[Transcript]
Mark Johnson (00:00):
Good afternoon. Good morning. It's Mark Johnson. Hopefully everyone's doing well today. Wanted to welcome you to today's webinar entitled How Frontline Employees Impact Customer Loyalty and Strengthening the Loyalty Loop. That's going to be a very interesting discussion. We have Max Kenkel, he's a senior manager of customer loyalty, and Tanya Fish. She's the Senior Manager of Employee Experience from the ITA Group. They're one of the preeminent and premier customer loyalty and employee engagement agencies in the country. And they're going to talk to us about some things they see and the convergence between the two of them. So Max and Tanya, how are you today?
Max Kenkel (00:36):
We're doing great. How are you?
Tanya Fish (00:37):
Doing great, Mark. Thanks.
Mark Johnson (00:39):
Perfect. Yeah, looking forward to discussion for sure because it's a very relevant and timely topic. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to you guys and we'd love to have questions. If you have questions, please drop them in the chat and we'll get to them at the end of the discussion. And with that, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Max and Tanya. Thank you.
Max Kenkel (00:59):
All right, great. Thanks. Hi everybody. My name's Max. I work at ITA Group. A little bit about ITA Group, if you're new to us. We're a end-to-end B2B and B2C loyalty and engagement company. We do programs with customer loyalty, employee engagement, sales and service incentives, and then a whole half of our business is corporate events of all kind. And you can learn more at our website, itagroup.com. But today we're going to talk about how important the frontline is to the success of your loyalty program. So we'll get right into it. So we've done two waves of self-funded research the last couple years because we really wanted to hear directly from customers about what they like about loyalty programs, what they dislike, what's working, and we felt like getting that good customer perspective was really important. And so we ran our survey and we were able to come up with actually a formula for brands with their loyalty program.
(01:58):
So if brands want more visits, more spend and more share, they need to work to develop advocates of their loyalty program. We found that advocacy leads to those three outcomes and the way that they can build advocacy is by having a program that has high perceived benefits. So basically, is this loyalty program worth my time to participate? And the way that you can drive that high perceived benefit is by focusing on delivering high value, which is what do I get out of it? And delivering an easy to participate in program, which is how hard do I have to work to get anything out of it? And so really whether or not you're an NPS shop or not, developing the advocacy for the loyalty program is really important. And what we found, we looked across drivers of all demographics, even CSAT scores and everything through our survey.
(02:51):
And the only thing that popped was whether or not I would recommend this loyalty program when we were trying to slice it and figure out exactly what the story is from the customer perspective. And it's a big difference because the customers who feel benefited in a program are three times more likely to visit, spend, and give share than those who feel burdened by a program.
(03:13):
And so we were able to create our little formula. And then when we did our second wave, we were able to add to that formula because we focused in wave two on emotional connection. So wave one was functional, wave two, emotional. And we uncovered that feeling motivated by the program and feeling appreciated by the brand were the two main components of emotional connection. And that also drove big outcomes for advocacy and visit, spend, and share. And customers who are emotionally connected are four times more likely to visit, spend, and give wallet share. So emotional connection, huge. And if you can somehow crack the code as a brand and get both benefited and connected, those customers are eight times more likely to visit, spend, and give wallet share. Eight times more likely just by getting those two pieces of the equation correct. And so you're probably asking a little bit like, what does this have to do with my frontline?
(04:08):
Well, one of the questions that we asked was meant to identify the biggest drivers of emotional connection for the customer and they're largely people-centric and facilitated by frontline employees. And so you can see of all the brand level attributes that drive emotional connection, the ones with the gold stars on them are ones that are directly or can be directly facilitated by a frontline employee, but there's always a catch. And it turns out that the five most important brand level attributes that drive emotional connection are also the five that are the most neglected by a large sample of the brands. And so there's a huge opportunity to focus more on personalized customer service, going above and beyond to make them feel valued. The company aligns with my values, puts the needs of the customer over profit and feel emotionally attached to the company. Those five matter the most to customers.
(05:03):
Five of those can be delivered to varying degrees through a loyalty program and four of them can be directly tied into the frontline experience and how the frontline orchestrates their piece of the puzzle when they're dealing with customers at the point of sale or wherever they're making a transaction or dealing with customer service. And so the news isn't all bad though. There's a lot of things that brands can do to influence this. And so I'm going to turn it over to my counterpart Tanya here, and she's going to walk you through specifically what you can start to do even this week to help that frontline solution deliver what you need it to do for your loyalty program.
Tanya Fish (05:46):
Thanks Max. Hello everyone. I'm Tanya Fish. And as Max has shared in our research has definitely solidified the question no longer is whether employees influence loyalty, but rather it's how organizations enable them to do it. A brand promise isn't always delivered by a program. Actually, it's mostly delivered by people. Every customer interaction is a moment where employees can either reinforce or weaken your brand promise. The companies that we've been watching outperforming their peers, they understand this and they're intentionally empowering their employees to create exceptional experiences. You're seeing on screen some examples. I'm not going to hit on all of them, but I'm going to hit on some to share the story that is coming to life. Home Depot is the first, and I mean we can all think about this. The moment you go into Home Depot, you're going for a reason. You're working on a project and you walk into an aisle and if you're like me, you kind of scan, maybe spin a few times in a circle and shoot, you might not have found what you're looking for, but you might find a person in an orange apron and that's very intentional.
(06:58):
They are placing their people in the aisles and the people in the aisles are people who have done the projects that you might be doing if you are in that particular aisle. Their model is an inverted pyramid where associates and customers are at the top of the pyramid. In the middle is leadership, which exists to support the people and the customers. And this is at the bottom, it's the executives. And this model is championed all the way up to their CEO. The mindset of the leadership at Home Depot is if we invest in our people, we'll build the expertise and confidence through them to enable good judgment on the job in the aisle with the customer and deliver actual human problem solving to earn repeat customer business. So the big theme for Home Depot is culture is a business strategy and their CEO is even known to say we drive our core and culture to deliver a frictionless, interconnected experience and win the customers and pros.
(08:05):
So it's a really remarkable statement because culture, it's not listed as an HR initiative. It's listed as part of the customer experience, as part of the innovation the company is doing and as part of their market share growth strategy. The outcome is quite amazing. In August of 2026, so just last month, they showed in their investment research and in their 10Ks that they were seeing greater associate engagement, improved customer satisfaction, and stronger sales performance. In fact, same store sales rose 1.7% year over year in the second quarter of 2026. So that's just one story. There are multiple. Another quick hit story that you might have seen in the media recently is Target. Target was hearing from their customers that the aisles were messy, their shelves were empty, and they couldn't find people to help them. So the CEO at Target diagnosed this as a frontline capacity problem and took immediate action in reorganizing the organization and literally shutting down the stores to train employees again with the focus on clear expectations, knowing their guest experience standards specifically, on training and communication to all 300,000 associates being trained and putting the right support and resources in place, which equated to them to more labor hours for the frontline to make this possible.
(09:41):
So at the end of the day, the loyalty loop for Target was bringing back the clarity and the capacity to make good service possible. Starbucks had another situation, it was similar to this, but they literally stopped business as well, took time with their employees to train them to take the focus away from technology, yes, away from the technology and the AI driving and put it back in the hands of the employees to create a customer experience like we know Starbucks to have. So the story here is great service experiences, they're not engineered. They're earned by people who are ready, who are respected and who are trusted by their organizations and then put in the front line to interact with customers. So I think the big question is where's your organization in this mix? Are your people ready with clear expectations? Are they ready with time to focus on the customer?
(10:43):
And do they know and are they informed enough about things like your loyalty program and new products to deliver a good experience on the frontline every day?
(10:54):
So why is this happening? How do we drive employees? What's the key in the research? At ITA Group, we study behavior change the same way we study loyalty. We think about it as a habit loop where you're really creating the right cues to drive behavior and to create repeat behavior to engage people. It's a behavioral system. Any behavior you want to reinforce, you can do this with. So what we're really after here when we look at box one on the left is that employee engagement through the research we've done is driven through psychological benefits. In fact, 70% of engagement is driven through psychological benefits. And that may not mean much to you, but ultimately psychological benefits is about the way we're wired as people. The second box in the middle identifies within those psychological benefits what really drives people and especially employees to engage. And what we found is it's personal identity.
(11:58):
It's the who am I and what am I about? And do my values attach and are they similar to what my organization has for values? It's the feeling that what you do truly matters and that you matter at your organization. It's not abstract, it's pretty direct. And when we do those things right, we can create engaged employees that deliver the experience that you just saw in the research Max talked about, who create emotional connections with your customers and deliver at the end of the day, business success and results.
(12:37):
So I'm sure you're sitting there saying, "Sounds great Max and Tanya, but what do I do about this? Where do I start?" So we're going to give you some tactical things that you can take back to your organization today and maybe make some easy quick changes. What I would challenge you to do first is think about a customer experience that is memorable to you. What is it about that that stuck out? Was it the knowledge of the human you interacted with? Was it their personality? Was it their competence? Was it that they could direct you to find things you needed or to answer questions you had? Ultimately, this story begins with getting employees ready, and that starts with communication. Communication gives employees the knowledge to speak with authority.
(13:33):
And then if we have leaders who are in place and working hand in hand with your employees, they're going to make a consistent experience throughout every location that you have to offer. The third element here is appreciation. Appreciation earns the belief, the belief in your employees and what they are to deliver and the belief in your customers, in your employees. And recognition is about reinforcing the behaviors that are worth repeating and really creating focus on what delivers the most impact and the most outcomes for your organization. If you really think about it, retailers today are paying outside creators for this aura, this connection with the customer, but you have your people inside your organization and they can become your influencers. We just need to equip them with communication for clarity and confidence, leadership development, so this happens at scale across your organization, and then to have the appreciation for that psychological safety to do what's right in the moment and the recognition to behaviorally reinforce what's most important.
(14:47):
So let's dig in a little bit more. Communication sounds really simple.
(14:53):
I can say so many examples recently where I'm like, I've told someone about this product, this release, but it didn't stick. Communication needs to happen multiple times. You've all heard the fact you have to say it seven times for it to stick with someone, right? Communication is what gives people command of a story. What's happening? Why does this matter? And in the case of the customer experience, what's in it for the customer so they can retell that story to the customer? An employee who can't answer that doesn't just lose a sale, they lose credibility and credibility is the whole currency of influence in front of your customers. In this engagement loop or loyalty loop that we're talking about, communication connects expectations to behaviors. When communication is strong, people don't fill gaps with fear or assumptions. Expectations stay aligned as conditions of change and employees can act decisively instead of waiting for permission.
(15:58):
A good example here is going back to that example with Target. They stopped operations and trained 300,000 associates on guest experience standards. It's not a slogan, it's actually showing what good looks like in the aisle. So employees' confidence rises, customer satisfaction goes up, and as Target will prove and has proven, NPS hits a three-year high in their case. Without communication, people stall. They hesitate, they misfire, and I am here to tell you your customer will feel that.
(16:39):
Let's talk a little bit about leadership development. A brand cannot buy its way out of an inconsistent frontline. One associate who's clear and confident is a great moment for your customer. 200 of them creates a channel of great experiences. Leadership development is what turns individual credibility at scale across your organizations. Managers are where culture becomes that daily experience. The development equips them to appreciate authenticity in the workplace and to show their authentic self in the workplace. Recognition can be delivered to reinforce the right behaviors that they're seeing from their frontline and communication with clarity from leaders to team members in frontline is key, as is coaching in the moment instead of just managing to the tasks of every day. Strong leaders turn systems into experiences.
(17:44):
In the loyalty loop, leadership development protects against one of the most common failure points, the manager layer. If you skip this or if it gets fragile, your experiences are going to be uneven across your organization. This is how you scale loyalty. All right. Our third piece, appreciation. Sounds simple, but we as humans need to know that we are seen. This is a starting condition for engagement. It's what it makes people feel safe to show up as themselves instead of hiding behind a script. It's that identity benefit that our research named as the number one driver of engagement. Ultimately, appreciation does four things. It builds emotional commitment to the organization, it validates belonging and self-worth at your organization, and it shifts teams from task orientation to mutual respect, telling them that what they give back to your organization and what they give to your customers is worth it and valued.
(18:54):
A real example here, if we think about the videos we've seen about Southwest flight attendants, we've all seen them. They've gone viral, but they've gone viral because of the greetings when you are on a Southwest flight and the greetings aren't a marketing campaign from Southwest. These are people who felt trusted to be a human on the job to authentically have a customer experience that they delivered. In the loyalty loop, appreciation fuels the willingness to engage at all, and without it, everything feels kind of transactional. People will quietly withdraw if they don't feel appreciated.
(19:39):
And if appreciation is about who people are, recognition is about what they do, what they deliver at work every day. It creates directional clarity and it answers when is the work I'm delivering making a real difference and what does success actually look like here? This can be validated from leaders. It can also be validated from customers. When recognition is timely and specific, desired behaviors are proven to be repeated. Expectations are becoming tangible instead of theoretical, and values are moving from wall art to lived experiences in your aisles on your front line. In the loyalty loop, recognition is reinforcing behavior. It's creating impact repeatably, and without it, effort becomes guesswork. We've all been in the place where we think we're doing the right thing, but we're not quite sure. Guesswork erodes motivation. We want people to know when they're doing the right thing so they repeat it.
(20:47):
So here's the most practical lever you have. Make the customer visible to your employees, not just through face-to-face interaction, but through your voice of customer data. Your voice of customer data is a content strategy that you can point back inward. It works when it's specific, when it's human, and when it's timely. Saying great job actually in the moment is okay, but imagine if you said great job, exactly what that person did when they did it and the impact it created and how that mattered to a customer, to another peer or to business outcomes. That gives you a lot more feels and that sticks. That's something that's going to be repeated. Every customer story that you can circulate internally is training your employees, your associates in what a good story, a good experience looks like and exactly what you want them to do each and every day on the job.
(21:50):
A simple rhythm for you to try. Weekly, share one customer story plus one behavioral spotlight. Monthly, show promises kept based on your core values and how your employees are keeping them with customers. And quarterly, deliver recognition tied to customer outcomes, which employees have delivered the most meaningful and impactful customer outcomes based on your NPS. That's how employee visibility becomes customer loyalty, and then share the impact of these stories. Every time you're sharing a story, make sure that there's a rhythm to it. Humanize your data, share real experiences, real words from people, and then continue this to sustain it. Culture is a continual focus, a focus on employees, on behaviors, and on stories that touch your customers each and every day.
(22:52):
So somewhere in your organization right now, there is a part-time employee who runs a 40,000 follower account on the side. There's someone in the warehouse who's fluent in a second language that half your customers speak, and I bet there's someone in a call center who taught themselves to build some tracker that their team depends on, but nobody knows it. This isn't because people are hiding it, it's because we don't always ask and there might not be a system to surface it. This is the real cost of not listening at scale. AI is a buzzword, but there is a lot of benefit to using AI in your loyalty loop process or cycle to detect patterns. You can detect patterns through the recognition if you have recognition within a system. You can detect patterns in your employee feedback or your customer feedback or through any surveys you're doing across the organization.
(23:54):
When you use AI to read it, you can quickly surface those themes and identify hotspots, strengths, and opportunities to focus on.
(24:05):
Enhancing your leadership insights with this data is the next opportunity to use AI to really figure out how can we take those situations that happened once that delivered big impact and at scale get them out in the hands of your leaders. If the right person has this information and is socializing it in startup meetings, shift meetings, you're going to get to all of your people and this will be repeated behavior. And finally, use AI to assist but not replace your customer experiences. AI can tell you where the opportunities are, it can tell you who to ask perhaps in the experience that you're delivering, but it cannot help somebody feel like they matter. It cannot give that emotional connection that Max referenced as being so important in your customer experience. The human response is still routine and the pride that will come from this is unmatched.
(25:06):
So let me leave you with this. Every one of the companies we've talked about today arrived at the same place from a different direction. None of them found a shortcut because there really isn't one. Your customers don't experience your brand or loyalty program completely without a person. There's usually one person, usually on an ordinary day, usually in about 90 seconds, but that person is going to give your customer exactly what your organization wants them to have. They're going to feel seen. They're going to feel connected. They're going to feel like they are worth it and that they got what they needed when they came to visit you. The question isn't, do you have an engagement loop? It's really, is there anyone intentionally attending to it? Great customer experiences are not engineered, they're earned, and they're earned by people who are ready, respected, and trusted to do the right thing for your organization.
(26:04):
Take care of the people who take care of your customers and everything else is downstream. Thank you. Over to you, Mark.
Mark Johnson (26:13):
Thank you. Thanks for the perspective. I think it's very important obviously from the customer loyalty side and the employee engagement side. When you look at these type of efforts, how does a brand go about starting one of these initiatives? And a follow-up to that, who should be the advocate for such an effort within the organization?
Tanya Fish (26:35):
Yeah, that's a great question, Mark. I think the key here is connecting your customer loyalty team to those who lead your employees every day. So that may be sales managers, operations leaders, but it's really about connecting internally to make sure that the right behaviors with employees that drive the customer experience are identified, clearly communicated, and being reinforced each and every day. Max, what would you add?
Max Kenkel (27:06):
Yeah, I think big initiatives always benefit from a C-suite buy-in, but you have to work your way towards that, I feel like, at a lot of organizations. So I do think a lot of what you talked about today, Tanya, can just be implemented at a local level, but I think if you were trying to build enterprise advocacy for an initiative like this, working with the C-suite, but coming up with a good test and learn plan, you don't have to roll this out everywhere on the first day. This can be stuff that you work towards in either specific stores that are already high performing to amplify it and work out the kinks or low performing where you just need to get a little bit of a shift moving in the right direction. But I think the worst thing is just doing nothing in a situation like this.
(27:53):
And so just getting started is the key and you'll build momentum.
Mark Johnson (27:59):
One of the things that we see, we actually have a new customer loyalty commitment index we're rolling out, follow up with the capabilities index for brands, but having a seat at the table is very important for customer loyalty because oftentimes employee engagement, they may not have a seat at that table. If they're looking at acquisition, they may not have a table. So how many seats does customer loyalty have a seat at the table have influence being able to impact? And what happens if the customer loyalty team doesn't have a seat at the employee engagement table, which probably is rare, but how do you go about, again, driving that initial advocacy because more brands are spending more time advocating for their customer loyalty program within the organizations now than ever before. So does this become something else they have to advocate for or it's such an important function of customer loyalty, it seems like it should be tantamount to all efforts, but how do they at least get that initial kickoff or buy-in if they don't have that?
(29:00):
You talked about it a little bit, Tanya.
Tanya Fish (29:02):
Yeah, I would say it starts in the data, honestly. Most organizations have a wealth of data, but they might not be connecting the dots through different sources of data. So for example, I talked a little bit about making sure that you use your customer satisfaction data, your NPS data to identify who are the employees delivering those experiences and connecting the dots to recognize those employees and/or to auto recognize in a recognition system, even those employees who are being called out in those NPS surveys. So it's that integration and then the following of the data to make the case. I think what we often see is that organizations work in silos and two owners of two very valuable sets of data are not talking, and if they did and even integrated then, they would have a really, really powerful powerful business case. And Home Depot is a good example here.
(30:05):
The stores and regions where recognition is highest in team members have higher sales. When you have connected data, you have a real strong business case for why you need to focus on your employees, appreciate, recognize, and train them, and what it does for your customers and your business.
Max Kenkel (30:26):
Yeah. I think if you're tracking voice of customer, that kind of stuff, but not acting on a lot of that data, then that's just a vanity metric that you're tracking. The action is where the action happens. And if you're having a hard time figuring out how to take action on some of that data, give me a call. I love talking about it. But I think that to me is the first step. Find where and use Tanya's idea. Run some of that data through AI and just see what the themes are and then find. You don't have to always start with the biggest, most difficult aspect of it. Start actually with the easiest aspect that you can get started with and your own data should be able to point you to where that is.
Mark Johnson (31:07):
What about organizations that have high turnover, QSR, restaurant, potentially retail, where people may be there for short periods of time, high turnover. And oftentimes we hear that the brands or members of 360, they do an initial training about the customer loyalty program, but the brands who do customer loyalty well have continual training. But if you have turnover consistently, how does this work? Does it still work?
Tanya Fish (31:31):
Yeah, I would say having a clear employer brand message and employee value prop that's being shared during onboarding is mission critical, followed by early recognition for those new employees so that you're quickly reinforcing where you're seeing good behaviors so they become habits as fast as possible. We even see when new employees are recognized early in their tenure, they're more likely to stay. So there's double benefit there for the situation you're talking about, Mark. Maybe you'll keep those folks a few months longer and they'll deliver a better brand experience for customers at the same time. Okay.
Max Kenkel (32:13):
I think the only thing I would add to that, Tanya, because you do have that stat from a program we operate today where if they get a recognition within what, the first 30 days, they're 60% more likely to be there in nine months. So I mean, it does cut the turnover piece, but even just think about the interactions. If you've interacted with a frontline employee at a store or you have been a frontline employee at a store, isn't it just more meaningful to go to work when you feel like you can help the customer or you feel like you're going to get help from an employee? I think there's a little bit of softer metrics there too that really do matter that will help lead to longer tenure of your employee and increase the likelihood that customers will come back because they get the experience that they want when they go to the store.
Mark Johnson (33:03):
What about organizations that have a limited budget? We're all familiar with the K-shaped recovery right now. Some brands have some discretionary income to put against this or resource allocation. Some may be stretched thin. Where should a company that may be stretched thin right now, where do they start and how do they get going easily on a try it and then see the return and then expand?
Tanya Fish (33:32):
Max, you want to start this one?
Max Kenkel (33:34):
Yeah, sure. I mean, at a minimum, kindness costs nothing. And so just helping to get the employees to orchestrate a more engaging experience when people are going through the checkout, when people. Are you asking, are you using your loyalty program today at the register? I mean, I know some of those questions can feel just like a dictation from the brand. Make sure you're asking about this, pitch the financing or the credit card, make sure you ask them if they found everything. But then what happens right after that? How can you turn that into more of a human moment? And even if you start that in a few stores, you can scale that and that shouldn't cost too much to just rethink, reimagine what those experiences at the point of sale could look like in reinforcement of the loyalty program. And just making sure that if you do have frontline employees asking questions like, "Would you like to sign up for our credit card?
(34:32):
Did you find everything?" Whatever, whatever, what happens if there's a negative? Because I've been in several situations at the grocery store where they say, "Did you find everything?" And I say, "No, I couldn't find this one thing." And then they're just like, "That's a bummer. Okay, what are we doing here guys? Come on, we can be better." And so I think starting there, if you're strapped for cash, that should still. The biggest thing if you're doing that is just make sure you track the outcomes. And if you start to see at those places better outcomes, that should also be leading to more sales and better frequency, return visit, that type of stuff. And so you should be able to help build a case for this initiative quicker than you might even imagine.
Mark Johnson (35:17):
You mentioned the five areas that are very important to customers but neglected by brands. A couple of them, I feel emotionally connected to a brand that can be a little challenging depending on how emotional loyalty is defined, many different approaches to that. Value's the same thing. The other ones, personalized customer service goes above and beyond to make me feel valued and puts the needs of the customers above and before profits. I mean, that can be a little challenge too, but why don't brands do these? Because three of them are pretty simple to do. What is it, operationalizing the customer loyalty program or why are these the most difficult to put forth?
Max Kenkel (35:59):
If you go brand to brand, it's probably a little bit subjective and a little different by each brand. I think some of them are probably. I bet a large percentage of it is just you're standing at the register for hours at a time running customers through and it just becomes habit. And if you're not empowered to try to turn those moments into more human moments, it just becomes very transactional. And so I think that might be one thing. We are about to kick off a third wave of research here, and one of the things we're going to dive deeper into is that connection between the frontline and the customer. So hopefully coming out of that, we'll have some empirical evidence for you that we can give, but I think it's just we're all busy, we're all doing the best thing we can, and we're all running from one thing to the next, and sometimes those things slip in priority.
(36:57):
I think that those five that are important are pretty easy ones to just be like, "Ah, they're going to handle it downstream. It's somebody else's problem." So I think it's not even necessarily changing how they actually execute each of those things. It's more just re-engaging with focus on those to turn them from an afterthought into a little bit more of a focused interaction. And I think that's why I'm so excited about this, stuff that people can do tomorrow without even having budget or even approval. You can just have more human moments and it should pay off for you in short order.
Tanya Fish (37:35):
Yeah, I would just add on -
Max Kenkel (37:37):
Go
Tanya Fish (37:37):
Ahead. Oh, sorry, Mark. I would just add on top of that. I think clarity of expectations is really key in that. So what am I supported in doing authentically at work? Am I only supposed to talk to customers about the facts and stats about the loyalty program? If that is the corporate standard, people, if they know to do that, will do it well. But if they can do that authentically, if in their own words with their own personality attached to it, I talked about Southwest Airlines flight attendants, that delivers a different connection emotionally with other people, but not all of us feel like it's safe to do that at work. So making expectations clear and setting clear boundaries of what you can do within that customer experience is really important, I think. And that doesn't cost a lot, that's communication.
Mark Johnson (38:32):
No, you're absolutely right. We had one other question too. It's around clienteling. So in-store, do you give the store associates access to my data? I like Jason Aldean, I like the Colorado Avalanche, whatever, if I'm at Dick's. How much of that data can you expect or should you give them the data or is there more to training around the effective use of that data to make it more personalized and not being creepy? Because at the end of the day, if someone comes up and says, "Oh, I know you like the Cincinnati Reds, we have this great stuff like, well, how do you know that?" So there's that fine line of when you get into clienteling of having the data, access to data, how that employee puts it forward and the comfort and familiarity challenge as well. Is that something you see as something of interest, concern the brand should be doing?
Max Kenkel (39:24):
I think it is. I think you answered your own question a little bit, and it's around the idea of how are you empowering them to use that information and developing a level of comfort in using it? I think that to me is the key. If the frontline employee is comfortable doing that and has practiced it, then it should feel natural and it should reduce the creepiness factor, to your point, and it should make it feel more natural. But if you just throw people to the wolves with it and hope for the best, I mean, I even think we've got skeletons in our closet here at ITA Group where we roll out training to our employees one time and then just expect them to be experts. You got to reinforce it continually if you want it to be a priority, and you got to give people the at-bats to figure out their own personal talk track and how they can bring it to life themselves, because that's the thing that I think a lot of people maybe just, they realize it, but I don't know if they think about it in terms of how it impacts their brand.
(40:24):
But oftentimes, if you're selling through even your own stores, especially if you're selling through two-step distribution, that person at the register is the face of the brand, whether you like it or not. And so anything you do to empower them is only going to benefit the brand, and everything you leave to chance is just a risk that you're incurring because you have not taken it all the way to right with that person. So I think comfort's huge from that standpoint and just having the at bats to feel comfortable.
Mark Johnson (40:54):
You mentioned a number of things that brands can do. Last question we have here with regard to getting this started. Is there one mistake that brands may be doing, overlooking? Is it the training? Is it the true understanding of the impact? Is there one thing that brands could do that they could change from an organizational perspective that would help them get this rolling in a manner that's measurable, impactful, and important?
Max Kenkel (41:22):
I would just say very simply start small and with focus. I think attacking this with too broad of a lens and I guess a third thing would be consistent. It'd be better to start very small with a focus thing and be consistent with it than it would to roll out a bunch of initiatives that people have to try to keep track of, and then you never mention it again to them. That kind of stuff dies on the vine, but easy deployable chunks that are consistently reinforced, that's the way to win.
Mark Johnson (41:56):
Perfect. Well, Max, Tanya, thank you very much for taking the time to share with the audience the research. I think it's very impactful to have both the employee side and the customer loyalty side and the interaction and impact between both. So it was definitely very interesting. I took copious notes, which is good. I don't always do that, so that's a good thing. And thank you very much for taking the time to share.
Max Kenkel (42:17):
Yeah, thanks for having us. This was great.
Tanya Fish (42:19):
Thank you, Mark.
Mark Johnson (42:21):
As a reminder, for everyone who did register for today's event, you'll be getting a copy of the webinar. If you have any questions, let us know. We'll get you in touch with Max and Tanya for a follow-up. Until then, have a wonderful day and look forward to seeing you on another Loyalty 360 webinar in the next couple of weeks. Have a great day. Thanks everyone.
Tanya Fish (42:38):
Take care.