Whether they're rushing in to buy the long-awaited Verizon iPhone or just stopping by to check out new accessories for their old phones, shoppers at Verizon Wireless stores can expect fast and relatively straightforward transactions, thanks largely to Craig Young and team, who spent most of 2010 working on projects designed to simplify and improve the shopping experience.
"As a company, we are focused on three key IT imperatives: simplifying the customer experience, promoting self-service and reducing costs," says Young, the carrier's CIO for the Northeast area. To meet that goal, Young and his team designed and implemented a new Internet shopping portal and a new self-service feature for retail stores that has the same look as the online shopping portal. These tools help drive shoppers in busy Verizon Wireless retail stores toward the self service-option, he says.
"Three to five years ago, it was a lot like it was at an airline terminal when you were trying to buy a ticket and there was a lot of typing going on and you had no idea what the clerk was doing," he says. "Today, we're very focused on shortening the input cycle, which also makes for a better customer experience."
Each of the store's digital touch points are interconnected, allowing clerks to view customers' shopping behaviors so they can customize product offerings, Young explains.
"For the customer, we are focused on making sure we put the right offer in front of them, calling out targeted actions every time they check in at one of our retail greeter stations," he says. "We have a powerful data warehouse and are constantly doing a lot of modeling" of customers' behaviors and preferences both in stores and online.
To cut costs, Young's team continually looks for ways to simplify sales processes. For example, redesigning the refund/returns process shortened the length of those transactions by nearly three minutes. "I'm very focused from the retail perspective on productivity. So we have the same size retail workforce [as in 2009], but it is 40% more productive," Young says.
"Craig has shown tremendous leadership with his focus on using IT to deliver a great experience for our customers," says Verizon Wireless CIO Ajay Waghray. "He has led his team to find ways to make our online and in-store experiences better every year. Everything he does, he makes sure to look through the eyes of our customers."
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