It’s been a tough year for retail. Ascena (Dress Barn, Ann Taylor, Lane Bryant), Hudson’s Bay (Saks, Lord & Taylor), JC Penny, Sears and Kmart are shuttering hundreds of stores. Macy’s and others are cutting thousands of jobs. Nine major retailers alone declared Chapter 11 in the first three months of 2017. It’s no wonder The Atlantic is calling 2017 the year of the Great Retail Apocalypse.
The world has changed and the demands have never been greater for brick and mortar retailers to cut costs, reduce shrink, defeat competitors, grow omni-channel, and improve customer experience in the face of online competition. It’s overwhelming! But retailers who are thinking with an agile mindset realize it’s also an opportunity—one that the most successful organizations are using to propel their companies to the front of the pack. What are they doing differently? They’re focused on customer experience and building the knowledge and expertise of the front line workforce that provides it.
Tags: retail training