By Lauren Shanesy and Ben Nussbaum
PDI Technologies held its first-ever PDI Connections Live last week in National Harbor, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C.
The event marked an evolution of the PDI Users Conference, which the company had hosted for 30 years. With more than 150 education sessions, an expo and abundant other networking and learning opportunities, the event drew more than 1,000 people from across the c-store landscape. Here are five themes from the event—consider them food for thought.
- The Personalization Priority
A consistent theme emphasized among speakers at the conference was presenting the right offer at the right time to the right audience. The idea is that personalizing your loyalty programs and promotions can boost engagement … instead of generic offers that become more noise in a flurry of communication clutter. Of course, personalization requires data and the ability to leverage that data.
Before you can succeed at building loyalty programs, speakers said, you need a customer experience—and your loyalty program offers and messages should reflect the culture shown in your stores. That means loyalty programs should be unique to each retailer and their market and customer base. It also means that just having a loyalty program is not a differentiator.
- Growing Baskets Again
Price increases have supported growth in dollar sales, but that approach may no longer be working. Baskets are showing a decline in units. How can convenience retailers persuade the inflation-walloped consumer to visit more often and purchase more items once inside? Promotions and continuing to focus on the pump-to-store transition remain important.
Channel leakage remains an opportunity, with about a quarter of c-store shoppers hitting a fast-food restaurant shortly after visiting a store, according to a NACS Convenience Voices study. What sort of foodservice bundle can persuade the financially stressed consumer to buy a meal at your location?
- Technology Helps, but Isn’t a Replacement for Humans
Technology can’t replicate the value your people bring to the business. Many customers are still seeking out human interactions in the store.
Take self-checkout for example. Self-checkout can speed up transactions, help customers get in and out of the store faster and help reduce labor burdens. But installing self-checkout does not necessarily mean reducing the number of staff working on a given day. Instead, a retailer may redeploy those people from the register to focus on customer service and engagement.
AI tools can help retailers make decisions, plan for the future and evaluate aspects of the business with more ease, but AI is still not perfect and can’t replicate the nuance that humans have when interpreting data. As AI and technology evolve, it’s thought-provoking to consider what tasks are “human tasks” and what will be more efficiently accomplished by technology—and where the line between the two is.
- Hiring and Retainment Remain a Challenge
Workforce challenges are nothing new, but with high industry turnover there are tactics retailers can employ to keep workers satisfied on the job. Good technology is one of these, speakers said. Do your team members expect that they will be given tech tools to help them do their job, that the tools will work well and that they will be easy to use? If so, are you meeting these expectations?
Technology is meant to create efficiency for your team members, but if you're introducing too many technologies that are complicated to use it can be a hindrance to your employees and actually turn them away from your store. To pick up on a theme: Do your team members have the right tools at the right time with the right training?
- 1% Better
In the future, will human decision-making become less important? Not necessarily.
If simple decisions become automatic—through business rules, AI or some other automation solution—then it’s the other decisions that become the differentiator.
Another way to think of it is that data-driven is still human-driven. It’s the human side of the equation that makes sure the data is sound, clean and consistent; responds appropriately in the short-term; and then operationalizes it in the long-term.
Keynote speaker and Navy veteran Mike Abrashoff told the story of how he turned around the worst-performing ship in the Pacific fleet, the USS Benfold. Some of his advice might sound familiar: Get to know your people as human beings and make them feel involved—the title of his book about the Benfold is called “It’s Your Ship.” Once you know your people, figure out non-financial incentives. Lean into praise and recognition instead of chastisement.
Abrashoff also talked about how incremental gains from doing things slightly better stack into big gains. The Benfold kept getting 1% better until it went from the worst ship in the Pacific fleet to the best. More food for thought: How do you make sure that your team is looking for the 1% gain every day?
Connections Live 2025 will take place at the Gaylord Rockies Resort in Denver, Colorado, from August 24-27. For more information (including sponsorship opportunities) and to preregister for a first chance at scheduling when the agenda opens, click here.