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Getting Ready for the Holiday Rush-The Role of Customer Experience Transformation

October 31, 2014

It should be no surprise to anyone that the holiday season is fast-approaching, which means “all hands on deck” in the contact centers of retailers.  And, as we move into what can best be characterized as the “Omni-channel Era” when it comes to providing a compelling customer experience, retailers are busy transforming virtually every aspect of how to provide such experiences.


One major U.S. retailer, Kohl’s thanks to help from Oracle, has laid the foundation not just to provide great experiences this shopping season but going forward. 

Becoming customer-centric

At the heart of providing what shoppers expect and require is that department store retailers have visibility into consumer behavior and ensure whether it be online or in-store that sales associates and customer care agents have the right tools to meet or exceed customer expectations. This means understanding the unique attributes; even such things as the region, weather, demographics, and factors such as the popularity of local sports teams. With this in mind, Kohl's is transforming many of its core retail operations to accommodate customer needs. In fact, recently, Kohl's overhauled its core merchandising, inventory, and pricing operations with the launch of a new Oracle Retail Merchandise Operations Management solution. What this enabled the retailer to do is the coordination of records for inventory to better serve customers across channels, and to simplify its business user experience.

While Oracle specific the list below highlights how transforming the customer experience involves a strategic approach since all aspects of delivery a customer experience. This includes giving contact center agents the capabilities they need to be able to response effectively to customer inquiries regardless of channel. As the list from this case study indicated there are a lot of moving parts to consider, and it can be used as an example of how to be ready when customers are looking for a great experience.

Here are some facts about this transformation.

  • Following its deployment of Oracle Commerce, Kohl's implemented Oracle Retail Merchandising System and Oracle Retail Price Management to streamline and improve the inventory, pricing, and promotions operations that, for 1 million SKUs, determine how well larger categories and individual items perform both online and at each of Kohl's more than 1,100 stores nationwide.
  • The Oracle Retail implementation is part of a larger business transformation designed to support Kohl's ongoing growth and enable marketing and merchandising teams to anticipate customer demand, identify market opportunities, and roll out new products and promotions online and in stores.
  • By managing pricing and promotions from a unified view that delivers accurate, real-time insights from multiple sources, Kohl’s merchants will gain efficiencies with a more agile promotional pricing process.
  • Kohl’s is using Oracle Retail to manage pricing for all items (or SKUs) on a store-by-store basis and for its e-commerce site, to  preserve margins where demand remains high and for clearing and refreshing inventory where needed.
  • For a real-time view of the many variables influencing item and store performance, Kohl's has integrated Oracle Retail Merchandising with multiple existing systems.
  • Leveraging the best practices in the Oracle Retail reference model, a comprehensive collection of processes that guide retail operations, Kohl's avoided customizations, simplified its merchandising overhaul, and allowed for faster upgrades in the future.
  • Kohl's implemented Oracle Exadata Database Machine to optimize performance of its retail operations and ensure that merchants have rapid access to the information they need.
  • Next, Kohl's plans to implement and use the predictive technology embedded in Oracle Retail Merchandise Planning and Optimization to more precisely tailor its selection of items, styles, and sizes to meet customer demand at each store.
  • To provide differentiated customer service, Kohl's deployed Oracle Service Cloud for Web customer service, contact center, and knowledge management. The deployment enables Kohl's to reduce costs while delivering a compelling customer experience through voice, email, chat, and co-browsing capabilities that support millions of Web interactions per month and more than 2,000 contact center agents.

In comments about the transformation, Janet Schalk, executive vice president and chief information officer, Kohl's noted that "Oracle Retail has provided our merchants with more visibility to make informed decisions with better data to optimize performance at the item and store level…Equally important, the Oracle Retail implementation establishes a foundation for future growth and innovation."

Mike Webster, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Retail explained that, "Consumers require access to their favorite brands 24/7 via nearby stores, their desktop, or using a mobile device and Kohl's is moving quickly to deliver that type of personalized and relevant commerce-anywhere experience. By implementing the Oracle Retail family of applications, Kohl's is establishing a foundation to drive ongoing growth."

As can be seen in the two quotes, establishing a foundation for growth is a key focus. Realities are that the Kohl’s implementation provides a nice checklist for other retailers as that think about things to consider in the next few weeks. It is also a kind of call to action as to what should be addressed going forward. After all, we live in a world where brand loyalty can be problematic and where the customer experience is increasingly the true differentiated value. The ability to provide a seamless and compelling online and in-store experience by leveraging technology to make back office operations more efficient and at the same time making customer facing employees more capable of satisfying customer needs regardless of channels used for interaction, is the future of retailing. Those who are moving ahead now are in fact positioning themselves well for future growth. 




Edited by Maurice Nagle



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