A shoe retailer is trialing a new concept, whereby one of the walls in the store is a giant electronic flat-screen. This huge screen shows all types of shoes and the customer can simply touch on one to learn more about it, view similar designs and see the shoe in a multitude of colours and styles.
Very clever indeed.
At the end of the presentation, a female delegate asked one of the best questions of the day. Taking a bold step away from the general euphoria around the new technology, she bravely asked, ‘If only one person at a time can use this clever techno-wall, won’t that simply upset all the other customers that aren’t able to play on it…and surely that’s not a good thing for the retail industry?’
Silence in the audience. And, notably, silence from the speaker.
I was tempted to get up and applaud. Technology is a brilliant thing, don’t get me wrong. But surely it’s supposed to augment the experience, not cause an unwelcome distraction?
At the same time, the delegate next to me commented in a muffled tone, ‘This techno-wall sounds brilliant…it’s the perfect way to get customers to buy something without having to talk to any staff.'
And, despite nodding in agreement, I found this particularly upsetting. We now live in a culture where many retailers believe customers are better off if they can actually avoid interacting with their staff. Self-service tills? Yes, please. Techno-walls? Sounds fantastic.
How did this happen? At what point did the retail industry become such a torrid place to work that our staff actually don’t want to be there? There’s been a lot of talk recently about Absolute Loyalty, but this has been primarily between customers and retailers. How about Absolute Loyalty from staff to the company they work for? Or, and here’s a crazy idea, how about Absolute Loyalty from employers to their hard-working and often under-appreciated employees?
Now wouldn’t that make a change? And surely a change for the better, where the resulting impact could be happier and better motivated staff. In turn, this could make interaction between staff and customers something to be proud of rather than something to shy away from.
We frequently witness ‘staff friendliness’ being one of the key drivers of customer loyalty. And with customer loyalty being intrinsically linked to sales, surely we need to take this seriously? It’s just a pity we can’t get the techno-wall to make friendly chit-chat as well….now there’s something for the development teams to work on…