's perspective on is the battleground to win the hearts and minds of consumers. That retailer's always going to be a blend of the arts and sciences. Yes, automation, AI, machine learning, artificial intelligence, everything, augmented reality that really adds to the value of the customer experience matters.
[00:29:44] But also the in-person engagement that Ron has alluded to that sense of community. The sense of togetherness all matters. And if it can be personalized by knowing your customers, by having the data [00:29:54] first customer first strategy that all the better, and it will make the store associates empowered, then have a really defined career path that's built on data and analytics
[00:30:03] Casey Golden: a hundred percent. This is Casey. I think being able to separate what builds value versus administration work and how we can automate more administration work and streamlining the processes so that sales associates or retail associates can focus on things that create value to the customer and to the company.
[00:30:25] I mean, how much time do you spend with customers and selling versus doing all of the paperwork or logging. And measuring everything that you need to do to, to be able to pick up that conversation again, or to create more value or to follow up. There's a lot of sales associates that either have no software or they have to use three or four pieces of software.
[00:30:49] And I think that can cause a lot of, just it's more work that great, we got technology, but [00:30:54] now they have so much technology that's not connected or not helping them. It's just creating more work. But social media has, has really been at the pinnacle of building relationships and being able to have that sense of community, clubhouse is a perfect example of that.
[00:31:10] In store experiences can facilitate it, but retail hasn't really facilitated that on e-commerce, or built their own community. A lot of retailers have relied on other social platforms to build their community on. And at the end of the day, they don't have access to their customer because it's on somebody else's platform.
[00:31:31] So I think the more we can kind of bring those experiences and connect them to the brand, consumers will be able to start feeling what brand loyalty is supposed to like, why they would want to be loyal to a brand.
[00:31:42] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I agree. To build that loyalty, right? It requires people. I don't think you can. Claim you'll accomplish that by just automating every interaction. It makes me think about, the typical customer service [00:31:54] scenario that every comedian will talk about, right.
[00:31:56] When they're trying to reach a retailer to return something, for example, and they have to get through the chat bot or they have to get through the AI before they can reach a person. It's not too many years ago when the jokes used to be about, IVR phone systems where you'd call in and you'd have to keep, press nine to get through this menu, then press seven, then press five.
[00:32:14] And everyone tried to figure out what's the special key. You have to press on the phone to get out of the automated part and get to the person. And it's in some ways, right? From a customer experience, point of view, that doesn't change that, that human component of it doesn't change. And that's why you need people.
[00:32:30] Casey Golden: Yeah. a subscription to a company called Billy and their, a, razorblade like subscription for women. And I picked them because there were a startup, a New York startup. I liked the founders. I signed up for it. I've been on a reoccurring for probably three years.
[00:32:47] I liked them, but they just magically show up in my mailbox. I don't engage with the brand. I never go to the brand's website. I don't [00:32:54] touch anything. They just arrive in my mailbox every other month. Which is nice and convenient and I never have to shop for them, but I also never say the brand out loud.
[00:33:02] I never think about the brand. I never think about the company ever. I'm never engaged with the company whatsoever. So I think there's a, there's a difference between seamless building brand loyalty and also. What kind of brand loyalty am I, am I loyal to the brand or am I loyal to the fact that they just show up every other month?
[00:33:20] And I never think about the brand. It could be anybody.
[00:33:23] Trevor Sumner: Yeah. And so I think it's dangerous to say like, yes, there, there are always going to be sales, some sales associates, but what if we removed half the sales associates or half the warehouse pickers, or, half that's a pretty significant reduction.
[00:33:37] And I think it's, we just have to be careful about being reductionist here. I think technology and automation is going to reduce a lot of the repetitive tasks. And ultimately the question is, can we find new tasks that are valued at minimum wage or higher that add enough value [00:33:54] to be competitive? And, you know, certainly at a luxury, like a Gucci or Chanel, there are plenty of ways that you can surprise and delight, and they'll always find new ways to differentiate, but at a Walmart or target where convenience is really kind of, and the affordability value is the key. I think you're going to see significant reductions in staff and that's I think, does anybody disagree with that? Like when I say significant, let's call it 20%
[00:34:21] Ricardo Belmar: i'll give you another example, along those lines, Trevor. Cause I'm not going to disagree with you. In fact, let's go beyond the mass merchandisers, but let's think about a franchise businesses like QSRs, where, you also have a scenario with limited staff, lower wages and no business running on an extremely slim margin, right? So if that's your scenario and let's face it in, in a franchise QSR, the highest cost that franchise owner has is their labor costs. So anything they can do, that's going to cut that in some way, without hurting the customer [00:34:54] service, you can bet I think that franchise owner will pursue it. What I think happens is that there's a mix here, right? There's yes. There a reduction. I don't think you can get away from that. In fact, I could, I won't name the brand, but I can give you an anecdotal story from a brand in Europe where over a lengthy period of time, many years, they actually reduced kitchen staff across their restaurants, by as much as 40% because of automation.
[00:35:19] And of course, this isn't something you heard about in the news. You're not, it's not something they would publicize, but they did. In fact, create new positions and new roles in their restaurants when they did other things that were more front of house customer facing. Did those new roles displace all of the kitchen staff reduction?
[00:35:38] Probably not. So there is an aspect here of eliminating the. Let's call them more mundane jobs because they're very repetitive, and not necessarily the more enjoyable tasks that get eliminated by automation. The [00:35:54] efficiency brought from that has distinct business advantages for the business owner.
[00:35:59] Of course not so much for the frontline worker who's at risk of losing that job. This usually leads to discussions which we kind of touched on in our last session, but the example of Levi's wanting to train frontline workers in areas like data science and trying to create those new roles and areas.
[00:36:15] And you are, as Ron described last time, those new segmented skill sets that can allow them to stay on in a different capacity, perhaps in a different wage or different salary, but not completely risk losing all of those jobs. I think that's what we've seen throughout history, right. You know, once upon a time we had people that operated elevators and then the elevators got buttons that automated the process.
[00:36:36] What happened to all of the elevator operators?
[00:36:38] Trevor Sumner: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're talking about, I think you're going to have fewer, potentially fewer sales associates who are superpowered. And can summon products and inventory and help you do omnichannel delivery, you know, at will. But you're going to have fewer of them. They'll [00:36:54] probably be slightly higher paid because to Ron's point, there'll be even better at customer service.
[00:36:58] And in the back of the house, you're going to see a gutting in terms of number of people. I mean, we're not even talking about self-driving trucks, right? There are 3.5 million truck drivers in the U S like, I don't know how you turn a truck driver or a warehouse worker into a premier sales associate at an Uber echelon, kind of value where it's even more highly competitive.
[00:37:21] The expectations are higher. Your ability to adopt technology is more critical. I think, we're really going to struggle with what that looks like.
[00:37:30] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, as a Walmart and a Target implement more things that automate and reduce workforce at. I feel like at the same time, we've got premium brands that need to increase their workforce because Gucci still has 10 million pieces of monthly traffic.
[00:37:49] How do you provide that high touch service to all of those people? I think there's going to be a [00:37:54] massive need to flux the skillsets and hopefully it can become more of a career again, that stable, I only time will tell,
[00:38:03] Brandon Rael: Casey and everyone would the, the fact that the intangibles that matter as well, especially luxury and fashion, as it relate to the customer and the emotional intelligence that is needed in the marketplace, to understand the customer's needs to have empathy, to build community, to build relationships that extend beyond just an AI/AR.
[00:38:22] Machine learning model, but that's certainly it can be there, but, end of the day, it's about relationships and one-to-one personalized selling whether it's through digital channels or in person, and that's not the Walmart model, but for sure, but for the luxury market, it's great.
[00:38:36] Ricardo Belmar: That's a good point, Brandon.
[00:38:38]
[00:38:38] How Do We Use Digital to Solve Analog Problems?
[00:38:38] Ricardo Belmar: We brought a couple of folks up to the stage with a, hopefully some questions for us. Michael, welcome to the stage. No stranger to the retail razor club.
[00:38:45] Michael Zakkour: Hey Ricardo. Hey guys. The only thing I want to posit is.
[00:38:51] That technology is the means to the end. It's not [00:38:54] the end. Right? So when we think about the frontline worker and the empowerment that technology data, AI, VR, AR will give them in the workplace. Ultimately, I go with what Ron's saying it's to empower great frontline employees, great frontline workers who want to move up through the organization. The technology is about applying digital means to solve analog problems. So when I think about what's going on in the rest of the world today. You look in China where somebody sits down at the salon and they sit in the hairdresser's chair and they're looking at an AR extended reality, augmented reality mirror.
[00:39:39] And they can see their head with every kind of color cut style, whatever they go through a million permutations. Ultimately that technology is empowering the hairdresser to better serve the frontline consumer.[00:39:54]
[00:39:54] And I just wanted to chime in and say, it's not an either, or for me it's how do we use technology and how do we use AI and data? How do we use digital to solve analog problems? That's what this is about for me.
[00:40:07] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I think an excellent point. I'm going to put it to the panel here, Ron and everyone went, what do you think.
[00:40:13] Casey Golden: I'm going to, I feel like there's a lot of solutions out in the marketplace, but at the end of the day, they have to be implemented and sold in. I have had several conversations with people saying, this is exactly where we want to go. We've loved this, but we're not there yet. We're still working on basics and it's like, why are you spending money on basics instead of spending money on things that generate revenue and value and fill in the basics afterwards, we can build basics while you're making revenue.
[00:40:48] That's the biggest struggle of any of these tech companies. Being able to create these solutions is to be [00:40:54] able to have proof of concept and run at scale. And it's really hard for a lot of them to get in, and, and actually adopt and roll out the entire software.
[00:41:07] Brandon Rael: I think Casey, you touched on a critical point, change management and organizational change are the most critical components of any adoption of any innovative technology solutions that will drive a better associate experience or customer experience. And, it's been a challenge in my field as an advisor and consultant a critical part of our, our transformation work is around change management.
[00:41:29] And without that adoption rates. Be very minimal and most transformations fail for that matter. The cultural obstacles and challenges of the companies are not ready to change or understand the imperative to change. So the why is that they can pick and pull it there.
[00:41:44] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, we need to be able to build with customers and with real use case scenarios and do AB testing. And I feel like a lot of brands expect [00:41:54] everything to have already been done and working, even though they haven't had the chance to do it in real time with those brands that have real use cases.
[00:42:05] So it's hard to have innovation and technology go when the sales cycle is too slow or traction numbers are too slow because. That's how you build tech, right? I'm not building just to sit on my server.
[00:42:16] Ricardo Belmar: No one ever said it was easy.
[00:42:17] Trevor Sumner: Yeah. And what I think is really interesting is I think that kind of COVID has, is because retailers and brands have had to more fiercely collaborate around data inventory, supply chain, because of the need to create, you know, omni-channel delivery and BOPIS and all these different things that we actually do need real-time data on a per store basis about what's going on at a product level.
[00:42:40] I actually do need all the products and the skews and all the data about those products to be available and, have integrity and I think what's really interesting to me is that some of the foundations that we're missing to [00:42:54] be able to execute on this plan are now starting to be in place so that we can get to these kind of higher level experiences, these higher level technologies and you know, given all the money flowing into retail right now I think there's going to be the cash to actually do
[00:43:06] Casey Golden: I agree the next two years is going to be, really fun
[00:43:09] Ricardo Belmar: absolutely, absolutely wildly it's going to happen and the embracing of technology to facilitate that change.
[00:43:16] What I like to say is that it's finally expected to happen in a way that's not going to be technology for the sake of technology. It's going to be technology with the purpose and ideally technology that's seamless and as well as transparent. So it doesn't get in the way it just helps accomplish something.
[00:43:32] So with that, let me move on to Neil, I think you were the next one up on stage. You had a question or comment for us.
[00:43:37]
[00:43:37] Is Tech Disrupting Human to Human Connection?
[00:43:37] Neil Redding: Yeah. Thanks so much, Ricardo.
[00:43:39] It's great to be here I'm Neil Redding. I run a boutique consultancy called Redding futures, which is really focused on creating holistically integrated digital and physical ecosystems around brands. And we've done a lot of work for retail clients over the years. Ron and I had a [00:43:54]conversation this past week where I think I just expressed my fundamental enthusiasm about technology in this whole context.
[00:44:01] But what's funny to me is, earlier in the conversation, listening to the discussion about Walmart deploying all of these phones into the hands of store associates, I felt actually a little bit sad because I also am super passionate and just love the quality of human interaction that comes when technology is not a mediator.
[00:44:24] And I've been thinking a lot during this conversation about, and I guess I'm also excited about the next few years about how technology can fade a bit into the background when we are physically together. And I suppose I'm old enough to not find a. Being on my smartphone, but someone standing next to me on their smartphone, you know I find that sort of a substandard kind of quality of interaction at the human level that I I'm excited to see how [00:44:54] yeah, AR and sensors and spaces and various other kinds of technologies and gather the data that's needed, that we've talked so much about in this conversation and provide access to, all this cloud-based information about products and services, inventory, and so on.
[00:45:10] Well also getting out of the way the allowing humans to have when they're physically together have a really rich interaction. So I guess if there's a question in there, I'm curious about those of you who are paying close attention to having phones in hands. You know, when you're a store associate at a customer, is there any thought going in yet to that context or that use case to how that can be done?
[00:45:34] While minimally disrupting the human to human connection, you know?
[00:45:37] Shish Shridhar: So, so that's one of the areas that have been working with a bunch of startups that have alternatives. And specifically for the scenario that you described, where many retailers are reluctant to have the store associates walking around with the phone and using the phone [00:45:54] appear distracted and not interested in the customer.
[00:45:57] And you're right. It creates that barrier. Between the customer and the store associates and makes them unapproachable. And as resolved, they're looking at alternatives to bonds that have seen headsets is one of them, which is still a question of whether that makes you unapproachable.
[00:46:12] And the one that I particularly like is from a startup called Turnpike, and they use thing variables, which is the watches, but they can get information. It is discreet in a way where there is constant information flow on tasks and, and aisle clean ups or replenishing products and all those things keep coming in, but they're not, holding a phone or appear distracted.
[00:46:37] And I see other technologies coming in as well as we progress that will kind of make it sort of invisible. And I think it's all about that, the best technologies invisible and they are heading towards that direction, moving away from [00:46:54] a device that is, making the store associates unapproachable and creating that barrier.
[00:47:00] Ron Thurston: Hi Neil. I would just add, I don't think the challenge, isn't the technology and using it. The challenge is great store leadership as someone that can spends a lot of time in stores and coaching leaders, a great leader on the floor manager on duty, whatever terminology you want to use, you're observing the interactions, you're coaching the team.
[00:47:20] You're seeing who's paying attention and who who's not, you're fully engaged, which comes from great training, but I've actually liked to provide the opportunity for the technology when necessary, but at the same time kind of be involved as a leader and coach and, and say it's time to put it away and time to bring it out.
[00:47:41] And I, I love that idea that we can actually do both with well-trained leaders in our retail space.
[00:47:47] Ricardo Belmar: I think that really underscores the point that the ability to really recognize what [00:47:54] frontline workers mean to the brand really does start at the top of the management chain.
[00:47:58] Just like the corporate culture that's established in any organization also starts at the top. And if those things don't align, then you're not going to get the results that you want to see from that frontline staff, because they're in turn, not going to recognize what you're hoping will recognize out of the organization, because you're just not delivering it to them in the first place.
[00:48:18] So you can't get what you don't give back. And in a sense, and I think that's pretty much reflected there.
[00:48:24] Casey Golden: Hundred percent.
[00:48:24] Ron Thurston: Yeah. I don't want to give Cathy the floor, but I'm looking at the, my homepage on LinkedIn. The number two story is why retail workers on why they fled. And I clicked into it and the stories are horrendous about the way they were treated, , from their leaders and quotas.
[00:48:40] And yeah, I mean, it pains me to even read these when I think about the power of retail, but it's the number two story on LinkedIn. Like we have so much work to do as leaders. I put it back on the, I put it back on all of us that work in [00:48:54] stores. Our responsibility is to lead these teams in a way that engages and that they're proud to work for who they work for and the leaders that are around them.
[00:49:03] And they're getting trained and they're being inspired and they're doing better every day. These stories are, and they're from a variety of different brands. They're terrible. I mean, God forbid you go on Glassdoor. That's even worse, but I mean, just. The story was posted on LinkedIn and now it's trending, it really pains me and we can do better.
[00:49:23] We have to do better. And this is, this is the future of our industry tech or not these stories about how retail employees are treated is the future of this growth and all this money that's being fueled into it, or the continued bad news and high turnover rates. It's really like this just put me in a spin right now, but I think it's really critical.
[00:49:47] Casey Golden: Or what is it titled? Is it on your LinkedIn?
[00:49:49] Ron Thurston: Yeah, it's, it's on, you know, where it says LinkedIn news. It says retail [00:49:54] workers on why they fled.
[00:49:55] Casey Golden: Okay. I've just been hearing some horror stories myself. I interview about a hundred people every two weeks. We have these massive rooms and then everybody breaks out into segmented, next group interviews and it's been absolutely horrendous.
[00:50:10] Some of the things that I've heard and there's been a lot of highlight lately on wellness and a lot of corporate culture and brain culture around wellness and providing services to your employees and things of that nature. But it's only for corporate it's for corporate employees.
[00:50:27] It's not for the retail associates that work in the stores. They don't get summer Fridays. They don't get the wellness program. They don't have access to so much. That's part of corporate. It's like, they're all, they've always been like the ugly redheaded stepsister. That's just kind of been used in a lot of ways.
[00:50:45] And they're, they're brilliant. They've got so much information. I really think that this is the time where they're able to get the recognition and support that they've [00:50:54] deserved for the last 50 years. And start being part of corporate.
[00:50:57] Ricardo Belmar: Ron I know you get asked this question all the time, but as you raised a moment ago, it does require the right leadership for these things.
[00:51:08] And you have to start asking why don't we see more leaders come out and say the things that you're saying about frontline workers and giving the reasons why we need to change the way we look at the front line. And I know they're out there. I know they exist. I've talked to other retail leaders who agree in principle, what's executed is not always aligned with the principle of what they believe, but I have to say that, the evidence makes it seem that there just aren't enough of those leaders.
[00:51:36] Why do you think that is?
[00:51:37] Ron Thurston: Yeah, I I think often by the time. you've. Maybe ended up in those positions where you're, you are the decision-maker you were likely didn't come from stores. And so I don't know that you have a full grasp of actually what it means to do this work [00:51:54] every day and to experience it and, spending a few days a month or sometimes less just doing store visits, which is, always the show and the entourage as we used to call it, is that that's not enough to know what's going on.
[00:52:09] And so I think more of more people like myself that grew up from sales to heads of stores, we have to be the ones that speak because we understand it. And sometimes that's not always the case, but even if you didn't the ability to find your voice and speak for all of them, that can't, that don't have that voice or the ability to influence change again, I'm sure all these Walmart employees are really happy. And most of them, I should say, but they can't influence change the decision makers influence change, and we have to be able to listen and learn and make the tough decisions sometimes, which is in the benefit and, and the cost investment of doing the right things for our store [00:52:54] teams.
[00:52:54] And I, want to be someone that actually encourages other heads of stores to talk about it because that's how we'll make a difference in our industry for all of these people writing these things about their experience working in retail.
[00:53:06] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, you're absolutely right. It does require all of us to, in a sense fight for the industry and raise the issues that need to be raised and also highlight the positives that, that just don't get highlighted enough in order to shift the mindset.
[00:53:19] How Does Adoption Factor Into Successful Tech Deployment?
[00:53:19] Ricardo Belmar: All right. Let me have a couple more folks up on the audience, Cathy welcome to the stage.
[00:53:23] Cathy McCabe: Hi. Hi, good to see everybody. I'm Cathy CEO of Proximity Insight, and we're a clienteling and a tool really to sort of do all of those things about connecting and helping stores to connect and transact with their customers.
[00:53:38] There were a couple of points around adoption. And obviously because we have a tool that's very much there to, to help, to deliver sales associates, to have as much information at their fingertips as possible so that they can serve the customer more adoption is absolutely key.
[00:53:53] And there are [00:53:54] definitely ways in which you can ensure that adoption and onboarding is as seamless as possible and is easy for the store teams. To be embraced, from the top down and you have to be able to also share the successes.
[00:54:07] And if you don't, you know, if it's not just a project that you stick in and then walk away and move on to the next project, it has to be something that becomes your DNA and part of what you're doing as a brand and very sort of your purpose, your values that you wrap around the tools and the tools aren't there.
[00:54:24] It's not the tech, the tech is gives you the capability, but you have to deliver the why, why you're using it, what it's there for, how you're, how you're going to use it.
[00:54:34] And I think one of the other things that I just wanted to say, cause it's, there's so many points that resonated. Really interesting point. We're actually seeing some of our brands investing in more people on the shop floor now because they're giving them tools to be able to connect to not just the person that's in the store, but also [00:54:54] the people that you know, that the customers that are online and therefore, you know, the demand is there to be able to actually speak to a person, to show them the product, to, sort of talk about their expertise and share their knowledge and information, and to be able to, find those items that someone's looking for.
[00:55:12] And actually now we're seeing that they're actually investing more in their teams. So. All of the automation that AI that goes into the backend of the tool and is then surface to help the store teams to, to connect more and ultimately to transact more, you know, we're seeing them actually investing more on the sales floor, which is a great, a great place to be.
[00:55:32] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks Cathy for those comments. I agree. I think this, as, many of us now on the stage have said, and this is a really great industry and there are so many positives to be drawn from it and so much that it contributes to, so many other industries. And I think it's just unfortunate that we don't necessarily all say collectively do enough to highlight the benefits and the positives.
[00:55:53] It's one [00:55:54] of the things where, you want to say that we need more retail leaders like Ron to preach the message and, and affect some change out there in the industry.
[00:56:01] Ron Thurston: Thank you, Ricardo, I'm going to have to jump, but I wanted to just recognize Cathy and the proximity insight team who have been giant supporters, Rob, who leads her U S team have been big supporters and help for shop the village this weekend. And so I'd love the collaboration that those tech brands that like Cathy leads and, other kind of some sponsors, some just pure volunteers are really coming together to, to make retail really exciting.
[00:56:30] And so thank you, Cathy, for your, support from proximity insight and you and Rob.
[00:56:34] Cathy McCabe: No worries.
[00:56:36] Thank You and Close
[00:56:36] Ricardo Belmar: Great. And thanks Ron. I know you have to drop,
[00:56:37] so with that, I think we'll go ahead and wrap up the room today. I want to thank everybody in the audience for joining us. I know Ron had to drop to another commitment but when he hears the recording from this, I just want to thank him for having joined us. It's always a pleasure to have a dialogue about [00:56:54] retail industry with Ron.
[00:56:55] I want to thank the remaining speakers on the stage. Everybody that had a question for us today and wish everyone a great rest of your day.
Ron Thurston Interview
[00:57:06] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome back everybody. We're fortunate enough to have our special guest Ron Thurston back with us again this week.
[00:57:12] Casey Golden: Welcome back to the show, Ron. Always a pleasure.
[00:57:15] Ron Thurston: Thank you, Casey. Thank you, Ricardo, happy to be back!
[00:57:17] Casey Golden: So Ron, one of the most impactful comments you gave in that Clubhouse conversation had to do with the horror stories we've been hearing and seeing published on LinkedIn by frontline staff, when you hear those, and you think about the future environment for those workers and AI tools and all of this automation coming at them, what's the message to those frontline workers and to the execs at the brand.
[00:57:39] Ron Thurston: You know, first and foremost, I think we have to be aware that the conversations are happening because the first part of solving for a situation is saying, what does the field team think and feel about working for my brand. So almost always in every situation, the largest population of your employee base is in the field.
[00:58:04] And the more time you can spend [00:58:06] in stores, visiting those stores, having conversations, being open to listen and learn, and then act, it's how you solve some of this. And there's really nothing more powerful than that. Executive team, senior leadership, spending time in stores and listening, but most importantly, acting on what they hear. I actually try not to read a lot of that negativity because it takes me out of my like retail pride zone sometimes because it just makes me sad because it's actually so fixable. And you fix it by listening and you fix it by then making investments in technology , and AI. You make investments in people and training and development and career path conversations.
[00:58:50] It's all fixable. It just takes effort and energy. Maybe sometimes money, but that's not always what they're asking for actually asking to be heard and asking for creating a better place to work. And that is what will [00:59:06] bring people back into working in brick and mortar retail is exactly that.
[00:59:11] Casey Golden: I think that's a good point is it's a career path, or it can be a career.
[00:59:16] Ron Thurston: Yeah.
[00:59:18] Ricardo Belmar: And it's just so important. It seems so simple, right? That it's, you just have the right amount of communication and the listening part of that communication. It's one thing, you know, I think we always hear a lot of talk about how, you have workers who want feedback. On how they're doing, but then at the same time, if you're giving feedback, you have to be listening to what they're saying and reacting to it, because that's going to tell you your point, Ron.
[00:59:41] That's going to tell you exactly what needs to be fixed. If there's something that needs fixing, you'll hear about it. You'll hear very directly. If you just talk to people , and listen to what they're telling you. And , like you said, it can all be fixable. And maybe sometimes it's a technology-based solution.
[00:59:56] Sometimes it might not. But you won't know if you're not listening and you're not talking with that frontline.
[01:00:01] Ron Thurston: Right. And being in have setting it as one of the kind [01:00:06] of pillars of your culture is that you can say we have an open door policy. Now there are things that you see on a poster. Everyone is welcome.
[01:00:14] We have an open door policy, please feel free, but what actually do you do? What behaviors do you demonstrate that show that that's actually. And do people feel safe? Do they feel safe sending an email to the CEO of the company and saying, hi, my name's Ron. I work in this store. This has been my experience so far.
[01:00:35] Here's, what's been great, but here's where I see opportunity. And probably not that politely, but. In the idea of, do I feel safe doing that and what will happen because of that? Will I get in trouble? Right? Because then that gets forwarded to the regional manager and to this district manager and to the store manager all the way down, by the time it gets back to me, I'm in trouble or is there an action that's being taken that is entirely positive because [01:01:06] then that employee becomes a promoter of the brand.
[01:01:09] Thank you for listening. Thank you for taking action. I really appreciate that. And I'm going to tell everybody what a great place this is to work. And, and the more we do that, you know, it's not just words and action and listening and being open. You will gain so much insight into what's really happening out there, which is part of my primary goal right now.
[01:01:33] Ricardo Belmar: It's so true. It kind of takes what could potentially be negative feedback about an environment or a culture, but turning it into something positive because listening first, but then also responding and not just expecting that things fall into a black hole and no one's going to continue to believe right.
[01:01:50] That you have that open policy. If they're not hearing responses to that feedback that you're giving. I think that's just so important to building a positive culture around the brand.
[01:01:59] Ron Thurston: Yeah, completely agree.
[01:02:02] Retail In America Project
[01:02:02] Ricardo Belmar: So, Ron, last time you were with us, we teased a little bit [01:02:06]about new projects that you had brewing. And we learned in the Clubhouse session at that time, that you had launched your own business to Take Pride Today. And you've been doing a lot of speaking engagements and other activities since then, but I know you've got at least one really impressive project coming up and I know I'm really looking forward to, so why don't you tell us more about what you've got coming up.
[01:02:24] Ron Thurston: Thank you so much, Ricardo, I'd love to talk about this. Some kind of what I had mentioned earlier, the real story of what the retail is today, what retail will be tomorrow. The future is what's happening in stores and it is very difficult. I believe to kind of sit in an office and preach about, about retail.
[01:02:49] If you aren't in stores. And I wanted to say, want to get the real story of what's happening both from really positive. Point of views, but what are also our opportunities to do better? You know, the biggest, one of the biggest stories is the labor shortage [01:03:06] of retail of 2021. What are some of the root causes of that?
[01:03:09] So I've made a decision my husband and I are leaving New York City. We bought an Airstream trailer and I'm going to spend an entire year on tour that I am calling Retail in America. And. Really truly find out what's happening in brick and mortar retail. And that is through conversations with, with store teams, with customers, with brands in kind of 2 week timeframes in different cities all over the country and document this entire experience and that it will be a, a YouTube channel, a podcast, definitely a lot of social content, but those stories of greatness and the real retail heroes are not being told. And it's taking Retail Pride and bringing it to life because I get those messages and they read retail pride, or they hear about it.
[01:04:04] I get a lot of personal [01:04:06] messages about how proud they are to work in retail, but there, those people don't end up on the big stage and I want to give them a platform to say, what is so great about working in retail? What do you love, but how has your business impacted local community? How has this third generation retail business, how are you thriving today and impacting your local communities?
[01:04:30] What are you doing to bring new brands to life through retail. And what are your companies doing for you to celebrate your, your, your career. And I'm taking this opportunity to do this out in the road and live remotely all over the country and have these conversations. And so what I will tell you is that I believe that this is the unlock to the mystery of the future of retail.
[01:04:56] And I'm also very pleased I can announce today a couple of the title sponsors that have joined along on this journey that will support this. So [01:05:06] the first one is KWI, which has a 30 year plus really important impact on this kind of idea of unified commerce from mobile POS solutions and clientelling and endless aisle.
[01:05:21] They are one of the best and they serve dozens, hundreds of brands all over the country. And the second one is Yoobic, which, when I think about pride of working in retail, which is true of both of these brands, pride is often dictated through your human experience, but in retail, it's, it's how tech enabled are you?
[01:05:43] How important is the technology that supports the work that you do every day and make sure that it's the best experience possible from an employee. So KWI does that from a POS solution, but Yoobic does that from employee communication through a mobile learning. And this idea of kind of, how do I [01:06:06] learn on the job through technology, through easy, actionable learning modules and then manage tasks and there's gaming.
[01:06:16] There's everything that I need to know about being the best version of myself within the Yoobic app. And so when I thought about partnerships for this. Technology and, and its support of the human experience for me was really important. So I'm excited to have these two partners. There will be a couple more to kick this Retail in America tour off early 2022.
[01:06:40] Ricardo Belmar: Wow. I love this project. This is going to be so fascinating. So to see who you meet and who you get talked to and what, stories we hear about, what it's really like out there in retail.
[01:06:50] Ron Thurston: Yeah.
[01:06:54] Casey Golden: It's going to be like, just such a wonderful experience. I can't wait to hear the stories. I wish I was like a fly on the wall.[01:07:06]
[01:07:07] There's so much passion in this career that the amount of passion that you're going to be able to meet and be able to start sharing. I think it's just going to come off the.
[01:07:19] Ron Thurston: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. You'll, you'll be able to be a fly on the wall via social media. I think that that will be the fun part.
[01:07:26] There'll be a lot of live content that will be whether it's Instagram or YouTube, whatever this becomes. The opportunity to kind of follow along every day is it's going to be real. You know, this will be Kind of live in in action, whether it's small groups, single conversations , the goal is then to have kind of a real focus on this city retail in this city.
[01:07:48] One of the first, stops is Asheville, North Carolina. What's really happening in Ashville? And I also have to recognize that I'm living on a camp ground this entire time and taking kind of pressure off the system, living remotely. So finding those cities where that actually works which is [01:08:06] just another, another layer to this experience is living remotely.
[01:08:10] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Wow. Well, this is going to be a really interesting and fascinating journey once you kick this off Ron, I'm really looking forward to it!,
[01:08:19] Thanks so much
[01:08:22] Casey Golden: As always Ron. There's never enough time, but it's always a good time.
[01:08:27] Ron Thurston: Thanks, Casey. It is always a good time. You can follow and you can start to follow along. The website's still finishing up development, but you can go to Retail in America on Instagram and just follow there as it starts to be built or read at retail pride.
[01:08:43] I'm on Instagram, too.
[01:08:44] Ricardo Belmar: Well, we always enjoy talking with you, Ron, on these kinds of topics. I love hearing about your next project here. This is just going to be an amazing journey. And just like I said, in our last episode, you joined us, we need more retail execs to see the value and the strength of their store teams, the way you do that, actually listen to store associates and hear their stories, hear their feedback and act on it.
[01:09:05] I hope [01:09:06] anyone listening to this episode and our last one, can really learn and take away some important things from what we talked about and what we heard from Ron to make their stores better for everyone.
[01:09:15] Ron Thurston: Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate the platform to change the conversation. And then from kind of the negativity of the news of 2021, I want to bring up into let's move on positive. What are we doing? How are we changing? What do we need to do differently? Because this industry is too big and too important.
[01:09:36] Ricardo Belmar: That's right.
[01:09:36] Ron Thurston: Kind of sit back and watch bad news. We have to solve this and we
[01:09:41] solve this,
[01:09:43] Ricardo Belmar: and we can all help solve it.
[01:09:44] I think that's really it. If there's one message to take away, it's that we can all help solve it.
[01:09:48] Ron Thurston: We can all help solve it.
[01:09:50] Ricardo Belmar: So with that, thanks again, Ron. And we will wrap up this episode of the Retail Razor Show.
Clubhouse Thank You
[01:09:56] Casey Golden: We'd like to take this time to thank everyone who joined us on stage for this clubhouse session to ask Ron and the panel questions. Big, thank you to Michael Zakkour, founder of five new digital consultancy, and that great question on using digital to solve analog problems.
[01:10:14] Ricardo Belmar: And Neil Redding CEO of Redding Futures, who asked us about the risk of tech disrupting human to human connections
[01:10:21] Casey Golden: and Cathy McCabe, CEO of proximity insights who raised the point about how you gain adoption of new tech by frontline staff,
[01:10:31] a big thank you to all of you for joining our discussion.
[01:10:34] And with that, it's time to bring the second episode of the show to an end.
Show Closing
[01:10:38] Casey Golden: If you enjoyed our show, please consider giving us a five-star rating and post a review on apple podcasts. Remember to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player. So you don't miss a minute. Want to know what we talked about today? Take a look at the show notes for handy links and more deets.
[01:10:59] I'm your cohost, Casey Golden.
[01:11:01] Ricardo Belmar: And 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 RetailRazor, on LinkedIn, and on our YouTube channel for video versions of each episode and bonus content.
[01:11:15] I'm your host Ricardo Belmar.
[01:11:17] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.
[01:11:20] Ricardo Belmar: 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.
