COMMERCE NOW

Traditional Banks Are Getting a Digital Makeover

Summary: In this episode of COMMERCE NOW, Anja Popp and Bill Inzeo help you get to know your shopper types and offer the right customer journey. Related Content:  https://www.dieboldnixdorf.com/-/media/diebold/files/retail/insights/mindshare-shopper-journey.pdf Related Links: https://retailexperience.store/ LinkedIn Profiles - Anja Popp Bill Inzeo Transcription:  Jerry:                     Hello everyone and thanks for listening in. I would like to welcome today's guest Bill Inzeo Product and Solutions Global Strategy for Zebra Technologies. Welcome Bill. Thanks for joining me today. Bill Inzeo:            Thank you for having me. Jerry:                     And we're also fortunate to [00:00:30] have Anja Popp with us. Anya is our senior analyst in Market Intelligence here at Diebold Nixdorf. Thank you Anya for joining us. Anja Popp:          Thank you, Jerry. It's my pleasure to be here. Jerry:                     So let's get started. Retail in the shopping experience has changed tremendously during today's challenging environments. Some changes were brought on by technological advances with the now common mobile devices. Other changes were forced by a global pandemic as consumers rethink their own shopping needs. Regardless of the reason we've experienced accelerated changes to [00:01:00] the consumer and staff journeys that retailers need to contend with. Let's start with the technology portion. Are shoppers drawn to certain technologies that a retailer provides? Bill, what's your take? Bill Inzeo:            Yeah, I think that's absolutely the case. Technologies that can provide really any level of convenience to the customers can be a draw and look no further than the checkout experience in retail in particular. There's customers that are going to select a retailer or certain retailers, not only for the types of products that they sell, but also for the [00:01:30] way in which they can actually conduct their shopping trip, especially in a post-pandemic environment where options like self-checkout are going to appeal to a subset of customers in a way that looks different today than it did in 2019, because there's a whole personal safety aspect and element to that decision-making. Jerry:                     Interesting. Anja, what are your thoughts on it? Anja Popp:          Yeah, that's a great question, Jerry. And thanks for the insight from Bill as well. I would say yes, shoppers are drawn to certain technologies. At least if retailers manage to build an experience [00:02:00] that corresponds with each shopper's core motivation behind adopting a solution. So maybe if I may add a little color to my response, so we were specifically digging into technology adoption in the grocery segment. We had 15,000 grocery shopper voices from 15 countries in there. And based on all these data points, we were working with Nielson as our research partner to conduct a segmentation analysis. And that analysis actually returned five core motivations that influence [00:02:30] shopper interest in retail technology. And that would be ease. So really ease of use, simplicity.                                 The self-sufficiency part. So some shoppers really have a core motivation to be very self-determined in their shopper journey. It's the information part or the information motivation, and both self-sufficiency and information are actually also have a strong correlation to efficiency by the way. There's trust, as the fourth motivator. And then there's new and exciting experiences. [00:03:00] There's also one strong obstacle that I see that retailers need to overcome for technology adoption. And that is simply long-standing habits. That always has to be put into the equation as well. Jerry:                     Those are great insights. It's always interesting to see the march of technological advances and how it affects consumers and retailers alike. What about force changes now? COVID forced all consumers to rethink their needs, journeys, and what their expectations are. What's been impacted the most from this? Anja, what interesting findings [00:03:30] did we find with the Diebold Nixdorf/Nielsen survey learned from consumers? Did we see a change when we surveyed before COVID versus a year later? Anja Popp:          I would say yes, absolutely. First of all, it seems that many retailers saw the sign of the times and they leveraged technology to provide a response to the challenges that were raised by the pandemic and consumers noticed that. So when we asked grocery shoppers about their experiences during the pandemic, the perception that retailers have promoted new technology based ways [00:04:00] to shop that protect people, like for example, self-checkout concepts, those usually ranked within the top three responses about these experiences that shoppers were making during the pandemic. Self-checkout, by the way, that was definitely a winning solution across the pandemic.                                 So we saw double digit shares of respondents that have turned to self-checkout for the first time during the COVID pandemic, even in countries where the technology is already established for quite a while. So maybe I can [00:04:30] use the US as an example here. So we saw well over 20% of our respondents stating that they started using self-checkouts since the pandemic, and that's bringing total adoption in the US up to over 80% actually. The core reason for that remaining small group of non-users was actually that they are simply used to the staff checkout. So you remember, I stated in my first response to you that longstanding habits are a motivation that retailers always have to put into the equation for designing successful [00:05:00] roll-outs. Jerry:                     I really love this data and I get to see it happen all the time. My wife can't stand self-checkout, but during the pandemic I think she followed your data. She went to it because of those concerns and she changed her behavior based on that. It was something she didn't do before and afterwards she tends to do more often. We learn more and more every time we ask the consumer direct questions. I love it. Bill, what are you seeing today? Bill Inzeo:            What Anja and I have been seeing [00:05:30] is very similar. When we're talking to our customers at Zebra and hearing from them, the challenges that they're helping their customers with, we continue to confirm, I think what everybody's keenly aware of, which is that the pandemic has been an accelerator of nearly all aspects of our lives generally. And that includes the tech savviness of the customers and the shift in how they are interacting with the retailers and how they're shopping. And that shifts in business to online shopping. And then beyond just the shift [00:06:00] to online shopping to the in-store or curbside pickup modalities, really out of necessity for our personal safety was the equivalent of a once in a lifetime accelerant. Well, we hope once in a lifetime.                                 And I think the motivation behind ensuring our own personal safety and the pathway to that being technology has changed not just how the customers think about how to leverage technology, but it's also putting the retailers in a position where they're starting to reconsider how they're going to leverage technology in the new normal, [00:06:30] and then help their customers along the way. And that additional layer of options for those customers, both to shop online and then pick up in the store in several different ways has created a new complexity for the retailers at their operation that they're still really wrestling with right now. And technology is going to be one of the many and probably the leading solution to that new complexity. Jerry:                     Yeah, totally agree. There's no doubt the benefit technology brings to the shopping experience and store operations. However, and this is personal to me, [00:07:00] I'm a big believer in focusing on adoption rather than just implementation. You want consumers to prefer this new method. And that means taking it beyond just installation and technically working. How should retailers adjust their thinking to achieve success? Bill, as one of the leading technology providers what insights can you share from your experiences? Bill Inzeo:            Well, I can tell you that at the end of the day, it's all about value. It always is, and it'll always be about the value of the technology to the customer. [00:07:30] As we've been discussing, we've seen a level of technology adoption sooner than we would have had we not had this global pandemic occur. And that adoption level that we've seen in the shift that we're monitoring, and we're starting to see continue to show up in our customers, is likely to maintain and if not continue to expand. So from there, it's really just a matter of building on that new adoption. So the building blocks will be comprised of value components. And Anja talked to some of these, convenience, [00:08:00] personal safety, which has a completely new definition to customers. The financial value, so how can the technology bring savings to the customers? And the ease of use. If it feels like unnecessary bells and whistles, it may feel too incremental to ensure adoption. So they need to make sure that it's purpose-built and very intentful in what the technology is there to help with. Jerry:                     Very true. That's a better way to take it. And the retailers really need to pay attention to those kinds [00:08:30] of tasks and insights. Anja, a question for you. Should a retailer focus on a particular type of consumer and their preferences? If so, who could that be? Anja Popp:          Yeah, thanks for the great question, Jerry, but actually to be very honest, I mean, the who is certainly a question for each retailer's marketing or strategy department. And we see so many retailers doing a great job here, for example, with stronger diversification of store format and such things like really responding to the target [00:09:00] groups that are most important to them. But based on our findings, I will definitely recommend to retailers to consider the motivation before they design a shopper journey. And Bill mentioned that just in the answer that he provided. So ease of use, let me pick up on that because it's been one of the motivations, or one of the values as Bill calls it, that Bill mentioned. And I think it's a great example. Ease was actually the one motivator that I'd recommend as the starting point of any journey design. So it's important to understand that shoppers whose [00:09:30] primary trigger is ease, are not interested in innovation or technology per se.                                 And this is one of the largest segments we found based on our survey. So what they want is actually a solution in a specific moment of need. They are turning to self-checkout specifically when they are facing a long queue at the staff checkout. And when we asked those of them who had already turned to mobile journeys, for example, about the device preference, whether they prefer smartphones or retailer [00:10:00] owned devices, for example, it's really the feeling of comfort that influences that choice. So one half of them actually prefer the smartphone because they felt familiar with the technology, and the other half stated that they did not want to be bothered with downloading and installing another app. So you see, in that case, it's really highly important to think about ease in the sense of simplicity, comfort, and problem resolution. So retailers should also factor in store associates as evangelists to such journey designs [00:10:30] because they can create tremendous value in creating that required level of comfort. Jerry:                     That is really important. Staff needs to be involved and they need to be a proponent of these new journeys, so consumers feel comfortable to try them and that they will be supported. It's critical. Too many times, I feel self-service in air quotes is the total lack of staff. And that's not necessarily the case until the consumers are trained properly and are comfortable with [00:11:00] your technology and your journey that you're providing.                                 We've had a super computer in our pocket for over 15 years. It's changed a lot of our behaviors and expectations. How is it altering the retail shopping journeys? Anja, you mentioned some of the mobile journeys. Does the data show a mad dash to mobile usage or a mixed bag of who wants what and when? Anja Popp:          That's an interesting one, Jerry. So when we just look at the big picture, I think it is really fair to say that [00:11:30] mobile has become something like a core expectation to consumers. And I hope, I guess that Bill would agree to that. But when we asked independently for the connection to a retailer's mobile solution, it's not uncommon that 50% or 60% of shoppers tell us they are using a mobile device in store, at least from time to time. But quite often, I mean, that's about when they're checking a price point or when they have made some notes on their smartphone actually for their shopping list or topics like [00:12:00] this. It's really getting more nuanced when we look deeper into the data, like which device is preferred? What is the adoption level of specific solutions that retailers could provide? And I felt there was one very interesting aspect.                                 And you might remember that I mentioned information as a motivation to adopt technology for a specific segment. And we found that this motivator very often goes hand in hand with a high savviness for mobile technology. So things like checking product availability ahead of a store visit. [00:12:30] Checking on product information, like the source of origin. All these topics resonated very strongly with that information driven segment. So when you consider such preferences and maybe you add in that context that mega-trend of sustainability to the equation, that more and more retailers actually have to react to, I feel that inflammation can become one really interesting playground in retail. Jerry:                     Oh, most definitely. Bill, you are deeply into mobility for retailers, staff, and consumers. [00:13:00] What's your take? Bill Inzeo:            Jerry. If we reflect, mobile has I think it's not even arguably it's confirmed, it's already changed retail fundamentally. It used to be that a mobile first approach, if I do mobile first in air quotes, that was an aspirational strategy that retailers were driving toward on their innovation technology roadmaps. The reality is mobile is foundational now. As Anja mentioned, it's core. And so the retailers are using mobile devices to conduct almost all components [00:13:30] of their daily operation, inventory management, pricing and promotions, customer interactions, checkout. Mobile is definitely here and here to stay in my view. And I think we're going to see increased focus and adoption around customer mobility and how that can be leveraged to deliver to the customers those value-add experiences that encourage the adoption that we've been discussing earlier. Inclusive of convenience, inclusive of personal savings, and a personalized interaction with the retailer that they're shopping, whether they're [00:14:00] shopping virtually, or if they're shopping in real life. Jerry:                     Let's follow that up and go a little further. This is what's happening today, and even in our accelerated pandemic world. What do you think it will do to disrupt the future of the retail industry? Anja? Anja Popp:          Actually, I think the good news, at least for brick and mortar retail, is that to consumers mobile seems to be more of an enhancement to the in-store experience. So at least in grocery, the majority of consumers tells us that the physical [00:14:30] store remains their primary channel, but yet we see retailers becoming more data-driven. We see shoppers demanding support in their individual moments of need. So I see mobile as really the glue in between to that. So it's really providing shoppers the specific information that they're looking for in the moment that they need it. Now, whether it may be a price information, whether it might be a product information, whether it's the loyalty coupon that they want to collect, that is so much more convenient [00:15:00] than actually carrying these paper-based topics with them and so on and so forth. So this is really where I see the role of mobile in a more and more data-driven world. Jerry:                     Bill, your thoughts on both consumer and staff using them? Bill Inzeo:            I'll say that, I think as we mentioned earlier, mobile has already had one round of disruption in retail and certainly more to come. And I think what comes next is likely to be rooted in two things. So for the customers, how can the retailers remove as much friction as possible [00:15:30] from the shopping experience, leveraging mobile technology, but still maintaining a core shopping experience that has become the expectation of those customers, both in store and online? So how do you augment without taking something from them that is valuable to them? And then for the retailers, how can they build on the mobile foundation that they now have in place?                                 As we mentioned, mobile is now a core fundamental components of retail. So how do we build on that mobile foundation that they have in place to drive more efficiencies into [00:16:00] their operations so they can unlock that labor that they're currently spending on what you can argue are low value tasks and reallocate that labor and time to higher value tasks like customer interactions? And really that's I think that the two prongs that are going to really drive the next level of disruption and adoption with mobile. Jerry:                     All great insights, thanks to you Anja and Bill. I think that's a great place to close. Really appreciate you sharing your thoughts on the ramifications technology has [00:16:30] on consumers and the retailers that we serve. To say the least it will be interesting to watch expectations change in the coming years. And thanks to you, our listeners, for tuning in to this episode of Commerce Now. Download a free copy of the white paper we have done with Diebold Nixdorf and Zebra on mobility. You'll find the link in the show notes.

Know Your Shopper Types for Customer Journeys

Retail Self-Service Kiosks: Innovation Continues

Summary: In this special episode of COMMERCE NOW, we dive into the 25 year partnership Diebold Nixdorf has with America First Credit Union. Manish Choudhary the Sr. Vice President, Software for DN talks about how important connected commerce remains for banks and credit Unions. Related Content:  https://www.dieboldnixdorf.com/en-us/banking/portfolio/software/payments Transcription: Mike:           Welcome to our show and on today's program, we have Manish Choudhary from Diebold Nixdorf, Manish, How are you? Manish:           Very good. Thanks Mike, for having me here. Mike:           Oh my gosh. You're very welcome. We're talking today about your partnership with America First Credit Union, and Diebold Nixdorf, and just to kind of get a lay of the land here. Can you tell us about your partnership with America first and what you guys are doing? Manish:           Absolutely. Mike, so as you know, Diebold Nixdorf, is a global technology company enabling connected commerce for banks and retailers across the globe. Serving top a hundred financial institutions, top retailers. America First is a federal credit union with almost 81 years old institution with 128 location. It has the eighth largest credit assets in the US. It's the sixth largest credit union with almost a million and one members. Diebold Nixdorf and our partnership with America First is a 25 year old partnership where we recently announced our payment software, which will drive the payment transactions and payments switching capabilities with America First.  Mike:        Wow.  You guys have been with them for 25 years. Oh my gosh. That's quite a relationship. Well, I mean, that's congratulations right there for sure Mike:           So let's get back to the software part of it. So how does the software, how does this work for America First? How does it benefit them? Manish:            Yeah, so think about, I think if I were to double click on the payment conversation, so payment industry, as you know, is getting disrupted, it's getting disrupted because of new cloud technologies. It's getting disrupted because there are new real-time payment types, new contemporary payment types, which are evolving. There is innovation in speed of deployment, speed of consumption in the payment platforms and binding payment, which we've been working on is absolutely the right answer. And I'll tell you why it is probably one of the most contemporary payments, software implements payment, new payment types at speed and scale faster than anywhere else. It is a API first pure cloud native architecture. It is one of the most secure enterprise payment software available with scalable microservices. So from the credit union's perspective, it actually future proof, the technology and as the consumer behaviors are changing the credit unions as the, the consumers of the credit unions are looking for more and more new contemporary ways of doing transactions. This actually addresses today's needs, but it also addresses the future needs for America First and how the customers are going to consume some of the new payment technologies.  Mike:           I mean, as you well know, I mean, it changes by the second. I mean, by the time this interview is done, something major will have happened in the payment space. So it's got tp be  future-proof is such a key, key aspect of technology today. Manish:           Yeah, you're right. If you think about, you know, by the time we started talking and now there are millions and millions of new digital payments, which got processed and the banks really wanted a scalable infrastructure to actually handle those peaks and loads and balances. Mike:           So, so how is this going to help America First, obviously, obviously they're planning for the future. They're planning, they're being flexible. How else does it help them, you know, obviously be more attractive to members and, and whatnot. Manish:           Absolutely. So if you think about, as I mentioned, the, the consumer expectations are changing. We believe credit unions are competing with the large banks, and they're also competing with the tech coming in from mobile wallets and, you know, E transactions and others. So we at Diebold Nixdorf believe we really want to be at the right intersection of how to provide the right experience to our customers, to have them provide that experience to their customers. And in some ways, and I do believe like any other industry, the competition in credit unions that extremely high consumers switch between credit unions or banks and their, their experiences are changing. We believe the, the new payment platform really provides them. So for example, doing cardless transactions or non card based transactions, or enabling instant loans and instant payments in future or access to modern payment types,, you know, and I believe if the credit unions do not provide that somebody else will. Manish:           So in some ways we believe that this whole payment platform and future proofing, the technology opens up all of those avenues. So while it opens up the avenues for payment, it also seamlessly extends the traditional capabilities on the ATM side. So for example, America First is, is going to use the personalized marketing campaign to serve its customers, the seamless security, which is connected to the platform on the ATM side, also comes along with it. You can walk to a ATM and without the card, you can actually do transactions by using video technology. So there's a lot of enabling technologies and options that you get created with this new platform. Mike:           I'm liking the, what was the, the video technology with the ATM. And you can actually, how does that work? Manish:      Yeah, so the, the, the other part of our software is the modernizing the entire ATM stack. And we call them as digital value added services. So I, you know, I usually walk to an ATM and sometimes I have my debit card and sometimes I leave it at home. I can actually walk in, press a button, talk to a teller, verify my identity, do transactions and transactions and not just deposit and withdrawals. I can E-Verify. I can possibly look at opening up an account or doing some mortgage applications, right. With the channel. Then I'm able to talk to somebody or even a better example. I would say, Mike is if you're in New York city and you have you own 10 restaurants at the end of the day, you really want to get all the cash deposited into your ATM account, without giving passwords, pin numbers and account numbers. To those 10 employees, you can actually set it up on your mobile phone, give a QR code. And the 10 people can actually deposit all of the money and they can withdraw next day morning. And they're going back to open up the restaurant. So it's just enabling these small and medium businesses and the new use cases as self-service and digitization is becoming more and more common, especially after the pandemic.  Mike:           I was just about to ask you, have you, is this all a result? I mean, this was stuff was going to happen anyway, but it really sounds like everything was accelerated because of the pandemic, all these really cool digital offerings out there right now. Manish:           Absolutely. Absolutely. We are seeing it globally. One of the advantage we have is, you know, the fact that you operate in a hundred countries, we can assemble the use cases and our learnings or what we are seeing. So pandemic definitely shifted. So the recent lockdowns banks migrated close to 70% of their deposits from teller to self service. And out of those 70%, almost 50% of those that actually aggregate get ATM's. Now that's a huge shift. That's a huge shift, which wouldn't have been possible. So this acceleration of digital transformation at credit unions and ATM, and I think we are at the right intersection and the technology is really, really helping in terms of accelerating those things.  Mike:           And getting back to America First, and this is what America First is taking advantage of right now, right? So this is what they're going to be doing. Manish:           Absolutely. I think we are really, really excited about the implementation and our teams are jointly working together. As we think about getting the lining payments, modernizing the payment infrastructure, modernizing the ATM and enabling a lot more capabilities for future like cash recycling. You know, we're extremely excited about the opportunities, which a self-serve integrated platform is able to provide you Mike:           Good stuff, man. Any, any, anything else to wrap up? Because this is a very timely conversation obviously, and a lot of credit lines are going through this right now. Maybe not to the extent of that America First is, but I'm hoping that they will, you know, a lot of them are, a lot of them are on their digital journeys. Let's just put it that way. And, and a lot of them accelerated their digital journeys last year, but it sounds like really America First is really taking advantage of the technology out there to be not only attractive to their members, but to really, you know, compete with the big folks too. Manish:           Right. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think the only thing I would add to wrap up is I think, you know, we are extremely excited about this partnership. You know, we believe our, our teams, you know, my, my ambition is to really, really creating the most sophisticated payments software stack in the industry and writing payments is absolutely the right product, the right enterprise software, exactly the right time. Cloud-native scalable, faster to deploy faster, to consume back lines, enabling new payment types and security. You put all that power together in the right appropriate time and digital transactions really, really blooming. So excited about the partnership, excited about the dividing payments and what we've we're doing. So thank you for the opportunity.  Mike:           Oh my gosh, anytime. This is exciting stuff for credit unions out there and you guys are right there at the front of it and helping create things. So we appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. Appreciate the time. 

DN Partners with America First Credit Union

Summary: In this Special Podcast Zebra Technologies and Diebold Nixdorf come together to discuss how retail is being disrupted on multiple fronts while trying to meet demanding consumer expectations. Retailers need to simultaneously transform their it landscape ensure high availability, align well-orchestrated staff processes and offer the ultimate consumer experience across all channels all while trying to keep profitable. Retailers are investing in mobility solutions to ensure satisfying and safe consumers and staff journeys. Related Content:  https://retailexperience.store/ Related Links: LinkedIn Profiles - Jerry Langfitt Philippe Dauphin Mark Thomson DieboldNixdorf.com Zebra Technologies Transcription:  Jerry Langfitt (00:16): Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'd like to welcome. Today's guest Philippe Dauphin VP global retail solutions from Diebold Nixdorf. Philippe Dauphin (00:25): Thanks Jerry and thanks for the invite I am happy to be here. Jerry Langfitt (00:29): And also from Zebra Technologies, Europe, Mark Thomson, director, retail, and hospitality. Thank you for joining us today, Mark Mark Thomson (00:36): Jerry. Thanks for the welcome thanks for having me. I am very happy to be here to talk about where retail is right now. Jerry Langfitt (00:45): Great. Let's dive right in. Retail is being disrupted on multiple fronts while trying to meet demanding consumer expectations. Retailers need to simultaneously transform their IT landscape ensure high availability, align well-orchestrated staff processes and offer the ultimate consumer experience across all channels all while trying to keep profitable. Retailers are investing in mobility solutions to ensure satisfying and safe consumers and staff journeys. Philippe let's dive in. What are the latest trends you see happening in the retail industry? Philippe Dauphin (01:20): Yeah, I see three major trends. I'm not sure that they are new, there were there but, but they are more of use since the COVID. The first trend is really this necessity, you know, to combine the online and the offline. So we just cannot go ahead having silos if they want to be really consumer centric. This is a major, the first trend. The second one, to create some new consumer journeys and adapt. The third trend, there is a huge opportunity to digitalize some staff journey’s to bring more efficiency and in this context mobility will definitely be important. Jerry Langfitt (02:06): That's really interesting. Philippe, Mark, what do you think? Mark Thomson (02:10): Well, I can't help but agree with Philippe. And I think for me, the main driver of change actually is the consumer retailers need to be very clear about the expectations and the relationship that they have with their target customers and how those are changing. And, and it's the customer very much. Now that is demanding changes in the way that we allow them to shop. I guess technology is also an important factor here because is in a sense enabling that change, that could be anything from mobile technology, changing the way retailers get access to information. So customers, but also the ability for us as shoppers to get online and to have access to online and e-commerce shopping. So technology and customer behavior, both converging to dry some change. And Phillip is right. COVID has certainly accelerated that. But most of this is, is changed. That was already happening prior to COVID; COVID is just shine a spotlight on it. Jerry Langfitt (03:12): That's a great perspective Mark. Now, from the retailer's perspective, how do you see them embracing this transformation? What are the steps they're taking? How are they reacting to this? Mark Thomson (03:22): It's a good question because they are they're reacting differently. They're not all reacting in the same way. It's a, it's an industry like, like any others as an all industry is that there are pioneers and there are laggards. However, when you get a, a worldwide change or shock to the system, like COVID over the last 12 to 18 months, what happens is some of those laggards, unfortunately fall by the wayside because COVID and the pandemic took no prisoners. But what we're saying for the more pioneering retailers is what they're doing is they're actually accelerating transformation strategies. And some of them the best in my opinion, are the ones where they're involving not just the IT teams, because transformation doesn't start with IT. It actually starts with the whole business. And they're involving people from multiple departments from IT, HR loss prevention, as well as store operations and things like, I guess an example might be project to empower staff in the store with more access to technology or that that involves store operations. It clearly involves IT. There's potential for it to evolve HR in terms of the information that staff might have access to, etc. So what were certainly seeing and the conversations we're having with retailers is increasingly they're involving multiple teams and departments within the retailer. And I think that can only be a positive thing. Jerry Langfitt (04:52): It definitely is going to take a village to change that kind of culture. And within the retailer to serve the consumers better. Philippe, What do you see retailers doing? Philippe Dauphin (05:02): Yeah, I would agree with what thought wasn't mentioned by Mark, because at the end of the day, all retailers have very good IT departments because they want to evaluate different technologies, implement them. And so on the purchasing department to purchase at the right price. But what is sometimes missing is really to start by focusing again on the journey’s, because technology should not be the goal. It's just a way to which goal and the goal is to improve this consumer journeys. I give you an example recently, for instance, discussing with retailers, whether it be able to the COVID time to give us some technologies around the self-service checkout, you know, the low, for instance, to control the checkout via a mobile device, but the application for these two applications, one is to have a no-touch approach instead of touching the screen, you can control it from your smartphone as an example, or second usage. You can set up for handicap people, but again, technology is the easy part, the most complicated part, and the focus in that you should be on the consumer journeys or on the stature. Jerry Langfitt (06:20): That's an interesting perspective, Philippe. Thank you. So let's talk about the mobility technology. How do you think the industry is going to be disrupted by this arc? What do you think? Mark Thomson (06:31): I think when it comes to mobility in particular, I think we're reaching a level of maturity that it's going to drive change by itself. Probably getting close to a tipping point for mobile technology and retail from, from two sides. Certainly I guess from a consumer side, mobile technology smart mobile technology has been around for 12 or 13 years already. And it's now in the hands of virtually everyone, all of us carry our mobile phones with us. So we're all used to using mobile technology, not just for one thing, whether it's calling or sending text messages, the mobile device is really our point of access to information or point of access to booking flights as well as shopping online. And that ease of use is now being leveraged by retailers to start to connect staff, to enable them to perform tasks faster, communicate with colleagues and to answer customer questions in real time, so impacting the customer experience as well. And I think that simplicity that way of thinking about mobile technology and apps rather than software programs is really driving a change within a retail store that allows retailers to react to some of these challenges that they're facing in a very different way. But it also at the same time, as well as driving productivity and improving operations, it also everything that you do now is creating a digital audit, increasing the amount of data available from the store and what's happening in the store, which then in turn allows retailers to identify further opportunities to improve their processes within the store and optimize their businesses. So really, I guess all of these things coming together means that mobile technology is beginning to act as a to transformation catalyst by itself. Jerry Langfitt (08:27): Hmm. Yeah. Mobility is really coming and making a thing. Go ahead, Philippe. I was going to ask what you think of that. Philippe Dauphin (08:33): Yeah. I would complement the answer in the following way... You know, mobility's already there for years for the consumer and if you're taking the online business of the retailers, I think that fully understood this is fully implemented except ticking the box when it comes to the interactions in the store, it out I've started to experiment some seeing, which was attractive to implement, bring your own device. But we have limited that limited success of this one. So let's start understanding or so that implementing professional mobile devices for this makes sense. Yeah. And I strongly believe that this will become one more popular and when it comes to staff journeys, I think there is a huge potential there because we have several conversations with very large, retailers in Europe and abroad, and several of them want to implement a universal terminal, make sure that all employees are equipped , yeah. That they communicate, they manage that efficiency, that different tasks. Retailers should really make sure that, that the right applications that they'd have right ecosystem and that they have all the platform to manage this platforms and that is a key challenge to really benefit from this potential disruption. Jerry Langfitt (10:04): Mark were recently did a shopper study and found that 73% of associates feel they're more effective at helping shoppers. If equipped with mobile technology, you had mentioned a little bit about that with talking to associates and have an access, but what do you think really is the root cause or reason why associates feel that way? Mark Thomson (10:23): It almost goes back to my previous answer in the sense that as individuals we've been using smart technology, mobile devices for at least 12, 13 years or so now, and that survey certainly found that staff felt frustrated at the lack of technology when they actually came to work in the store, customers simply wanted to know more about products, et cetera, and staff were unable to answer their questions without going to a point of sale system, which is just not right. So giving staff access to this information via a mobile device, seemed logical and sensible to staff for years. Finally, as retailers start to understand this and start to deploy mobile technology on a much wider basis and the, the technologies behind it, such as Android as an operating system makes that easier. And we create an app based mentality. Now we see this change finally happening, and we see the, I guess, the satisfaction levels of staff improving as they feel much more equipped to do their job better in front of the customers. Jerry Langfitt (11:32): One would think that's true just because millennials and gen Z and whatever you want to call them were born with a phone in their hand. I think it's not necessarily just a preference they're going to have to serve and be ready to serve the next generation of what they're used to. Philippe a question for you, because talking about this, it really made me think of something. If retailers mobile technology to every associate one would think that would create new operational challenges. How should a retailer react to those challenges and try and manage expectations and four prepare themselves for success? Philippe Dauphin (12:07): So is this really a crucial point? And let me take some example, Many retailers who have already have something like 30 to 40,000 mobile devices in their stores and their plan to increase this number the next two years, maybe two, three years to 250 or 300,000. So think about this one would retailer for instance, consider to manage a huge inventory of 300,000 products without managing the inventory. The answer is no. So it should be the same here. If you go to this magnitude of handheld devices, the cube is not the rotation of the inventory in this context, but it's more to manage the availability of the devices and the right sizing. Because if you don't manage them, you need to purchase maybe more to make sure that these devices are available for the staff. So it's a key challenge. So where about some solutions, one of them, which is what we call the manage mobility platform to manage the outer life that second, but this is crucial. So the question is not to go on, to go or not go with Mobility. The question is how you grow. Jerry Langfitt (13:25): Yeah. You really need to support it. I think you had said a great point that you really need to focus on the consumer journey and not focus on the technology, how best to serve the consumer, but with that comes infrastructure ramifications. So you really need to make sure you're ready to support it because the worst thing you can provide is a poor journey for a staff or a poor journey for the consumer. That's a great place to close. Thanks, Mark. And Philippe really appreciate you sharing your insights and thoughts on how critical mobile strategies benefit retailers and consumers. And thanks to you. Our listeners for tuning into this episode of commerce. COMMERCE NOW. You'll find the link in our show notes. Thank you for listening.  

Retail Mobile Technology: The Great Untapped Opportunity

Retailers Need Modular and Flexible Self-Service Options

The API Evolution

Modernize Your C-Store Retail Network

Summary: In this special episode, COMMERCE NOW teams up with Kiosk Marketplace to discuss Self-Service Kiosks and how they are quickly becoming ubiquitous with museums and airports using them for years and McDonald’s successful push in the QSRs industry. Now add the convergence of consumer preference for self-service, COVID related avoidance of human to human interaction and retailers automating tasks to free staff for more involved duties and you have self-service kiosks truly hitting its stride.  Related Content:  Video: QSR drives Seamless Checkout  QSR Infographic K-TWO Kiosk: Offer Customers a Transformed In-Store Experience Related Links: LinkedIn Profiles- Carl Von Sydow Elliot Maras  DieboldNixdorf.com KioskMarketplace.com Transcription: Elliot Maras:                       00:16                     Welcome to Kiosks and the Self-Service Consumer Journey. I'm Elliot Maras, the editor of Kiosk Marketplace. Joining me today is Carl von Sydow, director of Self-Service for the Americas at Diebold Nixdorf. Self-Service Kiosks are quickly becoming ubiquitous while museums and airports have been using them for several years. In the last two years, McDonald's has made a big splash with kiosks in the QSR industry. Many other restaurants and retailers have since come on board. When you add the convergence of consumer preference for self-service, COVID related avoidance of human to human interaction and retailers automating tasks to free staff for more involved duties, self-service kiosks are truly hitting their stride. Retailers from a wide variety of industries are looking harder at self-service. Dave & Buster's for example, is using kiosks to power up playing cards and food ordering. IKEA uses kiosks in their bistros for food ordering and grocery retailers.                                                                                 The always open proverbial essential retailers are expanding food courts and leveraging kiosks in their food journeys. 2020 was a challenging year for everyone, but the kiosks have played a big role in meeting the need for safety. COVID-19 has heightened demand for self-service as a way to improve customer safety. While much of the technology that went into action had already been developed prior to COVID-19, the technology found new use as customers scrambled to improve their safety. The pace of kiosk introductions has never been faster than it is today, with no end in sight. All indications point to self-service kiosks playing a bigger role than ever going forward. Carl, why did we see an increase in kiosk journeys over the past year? Carl von Sydow:                02:08                     Hi, Elliot. Nice to meet you and a very good introduction to the topic. You covered a lot of good areas there. And some of them you mentioned already is the answer to that question. We have had kiosks all over the place for quite a lot of years in airports and museums as we said, but what I feel right now is that the concept of a kiosk is merging with the traditional self-checkout solution that we have seen primarily within grocery retailers. But these two are now merging together, offering new, much more exciting combinations and form factors et cetera for self service. And then we have the drivers, like you mentioned, we have experienced the last 14 months with COVID, which has really pushed self-service to the front of a lot of retailers mind. Elliot Maras:                       03:11                     Tell me why are new retailers in different industries looking more closely at self-service kiosks? Carl von Sydow:                03:18                     Yeah. We have several examples, you mentioned two of them, Dave & Buster's, IKEA, we have several different grocery customers as well. The business model is not only self-checkouts anymore for traditional grocery retailer. They want to add more different customer journeys. It's all about addressing different customer journeys. We use that word quite often in our daily work. Nowadays, it starts with the customer journey and within a customer demography for a typical story, you can have several different subgroups and you need to identify what different subgroups do you have perhaps in your business and try to find the best customer journeys for that little subgroup to make them come to your store or restaurant or whatever it is more often than elsewhere.                                                                                 And the mix between kiosks and self-service and form factors offer this opportunity now in a completely different way than before. You mentioned IKEA. IKEA is adding so many different customer journeys now for self-service with kiosks, not only in the bistro, but elsewhere, there are a lot of exciting projects going on there. Just identify groups of customers and that customer journey and then find the right solution for them and then implement it. So it's somehow... It is driven by customer journey expectations, customer expect higher variety of customer journeys when they go to the store, but also by technology. We have the technology now to offer different customer journeys and form factors. So it's a combination I would say that drives a lot of retailers into this area now. Elliot Maras:                       05:16                     Well, speaking of technology Carl, what new innovations do you see enhancing kiosks? Carl von Sydow:                05:24                     Yeah. That's also very interesting question. A lot of... Since we start with the fact that we are sort of merging kiosks to tradition kiosks with some kind of self-service, self-checkout with perhaps payment, identifying products or ordering products on the screen, we are adding technologies like RFID for fashion retailers or reading different barcode types in a different way than before. Identifying the customer traditionally is done with loyalty cards or programs like that. But now we can also add, with the help of our mobile companies that has pushed face recognition into every man's telephone right now, mobile phones. So adding face recognition as a tool for verifying age, for age restricted item, that is a great enhancing of the kiosk/self-service solution because otherwise, age verification drives staff intervention and take... Increase the time of your customer journey. You want to eliminate all these pain points and if you can find technology that makes that customer journey easier and faster for the customer, it's also a great thing.                                                                                 Another area is for QSR ordering. Imagine that you are a mother and you have three kids and you go to your local or your preferred QSR restaurant. Instead of ordering the same and go through the whole order every time, with the different meals for the kids and all that, with face recognition connected to a loyalty program where we have approved that you can do this, you can have the kiosk identifying you as a customer, "Welcome back. Do you want to use the same order as you did last time?" And then we have the whole order for the family already there and you just press OK. A lot of these things is to make the customer journey faster. A lot of these things are coming strongly now. Elliot Maras:                       07:39                     That's a lot of different technologies, that you're up to speed on. But tell me, what self-service innovations has your company introduced in the last year? Carl von Sydow:                07:51                     Yeah, the pace of development for self-service have raised. I would say the last few years, but even more so the last 24 months, as I said, we have seen this merger between the traditional kiosk to self-service. And just recently, a few weeks ago, we launched our new completely new portfolio of self-service. Which range now from the traditional baskets to bag with grocery self-checkout, with everything that goes with it to a 32-inch kiosk-like-self-service station that you can dress exactly as you want. It could be a self checkout in a grocery store, food ordering kiosk, or you have all these different form factors in the same portfolio, same software platform, everything is run by the same technology. And we are also adding, apart from that modularity and flexibility, we have taken a step away. Traditionally kiosk and in moreso self-checkout have been pretty locked in when it comes to software and solution. You have to buy our software, if you buy our hardware, we have taken a step away from that. So we have a much more open approach now to our customers.                                                                                 We have different software strategies. You can go full on with all our software package or suites, you can go hardware only and you can also go the middle way, where we will offer some of these traditional functions as modules with APIs. So the customer can decide whatever form then they want to use themselves, and then we can help them. They don't need to develop all these self-service specific modules like produce recognition, age verification, security scales, cash management, all these are separate modules that we can offer our customers as a separate software module with APIs. So, that's a big shift from only a few years ago.                                                                                 We are selling self-checkouts in high numbers. We also know about frictionless shopping. Of course, that is a very interesting area. We are monitoring it. We are looking into it, but we don't have anything really in the pipeline right now because it's a little bit too early. As we see it, retailers are asking for a solution that works today... I mean technology is quite expensive to do with frictionless self-service. So just in short, those are some of the innovations that we have just recently launched. And we'll continue to launch new innovations this year. Elliot Maras:                       10:49                     From a short-term perspective what customer verticals do you see expanding the most in self-serving? Carl von Sydow:                10:58                     Our experience over the last six, 12 months, especially here in the U.S., there have been a little bit ahead of us in Europe, but right now we get a lot of interests from fashion retailers that is definitely growing and also convenience stores, C-stores. Again, coming back to the possibility with a little bit different form factors of self-checkouts or cell service stations than before, a traditional basket bags self-checkout doesn't fit in a small C-store environment. But now with kiosks/self-checkout in one, C-stores all of a sudden see this as a great opportunity for them. So we have a lot of C-stores customers looking for self-service in their small stores right now. So that's two very easy identifiable verticals that are looking at self-service much more than only two years ago. Elliot Maras:                       12:04                     Well, tell me, Carl, what are your final thoughts today on the kiosk market? Carl von Sydow:                12:10                     Again, I'm coming back to the customer journey. We try not to just sell technology or to show the customers, "Here, we have the products, which one do you want?" We try to go a little bit deeper and understanding what the customer need. Why do you need? Why do you see this need? What do you want to offer your customers? What customer journeys do you have? And we call all that store advisory service. So we go in and try to help the customer identify exactly what they need, the mix of self-service solutions that would fit their needs the best. And then come to the point here, you have different technology solutions that would fit your customer journey. So by identifying and working with the journeys, you will have a much better implementation of your solutions. And that will grow more and more. It's all about customer journey.                                                                                 It's not so much technology, first it's customer journeys. That is one big thing. And what I also expect to see on the kiosk market is even more alternatives of form factors of kiosks, outdoor kiosks, indoor kiosks and other features that we can add. The alternatives and options are limitless. More or less, the technology goes so fast, but yeah, those are a few things that I would expect to see on the kiosk market the next two years, perhaps? Elliot Maras:                       13:47                     Carl, thank you. Thank you so much for your input. Clearly, this is an exciting time in the kiosk industry. This has been Kiosks and The Self-Service Consumer Journey. Thank you all for joining us.  

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