Dive Brief:
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Lowe’s attributes a year-over-year customer satisfaction boost to a slew of ongoing shopping experience upgrades, executives said on a Q1 2024 earnings call Tuesday.
- The home improvement retailer is in the middle of a store revamp that includes improved buy online, pickup in-store options as well as proprietary self-checkout lanes that prompt shoppers to scan items they missed, according to Joe McFarland, EVP of stores.
- The retailer also plans to use its MyLowe’s Rewards loyalty program, which it rolled out in January, to gather customer data that will fuel better personalization, according to President and CEO Marvin Ellison.
Dive Insight:
As the retailer updates its store experience, it’s leaning on new technology and associates to drive customer satisfaction.
Lowe’s is only one-third of the way through its overall store transformation strategy, but the company is already benefiting from improved sales and customer satisfaction performance indicators, according to Brandon Sink, EVP and CFO.
The retailer’s roadmap to improve its in-store experience includes a variety of tech-powered updates. Lowe’s launched a pilot program that addresses the friction of locked-up products. Rather than wait for an associate to unlock products in security cases, customers can do so via their phones, McFarland said.
Lowe’s is also aiming to improve worker productivity to assist customers. One new tool lets associates search Lowe’s digital assortment to find out-of-stock items and combine those products with the rest of a customer’s in-store purchases to form a single transaction, McFarland said.
Frontline workers have also been onboarding customers onto the new loyalty program by educating them about its benefits to encourage signups, according to Ellison.
MyLowes will enhance the customer journey as it matures, according to Ellison. The retailer says it will use its newfound knowledge of DIY shoppers’ habits to create personalized offers and encourage repeat trips.
"Our objective is to simply take the data to serve our customers more effectively,” Ellison said during the call. “Data is the new currency, but it's only beneficial if you use it to benefit the customer experience.”
