IT Should Deliver the Continuous Retail Experience

9 min readJul 6, 2017

There are many blog posts, MBA thesis papers, and major media stories describing how retailers need to adapt to the new digital landscape. I am not going retread that existing trail of text on the matter. That path is paved and as wide as I-10 west on the way to Katy Texas. I am communicating with my technologist associates regarding how we should assist in the survivability of retail entities. I understand in the age of “killer apps” (do people even say that now?) that tangible (IE have store fronts) retail entities are not sexy. Perhaps the only “cool” technology employed by retailers is all the business analytic systems. There are organizations whose data collection and analysis are really impressive. However, I want to remind technologists that the traditional retail business still possesses lots of opportunities.

What this article will discuss is as follows.

Suggest a definition of a Continuous Retail Experience from a technology perspective
Describe what a successful real-world experience looks like
Describe the all too common Mediocre experience
Implications for retailers
…and flash back to supply chain Epiphany

First, there are two disclaimers:

This document will reference retailers by name and I may have worked for consulting organizations that may have engaged these organizations
This document references introspection of an ethnographic nature. For details on ethnographic methods, I recommend Margaret Lecompte’s edited series on the subject

The Continuous Retail Experience

What is a Continuous Retail Experience? I suggest that a Continuous Retail experience is one where the traditional web presence, mobile app, and physicality of retail location can represent a seamless shopping experience for a customer. This is something that technologists serving the retail enterprise should be pursuing. Why? a single great customer experience makes a life long customer. Additionally, The pursuit of such an experience will spawn secondary customer activities that are crucial to the digital transformation retailers need.

Example 1: Rx Wow!

Near the end of 2016 I sent the following tweet:

I was astonished how easy it was to fill a prescription. I was ASTONISHED at the ease of filling a prescription . How sexy and exciting can getting a prescription be? Well, the way you pick up your prescription from CVS changed last year (2016). What follows is how my experience went.

I randomly downloaded the CVS app
I then used a traditional browser to create a profile
I then added a credit card to CVS Pay
I got text and/or app notification of prescription ready
When I enter the parking lot of the CVS I get a notification on my phone regarding a ready prescription
I enter the store and show the barcode from my android phone
Pharmacy tech grins (like ridiculous cheesing) and looks for my prescription package
Pharmacy tech scans package from a legacy looking (I imagined an AS/400 somewhere) point-of-sale (POS) system
The app on my phone refreshes
The credit card terminal of the point-of-sale asks me to sign while my phone asks me to sign
I sign with my phone
Then pay with my phone
Pharmacy Tech says: “I just did my first CVS Pay”
Me: “Oh awesome” (or something like that)
I proceed to awkwardly leave.

Some of you are still asking why that is impressive. That is a fair question and I will address it a couple ways. Firstly, examine that transaction sequence. You have a business system transaction initiated from an untrusted device. You then have a trusted (well, we will say trusted) corporate owned device update an active transaction that then notifies the untrusted device to advance to the next step in said business transaction.

In addition to having a mix trust level (again from network view of devices ), you have two different human actors participating in a single business transaction at the same time!

That flow is not the only flow. I have on later pickups initiated with the barcode scan on my phone, signed with my phone, but paid with physical credit card at the POS. Another time I initiated with the barcode scan and completed the rest of my experience with the POS. I would like the see that systems sequence diagram!

A real-time business transaction involving two different operators simultaneously.

Some of my fellow technologists work in companies whose security people would say no to that entire process. Mixing between trusted/untrusted device? One device on a network where you could have some known level of connectivity and another on a questionable device on 4G/LTE with unknown latency? Use a process that depends on two different human operators — you must be crazy!

Finally, the process was really really fast compared to the oral identification process one would normally start with. The longest part of the entire process was getting my packet off the rack. I have entered the front of a CVS (remember the Pharmacy is in the farthest corner from the front door) and walked out within five minutes.

Okay, I am a fan. As a technologist and student of the Human Centered Computing Lab (well the original Auburn University version anyway). This is the blend of human computing experience that we should ALREADY have.

Example 2: No Staples

I was looking for a new access point. I browsed the internet and found one. In this instance, I needed it that day so did not do the typical Amazon purchase. I remembered that there is a Staples right next to the Empire State Building. So, I browsed Staples website to see what is in stock. As I hoped there was one at the Empire State Location a few minutes away. So I walk over to the location and to where it should be in the store.

To my surprise (okay not really) there was no such device. Luckily there was a store clerk (or whatever they call them) walking by. When I suggested that the website said there was at least one device the response I received was:

Oh the website it is always wrong.

It was said in a matter-of-fact-don’t-waste-your-time-with-it type way.

Implications

What are the implications for these retailers? To answer that, let’s use a little ethnographic introspection. Now, I am the first person to question using such introspection because it is highly subjective. It should be used to inform a more clinical study but does provide a basis to perform a qualitative inquiry. Therefore, I hope companies whose customer experience is like Staples would take the millions of salary dollars for UX experts, marketing genius ( Don Draper if you will) , software engineers, IT architects, and supply chain MBAs they spend annually and invest in performing clinical methods ( and of you don’t know what I am talking about ask this guy).

Let’s describe the implications in the context of the following rough-hewn research questions said experts would ask:

If you interacted with an in-store employee during this process, how did it enhance your retail experience?
What is your impression of the company before you performed an online initiated in-store purchase
What is your impression of the company after you completed an online initiated in-store purchase
What would be your recommendation regarding this company and its services

As one can divine from the two examples provided what those answers could be.

CVS

Happy employee that seemed engaged with the process and knew how to use the new buying experience
One of the annoying elements in the Murcian health care system. I don’t want anything in your store and the nearest location does not have a pickup window so I have to walk through your entire store.
Oh wow, these people got their act together. What other things I do with this app? Oh I can buy things up front with it and have discounts applied to the saved ExtraCare card
I might do quick trips here if other misc household items — actually I did passport renewal photos here using ExtraCare card discount.

Staples

Meh retail store employee showing their own lack of confidence in their employer’s ability to deliver for customers…so my expectations became low — did not think possible!
Assumed they were like others in the office supply business with some more wit about themselves from that whole “Easy Button” branding
OMG, why can’t you do office supplies? None of this stuff is perishable and people need businesses supplies. Oh, running all those “Easy Button” commercials must take money from operations.
Expecting only basic supplies like last minute toner…anything else will come from Amazon

Remembering an old Success

The CVS experience reminded my of my first eye-opening (Epiphany?) retail experience.

It was a bright day, not too hot not too cold. it was the middle of the day and I had planned to change how some electronics were connected. So I go online and order some composite video cables for in-store pickup. Nothing special about that. Confirmation email comes just past the top of the hour. I was at home in lounging wear and I start the task of putting clothes on to go out and get those cables and make another stop or two. Then 15 minutes later, right when I was going out the door, my Samsung flip phone rang (This was before the Motorola Q existed and I was one of those guys carrying a flip phone and an HP Ipaq). It was customer service. The representative said something like the following:

Oh I am sorry, it appears that someone just checked out the last set in that store a few minutes ago

Think about that. I ordered the last set online and someone else walks out with the last set within 10-to-15 minutes. Also, the year was 2005 and the place Circuit City. I still went to that circuit city and sure enough, that was the last one in the entire store — the ‘guy’ in the store said the same thing the customer service representative said.

I tell this circuit story because it took greater than six years before those ass clowns running the showroom at Best Buy could not make me wait in their store for an hour for an online pickup order I made 2 hours previously. Why is Best Buy even open? Why haven’t they closed yet? Seriously, ass clowns.

This experience was TWELVE YEARS AGO. Why is this not normal?

Technologists meet Business needs, you’ll make a good couple

The technologist may have to realize what the business is for a change. Pursuing the cool technology all the time may not be the best strategy for your business. In capitalist Murcia, businesses are motivated by that good’ole profit motive. Your ability to play with the cool toys depends on that excess net profit that the business generates. Therefore, technologists need to understand their business and known when to be ‘cool’ and when the customer experience is more paramount.

Looking at the CVS example again, pursuing the whole prescription experience is also risky. If the stereotypical drug purchaser is a senior that can’t use Emoji’s (again being stereotypical here)…should CVS even make an experience that depends on using a smart phone? I would like to see the adoption rate. I would like to see (and I hope they are tracking) the average prescription turn around time before 2016 and after 2017. Do the pharmacy employees find this better relative to previous methods? Such a metric would demonstrate how successful the technologists where. I have had the pleasure of being part of a solution delivery team where new customer engagement (new sign-ups, the frequency of return visits, etc) was directly attributed to newly deployed technology solutions. Such metrics demonstrate the business value of all the cool technology.

To reiterate one more time, that’s the point lots of technologist miss — even though they will protest otherwise. The technology exists to make people’s lives better. that includes helping businesses execute and deliver their business value. These so called technology architects should be delivering the continuous retail experience. Not because they are told to but because that is what they should do.

Am I Crazy? Comment below and thanks for reading.