The Moment
In 2014, BWS was intent on sparking a “people” revolution. This meant enabling Store Managers to run their stores like autonomous local businesses, and building the in-store team’s capacity for engaging customers in a way that was authentic and uniquely BWS, forging strong connections with local communities. Performance Frontiers set to work helping BWS activate this customer-focused transformation, which we called the ACE – ACE-ing customer experience at BWS. Our challenge was to empower and upskill 7500 team members across 1300 stores in Australia.
The Method
Performance Frontiers designed content that increased store members’ awareness of themselves and their customers, and built their confidence to be the best version of themselves in-store. Leveraging our expertise in engagement and the neuroscience behind good communication, coupled with research into emerging customer experience tends, we explored with store members how to:
- Better read a customer’s mood and intent
- Ask better questions to determine the need
- Stay agile, think on their feet and adapt to diverse scenarios
Perhaps most importantly, the ACE encouraged team members to have fun and engage in genuine conversations to create memorable, lasting connections with customers. A suite of “easy-to-use” tools and models were developed to bring these concepts to life in-store. What was originally designed as a once-off roll out, grew to 6 modules over the course of 3 years.
The Measure
From 2014 to 2017, Team Engagement rose 13 points to a Global Best Practice in Retail score. Voice of Customer rose 10 points and Net Promoter Score rose 16 points. BWS sales and profit consistently outperformed the rest of the liquor market and had meaningful year on year increases. Underneath the strong business returns, team engagement and customer engagement scores, it was also apparent that the ACE Program has been transformational at a cultural level.
