Latest / The Retail Podcast / NRF2023 Improving the customer journey with, Richard Hammond CEO UNCROWD

Transcript

NRF2023 Improving the customer journey with, Richard Hammond CEO UNCROWD · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello, and welcome back to the retail podcast.
• 0:03
  Today, I'm with uncrowded and some of you may know Richard
• 0:06
  from, I think it was during lockdown where we did the first
• 0:10
  podcast episode, it is an absolute pleasure to see the
• 0:14
  success that you guys have had and deservingly.
• 0:18
  So, because there are so few people who talk about the path
• 0:23
  to purchase shopping missions, and how you improve that for
• 0:27
  retailers as passionately. And as accurately as you do.
• 0:32
  But wait, but for the people who don't know, you Richard, what
• 0:35
  are you? Tell us a little bit about
• 0:36
  yourselves and maybe your journey to him.
• 0:38
  So I mean I'm a retailer. I started when I was 15 37 years
• 0:43
  ago now and I've always loved a really simple question in
• 0:47
  retail, which is why uncrowded exists which is what makes a
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  person choose that store. Instead of that store, what
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  makes a person? Open your web page first or your
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  app? First Hall Park at your end of
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  town. What what makes that happen?
• 1:02
  And we haven't had a metric. That does that explains that
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  proper way. I wrote it, a couple of books
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  about retailer been very successful with small retail for
• 1:11
  initials, 22 languages at and for that I thought we must we
• 1:15
  must build a metric as an academic exercise.
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  And so I hunted down the world's best tools and eventually made a
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  combination of kind of. How do you create a unbiased
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  experience data set across all retailers?
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  The weather, I owe you as a retailer to see where you fit on
• 1:33
  that continual performance, but it was just an idea.
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  And I put it out there and people constantly came and said
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  this looks like a customer analytics business.
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  So, here we are four years later when it is a customer analytics
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  business and it is the only customer analytics business.
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  That is able to do a very simple thing, which is essentially
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  provide the causality of choice that MPS never Road system,
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  lacks across all of your competitors.
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  Editor's. And that's what we do.
• 2:01
  Is, if your, if your target here, for example.
• 2:04
  Yeah, we can actually show you through the same data set, where
• 2:08
  Walmart are beating you, and why?
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  Where you're ahead and why, when Amazon app eating your lunch and
• 2:13
  why, and that, that, that kind of equality of data, is the big
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  breakthrough. It's the same data, we're
• 2:21
  assessing Walmart, on the recessing you on a Target.
• 2:24
  I'm really curious in terms of the event and the number of
• 2:28
  retailers you must have met in the last Us two years.
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  Obviously, you must have had an academic approach to what the
• 2:35
  problem was that people were trying to solve and I know
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  you're quite passionate about the problem that MPS wasn't
• 2:40
  shelving. So we've all Amir engages, what
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  do you think retailers are doing right or wrong in terms of when
• 2:46
  they're coming to you saying, we want to do this better.
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  There's there's a couple of things that really come to mind.
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  The first is for the, I think we're the first time ever in my
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  modern part of my retail career we're really saying big
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  retailers get back to this idea of Anything.
• 3:00
  I invest in anything, I do anywhere in the business, must
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  help me shift another box. It's got to help me sell
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  something. It must be actionable.
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  And that's brilliant. Because that discipline is
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  something. That means that as an industry,
• 3:13
  we get better and better, or we do.
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  But the second thing has happened, is very specific to
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  the last year. So we are in a slow down.
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  I don't think this load is going to be as bad as some of us
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  thought it would be last Autumn, which is a positive.
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  But we are in a slow down. There's a little bit less money
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  in the tills and there was last year.
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  We've got customers and Prospects coming to us and I'm
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  sure to other people as well saying, look, we're taking
• 3:38
  physically fewer dollars in the till my NPS am icsat and my
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  customer effort scoring. All tell me pretty much the same
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  thing they told me last year but I'm taking less money.
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  Therefore, what I thought was the real story is not the real
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  story and I need to start again and it's great for us because it
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  means that you know those conversations begin and end with
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  well you know, we can show you exactly Ali where those dollars
• 4:01
  are going and how to pull them back into, how to increase your
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  market, share in a diminishing Market.
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  That's, that's really the key. That's the one number that
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  matters. So that that click the, the
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  short answer to your question is, I'm delighted to see the
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  mind. Can we go colleagues and peers
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  in retailers again of come back to that, but it's not about
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  vanity anymore. So I'm luxury it's what puts
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  more money. That's our what shifts boxes.
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  I mean there's two points there, just to touch on.
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  I've been blown away by the positive sentiment in the US
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  economy. To me.
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  And without, there was a press. And in this briefing yesterday,
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  again, positive sentiment today in the keynote, Holly everyone
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  agrees that it's going to get tight.
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  I must admit, I thought there was gonna be a, we're gonna go
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  over the edge. Well, we'll see, perhaps missing
• 4:47
  in one hour. Any recent LinkedIn.
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  Post, she talked about data sets and an almond eyes data sets
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  from all of. I can't remember.
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  You said, ladies hundred plus or so.
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  And so from for made me one of the ones we've been talking
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  about recently is mainstream apparelled.
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  In the UK and we've ever, so quietly gathered, 1.1 million,
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  individual observations across the 18, most important retailers
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  in their Market base. We know more about those
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  retailers right now and the experience, they deliver that
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  they know about themselves. And even more importantly, that
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  they know about each other. Now, one of those 18 is our is
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  our customer and our customers are really forward-thinking
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  British retailer, who has just delivered.
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  Fabulous numbers over Christmas who is already optimized in
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  depth. To open more stores to double
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  down on this success. And but that million-plus
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  observation Points, each one of those is potentially actionable
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  what our software does. What I put forward, our
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  algorithm does is rise to the surface to these three things.
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  These are the three things that will help you beat next next
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  quarter. These are the three things that
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  will stop metal am pulling away and that's really critical
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  because that's very much about if mainstream apparel is
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  shrinking. As a market, I need to Reese, my
• 6:00
  market share with idiot to not just stand still, but to
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  progress and that's where a data source, that tells you exactly
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  how to do that. And this was at that has a
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  problem as well as an advantage. Now it could be so startling and
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  so sharp. So shocking the almost step back
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  from this. Say how can that possibly be the
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  case? But what our platform then?
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  Does it unravels it. Yeah.
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  Underneath but 1.0 I'd really wanted to strengthen.
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  You just made there is that optimism is really well founded
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  and it's there's something that's Happened.
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  We've seen with pretty much all us and UK retailers, we talk to
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  which is the pandemic caught people by surprise, you know,
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  there were blocked it and transformation projects.
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  There were cios with great ideas who are frustrated by Boards who
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  wouldn't sign off the spends. Yep.
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  And then of course pandemic hit and we were all called with our
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  chances down this time. The consistent line we've heard
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  is to know what times might get tough but now's the time to
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  invest because if I don't invest, I'm definitely going to
• 7:02
  have a disaster now, that's different.
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  I know it's really refreshing. Again, Louis Vuitton keynote.
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  That was exactly the point that they made in 2008.
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  They were one of the few organizations buying companies
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  investing in in technology and therefore they saw the
• 7:17
  accelerate to the growth post. We did six months in Louis, we
• 7:21
  Tom's paris-based Narator last year, fabulous program but we're
• 7:26
  all really illustrate exactly what you said they have 52
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  separate. They got amazed old, of course,
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  52 separate Maison within the business.
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  Each one of those comes to that particular leave it on program
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  and says, what are the cool things that can help us build?
• 7:41
  Better experiences relationships with customers.
• 7:43
  It's so proactive and it's a big part of their success.
• 7:47
  Yeah. Richard as, you know, I can talk
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  to you forever. So if I don't know where I can
• 7:51
  find you, how do I get hold of one?
• 7:53
  Crowd. Where are you based?
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  And what was what should I do next?
• 7:56
  So, we're active in the US and the UK in the Canadian Market
• 8:00
  places, and we are a ton crowd dot U, k--, and you can find me
• 8:06
  on LinkedIn. I love to talk retail.
• 8:08
  And actually, even if you haven't got a problem, we can
• 8:10
  solve just talking about. Your business is something I get
• 8:14
  a great deal of pleasure from so, yeah.
• 8:16
  Get in touch brilliant. Thanks.