CASE STUDY 02
Future Role of Store
Designing a digitally enabled store around what customers actually needed
RETAIL STRATEGY · OMNICHANNEL EXPERIENCE · TRANSFORMATION
AT A GLANCE
ROLE
Head of End-to-End Customer Experience
COMPANY
Sainsbury’s
TEAM
10 direct reports
OUTCOME
A digitally enabled store, designed and opened in nine months
The challenge
Our customer research showed that, after the pandemic, customers were moving away from digital channels and prioritising shopping in bricks-and-mortar stores again. Sainsbury’s needed to rethink what the physical store was for and how it connected to the rest of the experience, rather than treating stores and digital as separate worlds.
My role
As Head of End-to-End Customer Experience, I led the team responsible for the digitally enabled in-store customer journey for the Future Role of Store programme. That included the people side of the store: how colleagues were trained and how they delivered customer service. I was the voice of customer experience and customer service on the programme, and I coached and mentored my team of 10 throughout.
The approach
I set the direction to start with the customer: what people needed from a store visit today, and where the experience between physical and digital broke down. The research pointed to inspiration as a key unmet need, so we explored how to meet it through a combination of digital and people-led experiences.
Paper prototyping with customers in a live store
Testing a working prototype back at the office
I brought merchandising, store design, digital product and store colleagues together around one end-to-end journey. Getting colleagues involved early was a deliberate choice, because a new store experience only works if colleagues are equipped and confident to deliver it. We turned the strategy into a working design, then into a real store.
The finished screens in store, designed to inspire customers in fresh produce
Testing in a live store changed our thinking. Customers didn’t engage with the digital screens as we expected. They didn’t want inspiration as much as help finding their way around, and wayfinding turned out to be the real need. We would never have learned that without testing in a real store environment.
The outcome
9 months
from strategy to an open store
10
designers led and coached through the programme
1 template
for the full Future Role of Store roll-out
We designed and opened a digitally enabled store in nine months, which is fast for a business of Sainsbury’s scale and complexity. The programme gave the business a tested model for how physical and digital can work together in store, and real-world evidence of what customers actually value. The findings were used to set the template for the full Future Role of Store roll-out.
WHAT I’D DO AGAIN
Engage the product team earlier, and build a clear business case comparing the cost of digital screens with the value they would bring.
NEXT CASE STUDY