Boost Your Customer Experience

Great customer experience: the #1 goal in retail European supermarkets in Western Europe today are faced with multiple challenges. The economy is fragile, competition is fierce and consumer buying patterns and demands are constantly changing. E-commerce already accounts for an estimated 5 percent of sales in European retail1_.

When it comes to brick-and-mortar stores, customers tend to shop around, not only looking for low prices but also for a great shopping experience. Most retailers in Western Europe make an effort to meet these demands: 49% say that providing a great customer experience is their primary goal2_{, followed by supply chain efficiency}

and operational excellence (both 28%).

The same study shows that supermarkets that actually reach this goal are rewarded with better business results. Organizations with the highest level of customer service perform significantly better when it comes to labor turnover, absenteeism and overall operating margin.

What is customer experience?

Gartner defines customer experience as: “the customer’s perceptions and related feelings caused by the one-off and cumulative effect of interactions with a supplier’s employees, systems, channels or products.”

We should add that even the most discount-oriented store does offer a customer experience: for example, a clean, well-lit, safe store environment with merchandise available on the store shelves. Luxury or other service-oriented retailers will offer a more interactive and/or personalized customer experience.

Employees make all the difference

Customer experience can be enhanced in several ways: by attractive merchandise, competitive prices, omni-channel sales or a decent brand identity. But there is no doubt that employees have a significant impact on customer experience. In a recent survey3_{, the vast majority (82%)}

of retailers stated that, in recent years, the role of the

workforce in enabling customer service has become more important than ever.

Workforce management helps your staff to deliver So how can retailers motivate and empower their staff to enhance customer experience? De Vries WFM knows the answer to that question: Retail Workforce Management. In a 2011 study4_{, 85% of responding}

retailers identified „Enhancing the customer experience“ as a critical driver for workforce management (WFM) solutions. This response consistently tops the list in survey after survey.

As Gartner puts it: “The need for consistent, productive and engaged sales staff across distributed stores means that retailers are demanding increasing sophistication in forecasting, scheduling, task management and timekeeping capabilities.”5

At De Vries WFM, we cannot help but agree. With over 30 years of experience in retail, we have ample proof of the positive effects that our Retail Workforce Management solution has on both employees and customers.

Let Retail Workforce Management

Boost Your Customer Experience

As a retailer you have many goals to pursue, but keeping your customers happy is undoubtedly the

most important one. After all: no customers, no business. This paper by De Vries WFM shows how

workforce management can help you reach this goal, controlling your labor costs and improving

your store performance in the process.

Boosting Y

our Customer Experience

By Retail W

1

Customers want to shop in a convenient supermarket, with the items they want on display. But during peak hours they do not want too many employees cleaning or filling the racks; this must be done beforehand. Therefore you want to plan the activities in your store on an hourly basis, to ensure that the right employee does the right job at the right time. Workforce management helps you to realize this in an effective and cost-efficient way.

2

Customers demand to be helped quickly, especially at the checkout but also when they are looking for items on the shop floor. When scheduling your staff, you should take into account the expected traffic during the day. In doing so you make sure there is enough staff on the

shop floor and at the tills.

This asks for a detailed forecast of the expected workload. And that is precisely what a workforce management system can give you: it allows you to allocate employees on the basis of expected turnover and resulting activities.

3

Perhaps most importantly: customers appreciate employees who obviously enjoy their work, making the store a nice place to visit and shop around in. And that is precisely the effect of De Vries WFM.

First of all, there will always be the right number of colleagues for the job, preventing a lot of stress for the employees (as well as unnecessary costs for the manage-ment, see below). Moreover, with Self Service Apps people can use their smartphone to read their schedule, submit a request for leave – and soon they can even enter their own (school) agenda and swap shifts. Personal working details, remaining free days and contact information of colleagues are also available on their PC. All this keeps employees more involved and more productive.

How to boost customer experience

with Retail WFM

To illustrate the positive effects of proper workforce management, we have outlined a few practical

day-to-day examples

below.

_{How can sound planning help to fulfill your customers’ expectations?}

Boosting Y

our Customer Experience

By Retail W

4

On top of all these service aspects, customers still expect their supermarket to be highly competitive. In effect, retailers cannot afford to let workforce planning cut into their budget.

Therefore it’s good to know that Workforce Management does more than simply improve employee satisfaction and store performance. By allocating exactly the right amount of people for the job, you actually control costs of labor much better. Customers of De Vries, for instance, have lowered these costs significantly, a saving that they notice directly in their net result.

About De Vries WFM

De Vries Workforce Management, a European soft-ware company, is the market leader for workforce management solutions in the Dutch retail sector. De Vries WFM has over 30 years of experience in the retail sector.

The reason we specialize in retail is that it requires specific skills and knowledge. Gartner also claims that the WFM needs in retail are entirely different from those of the industrial sector or a call center, for example, and necessitate a specific approach.

Here is our step-by-step approach in a nutshell. You can read more about the process in the Whitepaper “The vision of De Vries WFM on Workforce Management”7_.

1

First, we help you to calculate exactly how much time each activity on the work floor takes. How long does it take to fill the racks, to scrub the floor, to scan articles at the cash register? Once you have established the standard times and applicable wage rates, you can use them continuously for your schedules.

2

Next, you need a reliable estimation of the turnover in the week for which you are planning your staff. To calculate this, you feed the system with one or more comparable weeks form the past. Now you can forecast the turnover, labor cost, incoming goods, customer traffic and sales per item.

3

Now that the supply of labor is clear, it’s time to realize the staff planning schedule. Who will you need to carry out which activities and at what time? The system

generates a planning proposal, which you can fine-tune according to employee wishes or special circumstances.

4

Now it’s time to put your planning into practice: to carry out the planned tasks and to register the corresponding working times. This can be done automatically, minimizing errors and the need for corrections.

5

Flawless payment of your employees is ensured by simply exporting data to your organization‘s payroll system.

Results

Our customers have improved their store performance and got to grips with labor costs, often lowering them significantly. Moreover, our system allows their employees to be directly involved in the planning. This increases their motivation and enjoyment at work,

resulting in a better customer experience.

Retail Workforce Management

Five steps to success

The secret of successful staff planning is a detailed understanding of how much work needs to be done:

the supply of labor. This sounds logical, but De Vries WFM is one of the few WFM-providers to put this

supply of labor at the core of its system.

Boosting Y

our Customer Experience

By Retail W

Boosting Y

our Customer Experience

By Retail W

orkforce Management

References

1 Best Retail Brands, Interbrand 2014

2 The State of the Workforce in Retail: Western Europe, Aberdeen Group 2013

3 WFM 2013: The Store Employee in the Customer Age, RSR 2013 4 Workforce Insight, 2011 5 Understanding the Fragmented Workforce Management Solution Market, Gartner 2014 6 Key points taken from: Service Quality and its Effect on Customer

Satisfaction in Retailing, European Journal of Social Sciences, 2010 7 Go to: The vision of De Vries WFM on Workforce Management in Retail, 2012

More information?

www.devrieswfm.com

De Vries Workforce Management Kruisboog 42

3905 TG Veenendaal The Netherlands T +31 (0)318 58 28 28 E [email protected]