Walmart Inc.'s history of putting customers first still drives the retailer as it adapts to doing business in the digital age, Chief Customer Officer Janey Whiteside said at an investor conference Tuesday.
Walmart's beginnings and founder Sam Walton's story were "about the ultimate in customer centricity," Whiteside said. Whether customers shop in stores, online, by voice or by text, she said, "there's still only one customer."
"The more we can treat you as one customer, the more that we can connect all the aspects about you and make sure you're having an interconnected experience, the better we can serve that customer," she said. She described the retailer's role as anticipating customer needs and reducing friction in the shopping experience.
Whiteside took the job as Walmart's first chief customer officer Aug. 1 after spending most of her career at American Express. While well-known companies such as Oracle, The Coca-Cola Co. and MetLife employ chief customer officers, the role is relatively rare in retail. J.C. Penney employs a chief customer officer, and Kohl's chief executive Michelle Gass started there as the company's first chief customer officer in 2013.
Whiteside said that before she accepted the post, she did a lot of reflection and had many discussions with Walmart executives about the new role and what it would mean.
"At heart," she said, "it's about how do we create the right series of customer experiences for the Walmart customer."
In Walmart's early days, she said, that meant taking the right assortment of products to America's rural communities at great prices. And though much has changed in retail since then, the emphasis on customer needs has not, she said.
"When you think about what it takes to compete in this highly transparent, rapidly evolving digital age and how we do that in an omnichannel way, making sure that we have the customer at the start of the journey is increasingly important," she said.
Whiteside used as an example shoppers' complaints about feeling overwhelmed in Walmart's supercenters and not being able to find the items they wanted. "That's why we introduced technology like store maps" that appear in Walmart's app, she said.
Today's busy shoppers also are looking for convenience, she said, which is why Walmart has pushed so aggressively to provide options such as grocery pickup and home delivery of online grocery orders. The retailer is also looking at new services such as in-home delivery and even at automatic replenishment of products via notice from electronic devices within the home.
Walmart hopes many of these innovations will help engage younger, digitally inclined shoppers.
"We've got a whole new generation that's experiencing Walmart in a new way," Whiteside said. That means having the right assortment of items in grocery and general merchandise as well as the right mix of brands, both online and in stores, "all underpinned with an absolutely frictionless, seamless customer experience that allows people to interact whenever and wherever they want with us."
Whiteside acknowledged that younger consumers are concerned about values and want to do business with companies that balance humanity with profits and stakeholders. As Walmart is the world's largest employer, she said, it's important that the company treat its workers well. And a happy employee is going to give customers a better shopping experience, she added.
"Our notion of being a human-led, tech-enabled business I think sets us apart," Whiteside said.
Walmart's brick-and-mortar footprint is also a "unique differentiator," she said. The company says 90 percent of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of one of its nearly 5,000 stores. That presence allows the retailer to get inventory from the store to the customer quickly, "and at the everyday low price that you expect from Walmart," Whiteside said.
Business on 04/03/2019