Lowe’s Digital Transformation Streamlines Operations and Bolsters Omnichannel Capabilities
The home improvement retailer collaborated with Zebra to adjust operations to the latest consumer habits and offer a stress-free in-store and online shopping experience.
Zebra Success Story: Lowe's Retail Stores
Overview: Retail Challenge
A patchwork of legacy mobile computing, printing and scanning devices limited Lowe’s associates’ operational efficiency and communications as market disruption created a new imperative for technological optimisation.
Benefits / Outcomes
- Flipped the ratio of time store associates spend with customers versus completing tasks from 40%/60% to 60%/40%
- Enhanced communications and increased visibility to optimise operations
- Streamlined workflows, improved task management and enabled faster responses to inventory questions
- Increased omnichannel capabilities to evolve along with shoppers’ needs
- Improved customer service experience leading to increase in Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Customers
Lowe's
Wilkesboro, North Carolina/USA
Industry
Retail
Solutions
About Lowe's
Lowe’s completes approximately 19 million customer transactions a week from nearly 2,200 stores in North America. The company is a world-class omnichannel retailer with an intense focus on building its operational capabilities to better serve homeowners, renters and professionals in improving their homes and businesses.
Over the last several years, Lowe’s has made strategic investments in merchandising excellence, supply chain transformation, operational efficiency and customer engagement. Thanks to this proactive strategy, it was well prepared to rapidly respond to changing consumer demands brought about by the pandemic. Working with Zebra, the business doubled down on its technology investments in its stores and regional distribution centres (RDCs) to ensure it could meet and exceed heightened consumer expectations. “We’ve seen a steady increase in our net promoter scores, and we believe a big part of that is based on Zebra’s mobile technology,” says Vincent Scalese, Senior Vice President of Store Operations at Lowe’s.
According to Lowe’s leaders, they had a clear choice at the onset of the pandemic. The company could have easily slowed down and frozen changes. Instead, it started deploying both consumer and associate-facing technologies at a faster pace. This approach helped Lowe’s better prepare for demand surges, changes in customer channel preferences and supply variability.
The Challenge
Today’s shoppers have sky-high expectations for the retailers they buy from online and in stores. They see little difference between a retailer’s digital and physical experiences and expect to navigate seamlessly between the two.
No one knows this better than Lowe’s, which has focused on engineering the friction out of the shopping experience and putting omnichannel fundamentals in place. Unprecedented market disruption and a wave of consumers turning their attention to home improvement translated into increased demand for Lowe’s. As an essential retailer, the company found new ways to serve and communicate with customers. Lowe’s leadership team placed more emphasis on digital transformation at the retail and RDC levels to keep up with changing demands.
“Customers have become more reliant on different types of omnichannel retail,” Scalese says. “They really want to see that frictionless experience, whether they come into the store to shop, order online and come into the store to pick up, or have their merchandise delivered directly to their homes.”
Customers have become more reliant on different types of omnichannel retail. They really want to see that frictionless experience, whether they come into the store to shop, order online and come into the store to pick up, or have their merchandise delivered directly to their homes.
The Solution
Recognising the importance of seamless communications, Lowe’s implemented Zebra’s enterprise Workforce Connect™ application, which allows employees across the business to collaborate instantly and dynamically using their tablets and handheld mobile computing devices. Associates can connect with individuals or groups using voice, text and messaging from anywhere within Lowe’s facilities, extending to the parking lot, garden centre and other outdoor spaces connected to the wireless network. With more visibility into each inventory, order and task status, stores and RDC teams can function better within the geographically distributed retail ecosystem, improving receiving, picking and fulfilment processes at all locations.
The Zebra Difference: Outcome and Benefits
A new combination of hardware and software solutions gives corporate decision makers, store managers and associates, and RDC employees real-time visibility into current supply and evolving demands, transforming Lowe’s operations and enabling better and more efficient customer service.
Lowe’s has enhanced associate productivity and store simplicity by focusing on mobility first. Zebra’s mobile solutions enabled the retailer to converge multiple computing and communication devices onto the same Android™ enterprise-grade operating system (OS). Though multiple Zebra mobile computer models are deployed across Lowe’s operations, workers only need to carry a single device throughout their shift to effectively collaborate with one another and complete tasks.
This consolidation of all critical workflow applications and communication tools has helped improve associate efficiency and enhance job safety and satisfaction. It has also reduced the burden on IT as there is now consistency in the OS platform across the entire fleet, which can be remotely configured, secured and managed.
Zebra’s mobile devices also outperform legacy tools with improved battery life and rugged durability, both on store floors and in RDCs, where environmental conditions and intense use typically challenge mobile devices. Overall, Zebra’s comprehensive mobility solution has enabled store associates to shift their focus from completing tasks to spending more time delivering quality customer service.
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