Customers now have the ability to shop when, how and where they want and that ability is literally in the palm of their hand. Mobile technology is rapidly changing how we view our world and giving us access to products and prices from around the world. We’ve recognized we need to keep up and understand that customers want to move seamlessly and effortlessly between physical and virtual stores to shop in a way that suits them.

Every Woolworths business is becoming multi-option by using websites, mobile apps, virtual stores and new delivery options to complement our stores.

Woolworths serves around 28 million customers every week. We know they have a lot of choices about where to shop, so we have to work hard to earn their custom and reward their loyalty.

With more than 6 million members, our Everyday Rewards Program is Australia’s most popular retail loyalty scheme. Everyday Rewards gives customers the chance to not only earn Qantas Frequent Flyer points every time they shop with us, but also to have exclusive access to a wide range of extra special offers and promotions. 

 

Listening

We talk to our customers all the time. And we do a lot of research to find out what they think of our stores and to learn more about what we can do differently. More than ever before, we are using this information to make decisions and changes that will improve our customers’ shopping experience.

 

Acting

Customer Talkback is a new initiative where we hold customer focus groups around the country. Customers get the chance to give frank feedback direct to their store team and we get a better understanding of what they like and what we can do better. Often, it’s the small, easy changes that can make the biggest differences to customers and we’re only too happy to make them happen.

A few changes we are already implementing are better bag packing and larger bags at self serve checkouts, more half sized trolleys, an up to date store directory in every aisle and better seasonality information for fresh food.

 

Learning

People often ask us what we do with the information we obtain from our Everyday Rewards Program. We put it to very good use by making our stores and our ranges more relevant for our customers. We now have a much better understanding of how customers actually shop and can use this information to improve what we do, make more space for new products and stock the right range of products in the right stores at the right time. For example, we had always ranged our stationary by brand and quality but data told us that customers actually bought stationary based on colour – by making a simple change to group stationary by color, we vastly improved the layout of this category for customers.