I love it when our retail clients talk about the team dynamics of store associates.  In the C-Store industry, Associates (for the most part) do not work alone, but are part of a team.  This team includes members that work different functions and different shifts, but they all work together towards a common goal – the success of “our” store.

In fact, success for any one C-Store is a complex formula of revenue, profit, waste, shrink, employee retention and customer satisfaction, to name a few factors.  For a chain of C-Stores, each individual store will have its own mix of factors and therefore, communications needs.  Welcome to the conversation of why the targeting and localization of Internal Communications matters!

First of all, I should be clear that targeting and localization of messages is not the same as personalization.  Targeting and localization embraces the idea that you are not necessarily speaking to an individual, but to a team that shares common goals.  This is a key difference between personalized messages to individual employees, and communications that target groups.  Targeted and localized communications are designed to stimulate discussion and engagement within team members, and the most excellent of these communications deliver information that the team members value because it helps the team to succeed.

Electronic Bulletin Boards and Interactive Employee Kiosks are two technology solutions that you can implement to help you deliver targeted and localized internal communications.  Think about the possibilities, for example:

• New Product Information – Let’s say 20% of your stores are getting new beer caves this year, wouldn’t you want to communicate with those teams specifically, providing them key information on what to expect, and timely reminders of training, dates and procedures? This messaging would not be super-relevant to the other 80% of stores, but to the 20% that will be responsible for the success of the beer caves, this messaging is pure gold!
• Performance Incentives – Do you offer a performance incentive or bonus program for your store associates?  Is your bonus a surprise for most employees or do they have the ability to influence the outcome?  If so, allowing them to see how they are doing as a team can motivate them to push for results.  Top performing C-Store chains deliver localized daily metrics to each store team, so they can work together to maximize results, and their bonus.  Brilliant!
• Brand & Culture – A huge part of retention messaging is getting employees to embrace your Brand and make it an integral part of their personal story.  In general this is not an easy task, but for new store teams in new, far away geographies, constant Brand Messaging focused on your values is critical to success.

Just like in consumer advertising, one-size-fits-all internal communications are not as effective as locally-relevant and timely, delivering targeted value.  While the former can be easily ignored by many, targeted and localized communications demand attention and engagement.  Using the right technology tool, like Abierto’s OPEN.KIOSK will help you make sure that your these important messages drive store growth and employee retention at every single one of your locations!  Would you like to learn more about how you can use digital in-store media to drive employee performance and engagement? Let’s chat – Abierto can help!