Retail workers' future hinges on customer service

Saturday, 21 April 2018

Massey University marketing professor Jonathan Elms says stores must become a destination.

Retail workers will have to adapt to make customer service more personal than ever, as the sector faces technological disruption, a retail and marketing expert says.

Retail NZ's Greg Harford said automation and new technology had only added to what made retail an already highly competitive industry.

Greg Harford: Retail workers of the future will have to be more creative about delivering customer service

'In 2018, retail is as important as it has ever been and it will continue to be. Consumers have extremely high expectations – they want great service and product,' Harford said.

Retail employees would have to be more innovative.

Maddie McClean, a graduate from Massey's Bachelor of Retail and Business Management, is positive about working in retail.

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'Really focusing on customer needs and expectations. Thinking creatively to find new ways to deliver customer service.'

Marketing professor at Massey University Jonathan Elms, who heads the country's first retail-driven degree that started in 2015, said retail needed to be taken seriously as a career path.

'Retail has been perceived as a low wage job with poor opportunities and working conditions. But there are many different roles within a business' supply chain. That goes from distribution centres back into the corporate roles.'

Harford said although shopping online did not have the same level of penetration as other countries, it was only a matter of time before it did.

Figures from BNZ and retail consultancy Marketview estimate that online retail sales rose a healthy 11 per cent last year on 2016.

In 2017, there was a jump of 10 per cent in spending on local sites, and 12 per cent internationally.

For Maddie McClean, a Massey University retail degree graduate who also works in the sector, changes in the sector were not all doom and gloom.

'When retailers stop helping people, they quickly become obsolete, but many of these innovations and technological advancements will help the retail industry do just that,' McClean said.

'And as technology continues to advance, so will the richness of a customer's retail experience and level of service they receive – that's where the potential 'X factor' lies for retailers.'

Increasingly shopping malls were becoming a destination, Elms said.

'Regardless of the retail environment, we are seeing a shift towards experience and interaction,' he said.

'Making experience the most important thing – making a store, regardless of its size, a destination, and have face to face interaction facilitated by technology. That's the main point of difference.'

New Zealand's geographical location was an advantage in preparing for trends already happening overseas, he added.

'It's a fantastic opportunity for retailers here to look at what's going on overseas in terms of practice, but also to see how other retailers from different countries in the world have reacted threats and opportunities.'