Client Stories
A Major Food Retailer
An "Award-winning" Retailer approached us about working with them to create and stage a more engaging customer experience in certain areas of their operation. This idea came about as a result of conversations we had been involved in with them regarding the increasing value customers place on their Experiences—not just on the goods or services being delivered.
The Retailer realized that today’s consumers are more food savvy than in the past, due largely to an increase in international travel and mass-media focus on gourmet and specialty foods through The Food Network, various celebrity chefs, and a growing number of food publications. Because of these and other economic and demographic factors, this Retailer was under pressure to deliver higher quality, more variety, more highly-skilled service and a better overall customer experience. They had already taken a number of steps to address the needs of the increasingly sophisticated consumer.
We decided to focus on the design and staging elements of the Retail Customer Experience, including (but not limited to):
- Each person understanding and assuming a role—and acting with intention.
- Theming the experience
- Harmonizing impressions with positive cues
- Elimination of negative cues
- Engaging all five senses
We developed a training curriculum which was delivered over a six month period, during which the participants learned and applied principles of deliberate experience staging and customer engagement. Following the training sessions, they showed double-digit sales growth—outpacing broader company trends.