In an industry still struggling with a tight labor market, choosing which technology to arm store associates with becomes a critical decision. Today’s retail workers almost need to have superpowers — moving as fast as The Flash would be helpful given how many different tasks a retail worker performs each day — but adaptable, multi-purpose solutions can provide that extra burst of needed speed.
Associate apps also need to reflect operating conditions on the ground. For example, if your stores don’t have reliable network connections, it’s a good idea to seek out technology that operates in offline mode with no loss of efficiency.
Ideally, these apps also should contribute to a better in-store shopper experience. “Understaffing contributes to theft and shrinkage in general, but it also creates an increasingly impersonal feeling for offline shopping,” said Nick Kramer, Leader of Applied Solutions at SSA & Co. in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. Additionally, the fact that so many customers are conducting research on their own devices while in-store “creates a barrier,” he added, noting that customers may feel that the store’s CX “is worse than what I get on my phone.”
Overall, “tech needs to be more integrated with the shopper experience, including the social and omnichannel aspects,” said Kramer. For example, apps with both associate-facing and customer-facing user interfaces [UIs] allow associates to support the customer’s own research and also facilitate transactions, including endless aisle capabilities and ship-from-store.
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Here are five examples of how associate technology is improving both CX (customer experience) and EX (employee experience):
At Pacsun, Unified Store Operations Allow the Retailer to Operate with a Lean Workforce
Like many retailers in a tight labor market, Pacsun stores operate with small staffs. “We all run very lean, and each store has limited resources,” said Shirley Gao, CIO of Pacsun, speaking at the 2024 Manhattan Momentum conference. “Often there’s only one person [working] for a specific shift, and there are so many tasks for them to do.”
Pacsun, which adopted Manhattan Active Omni solutions as part of an IT overhaul, has focused on simplifying processes and workflows in its stores with a unified commerce approach. For example, Pacsun sells on Amazon, and when these orders come in, service-level agreements (SLAs) call for delivery within a couple of hours — so every second counts. “With digital fulfillment of orders from our Instagram and TikTok channels, there’s a banner on the register screen for them, but [previously] when the associate saw an Amazon order, they had to go to the backroom and use a different device” to process it, said Gao. “Now, with a single device and system, it empowers associates to be more efficient.”
Additionally, the technology includes associate access to the “entire online and offline experience for the customer,” said Gao. “It’s all on a single platform, including their loyalty points, so the store employees can ‘see’ the entire customer. They could ask a customer, ‘You bought this item online yesterday, do you like it?’ That’s a huge upselling opportunity for these associates.”
Target Leverages Generative AI to Simplify Associate Tasks and Training
Target, which is making significant use of generative AI throughout its organization, is pushing the technology’s benefits down to the store level with the Store Companion, a chatbot that will be available as an app on associates’ specially equipped handheld devices in nearly all of the retailers’ 2,000 stores by August 2024.
Employees can input prompts in natural language, asking questions such as “How do I sign a guest up for a Target Circle Card?” or “How do I restart the cash register in the event of a power outage?” The tool also serves as a store process expert and coach to help new and seasonal workers learn on the job.
Target’s in-house tech team used real frequently asked questions and process documents from store teams across the country in developing the tool, as well as feedback from a 400-store, six-month pilot that preceded the larger rollout.
Victoria’s Secret: Customer-Facing Kiosks Help Shoppers Find the Right Product
In some cases, associates don’t have to use technology themselves for it to help them be more productive. In Victoria’s Secret stores, items are equipped with RFID tags that interact with Crave Retail‘s fitting room technology to provide shoppers with product ratings and reviews, as well as the additional colors and sizes a product is available in and other data that can help lead to conversion.
Even before customers get to the fitting room, interactive kiosks help shoppers “determine what they’re looking for in a bra,” said Tasa Summers, Senior Manager of RFID and Omnichannel at Victoria’s Secret at the 2024 Manhattan Momentum conference. The questions help narrow down potential choices, and then “it will give them a recommendation for the bra they’re looking for, and tell them, if it’s in stock, where it is, and call a sales associate if needed.”
Making the best use of in-store labor is critical for Victoria’s Secret, which is expanding the operational role of its stores. The retailer is using Manhattan Active Omni to support the expansion of same-day delivery from a six-store pilot to 250 locations by holiday 2024. “We’re also doing ship-from-store in about 350 stores for inventory mitigation as well as [delivery] speed,” said Summers.
Build-A-Bear Puts Customer Data and Personalization Tools into Associates’ Hands
Build-A-Bear depends on its store associates to ensure every product is made with care and love, so the retailer has equipped them with iPads connected to the Jumpmind CX Connect solution, which gives these associates access to rich customer data and more robust tools to deliver one-to-one personalized experiences.
“Our Bear Builder store associates are a vital part of the Build-A-Bear Workshop experience,” said Dara Meath, CTO at Build-A-Bear in a statement. “Our commitment to providing our associates with the most advanced in-store retail technology ensures they are not only given a 360-degree view of our guests, their previous interactions and preferences, but also can offer a shared interactive and personalized journey to enrich each guest’s visit.”
SPARC Group Requires Cross-Brand Solutions to Simplify Employee Sharing
SPARC Group, which owns brands including Eddie Bauer, Aéropostale and Brooks Brothers, operates with “brand-level autonomy for design and merchandising, combined with best practices and operational scale across brands,” according to Jason Johnson, Senior Director of Omnichannel Technology at SPARC Group. The company was able to put that into practice with its deployment of Manhattan solutions at Reebok in 2023.
“Reebok had bolted on capabilities [to its systems] over the years,” before SPARC purchased the brand in 2022, said Johnson, speaking at the Manhattan conference. That meant, for example, that if a purchase consisted of both an in-store and ship-from-store transaction it “had to be two transactions; now it’s one,” he noted. Overall, transaction applications at Reebok were reduced from three to just one with the deployment of the Manhattan solutions.
“Consistency across brands is really big for us, because we do a lot of associate sharing,” said Johnson. “An employee might go from a Reebok store to an Aéropostale store for another shift.”
