Hey everybody.
Welcome to this episode of "The Huddle."
And with me today is Janey Whiteside.
Janey is our chief customer
officer at Walmart,
and it's a cool job. It's cool title,
because it's the first
chief customer officer we've ever had.
So Janey, welcome.
It's probably good to take a second
and explain what the
chief customer officer is,
because I'm sure people want
to know, "What is that?"
Does that mean she's the chief shopper,
the chief marketer, the
chief product officer,
all the above and then some?
The chief customer officer
is an interesting job,
because it really surrounds everything
that we know how to do really well.
So obviously, we are great at
operating phenomenal stores.
We know how to buy great merchandise
at the right price and
put it on the shelves,
and we know how to drive the
logistics that support that.
What is really important though
is that as we do that, we
show up for the customer when,
where and how they want.
And so, this is really about
how we have the right data
and insights and understand
when and how customers
want to shop with us;
how we pull that together in
terms of really great product,
supported by technology that
supports all of our associates
out in the field;
and then how we tell really
great stories about that product
to drive demand and create our reputation
and make sure that people understand
why they should be shopping at Walmart,
What's different about their Walmart
and then showcase all
the really great products
and services.
And then finally make sure
that if something goes
wrong for the customer,
if they needed to make a return
or they have some questions
or they have some follow-up,
whether that's digitally or on the phone,
we're able to support them
when and how they want.
You've only been with
us a couple of years,
so we might talk about that for a second.
You know, what's it been like
from a long successful career
at American Express?
You ran a big part of the portfolio there,
and then you come over to Walmart
and in the last 24 months,
roughly about two years,
have led this change
in the way of working.
So, what's that been like?
What I knew when I was thinking
about taking this opportunity
and why I became excited
about it was in working in a
company like American Express,
which is an incredibly strong brand
that has an incredible passion
on behalf of its customers,
was I needed to move to an organization
that really had purpose
and passionate at its core.
And I have been incredibly energized
and excited about just how
truly passionate everybody
in the company is about the customer
and about making sure
that we are in service
of a customer who quite
honestly, in many cases,
people aren't in service of.
And so, having that guiding
passion, that guiding fire,
I think has been really
energizing for the team
as we figured out if we believe that,
how do we really understand
what is important
for our customer, and then how do we
design great solutions for them?
And we break through some
of the historical myths
that because we are committed
to everyday low cost,
because we require everyday low price
as an operating philosophy
for our customers
so that they can get things,
that means that we can't
create seamless solutions.
They don't have to be more expensive,
but building the capacity for somebody
to be able to get express
delivery at the Supercenter
or pull up and have everything delivered
into the trunk of their car,
as opposed to just having their groceries
and going to have to pick up the rest
of the stuff in the store,
doesn't have to be more expensive.
It just requires us to think differently
about how we operate that.
And so, it's been really fascinating
as we've really dug into look:
Who is our customer?
What do they need?
When and how do they shop us?
And how do we make sure
that we have a solution
for each of those occasions?
If you think about what goes
on in your family, John.
I know we've talked about this.
What happens in my family, you know.
Every week I do a big shop.
We're a family of four.
I do the big shop for the family of four,
but invariably, I forget something,
or we run out of something
or things change,
and I need to get something in the moment,
or I'd run out of batteries,
or my son keeps kicking the
soccer ball over the fence.
So how do you solve
for all those occasions
and do it in the most seamless way?
We can't just rely on the fact
that we think customers
operate with us in one way
or that customers are
a store customer or an online customer.
What we know is everybody
is all of those things
all at the same time.
And in any given day at any given point,
you could be something different from us,
and we've just got to be
there to be able to solve
in the quickest, seamless, fastest way
for every one of those
occasions for the customer.
Yeah.
It's a really good point,
because I've been
through times when we try
to segment people, and
it makes sense to a point
once you label them as a segment,
but as you just said, they
don't always act that way.
Depends on what's going on in life,
and everybody's life is crazy.
I've got six people in the
house. You've got four.
Pressure comes from all sides,
and we constantly are
trying to just adapt.
And that's what the company's done.
One thing we both have in
common in our background
is we both worked in
membership organizations.
So, American Express has customers,
but definitely members
and different programs
that you're members of.
I was involved in Sam's Club
over the course of 15 years
a couple of different times.
And they're fantastic businesses,
because what they do is they
help you aggregate customers
on a platform, even though a retailer,
we can think of like the
Sam's Club membership program
or what we're about to talk about
as a place to aggregate people, and they
also create, for the business,
a recurring revenue model.
And when you've got a bundle
of goods and services,
(some people call it a rundle)
it changes the way that
we're able to invest
on behalf of the customer,
because of what we would
describe as a membership fee.
But what the fee is, is
you're really buying access
to something you can't get otherwise.
So, you've got an announcement that's big.
So I'll let you talk about it,
but describe what's happening with Walmart
and our new venture.
Thank you.
So I am incredibly excited
to announce the launch of Walmart+
which is going to be Walmart's first ever
true membership program.
So, many of you may be enrolled in
or will have heard of Delivery Unlimited,
which was our delivery program
that we had out in the market.
Well, we've taken that and, no
pun intended, plussed it up.
And so, this is gonna be our
way of giving you everything
that you know and love about
Walmart and then some more.
So, $98 a year.
So that's, you know, $2 a week.
You're gonna be able to get,
continue to get unlimited free delivery
of your groceries, your consumables
and every week, we add more
things, more things to that.
So think about unlimited free delivery
from the Supercenter.
When you go into the store,
you're gonna be able to get it in and out
with Scan-and-Go.
So fast, in-store contactless check-in.
Fuel discounts, so up to
five cents a gallon off
at Walmart stations, and so
much more that's gonna come.
The beautiful thing as
you mentioned, John,
about a membership program
is it gives us the capacity
to learn and grow.
And so this is really gonna be our way
of being able to continue
to grow and learn
and add more with our members at the time.
And we couldn't be more excited about it.
I'm excited as well.
And it's different than,
you said it's that the delivery
unlimited is a subscription.
And a membership program
and a subscription
are actually quite different.
They may feel the same, and
they may sound the same,
but it's really, there
are some semantics there,
but they are quite different programs.
I'm excited about what
we'll be able to offer.
But the core of the offer
really is being able
to get delivery, whether it's
same-day or during the week
when you scheduled on a slot. As you said,
we'll be able to get members
access to more time slots,
so they can pick when they want
to have things delivered to them.
And there'll be a lot more coming.
So, Walmart has got a great reputation
for execution and supply
chain, as you said,
and it's not unusual
for a successful company
that's in an industry
that's high transaction
and low margin, and you know,
why that's important as we make,
complete millions of transactions,
really every hour, but every day.
And we do those at a relatively
low rate of profitability,
so therefore, there's
always a bit of variance,
but execution is important.
But when you step back
and go back all the way
into the company's history,
you'll find that we do this thing
that some people consider
quirky. We think it's fun.
It's the Walmart cheer.
Now, we haven't done as
many of those lately,
because we haven't been
together quite as much,
but at the end of it, we
do ask who's number one,
and it's the customer.
And so putting the customer in the center
of every question of every problem,
causes you to work through
the problems as you described.
You were telling me earlier that
in your household, you
get a lot of feedback.
I do, too.
I order things. I go do pickup orders.
I've done a lot more of it
since we've been working
part in the office
and part at home.
But you know, there is a skill there
that you have to learn, and
it's listening with empathy.
You always have to be open to feedback,
and you always have to listen.
You have to assume that the customer,
whether it's a family
member or friend, is right.
But how do you establish
a really great process
for listening and taking feedback
so that we can empower the
teams to support the customer
and not just run off
and try to solve the operational metrics?
That's a great question, John.
And I think it's at the,
honestly at the heart of what we do and
how we're gonna operate moving forward.
I mean, obviously you need
great insight and great data.
And that comes from the data that we have,
what we see that customers actually do,
all the listening that
we do with customers.
And so whether that is
the intel that we get
from being out in the field
and listening to what's happening,
or whether it's other data that we buy,
but using that data, you
then need to make sure
that you bring together the right people.
And so, what we started doing was running
this process that we
call "Four In The Box."
And so who are the four?
The four, first of all, is the business.
So who is the person that is
needing to solve a problem
on behalf of the customer?
Who is able to build the product?
And it's thinking about
what that should look like
and how you create that,
and solve on behalf of the customer.
And it's really asking the
question, "Why and what if?,"
on behalf of the customer.
So, what if a customer
could pick up everything
within the store, what would
that need to look like?
You then have an engineer.
So you have a technologist
who is able to code
and build the platform in order
to be able to support that.
And finally, sitting across all of that,
you need somebody who is
supporting the customer,
in terms of data
but also the right kind
of process and design
to make sure that we're
showing up with a design
that is right for the customer,
not the easiest solution
for us to operationalize
or the solution that works
sitting between our many groups.
And so, they really run
horizontally across the process
to say, "How do we build this in a way
that is most intuitive,
that is most simple,
that is most seamless for
a customer and make sense?"
But having those four people
attacking every problem,
whether it's super
strategic or super tactical,
means that you've got the
right voices at the table
to be able to solve "for" and "about"
on behalf of the customer.
We tend to, as business
people, find problems,
identify problems quickly.
Then our brain takes over.
It recognizes patterns,
and then we try to apply a solution
we either think will work,
or we have used in our past,
and the difference in that
and what you're describing
is you've got to get the
proper problem definition,
understanding what it is
you're really trying to solve
on behalf of the customer,
or its internal user.
But nevertheless, then the team,
they're charged to go
out and find a seamless,
intuitive solution so that
the customer experience
or the user experience is seamless.
You think about in a lot of big companies,
and we'll talk about
those in just a second,
there are these legacy solutions,
and our people then find ways
to work around the solutions,
to be able to find a way of working
to help accomplish a task or
serve as a customer or listen.
And what you're trying to do is step back
and take a holistic view
of once someone engages
with the brand, what
is the experience like?
And that includes things that you've done,
like combining the apps from two to one,
taking search and making it universal.
The speed at which you
and the team have moved
has accelerated, I'd say greatly.
It's a marked difference
from where we were.
So what is it, obviously what caused it
is customers need us,
and when they needed us,
we were able to put aside some
of the things we were working on
and just focus on the customer,
but what's been the biggest change?
You mentioned Express.
There've been a couple others,
ship from store, other things
that have just launched
in a matter of days or weeks,
that probably would have taken
us weeks or months before.
But what's been the biggest
change you've noticed?
So, I think a couple of things.
One is, I think what we've
noticed during the pandemic
is these behavioral changes or
these customer needs, right?
Everything when you see
a customer behavior,
you act a certain way,
because you need something.
I need something right now.
I need to be able to
get access to something.
You have these underlying needs.
And they have become, whether
those are business needs
or whether those are customer needs,
they've become very
apparent, very quickly.
And it allows us to
isolate what that need is.
And we talked about this earlier,
but when you can isolate a need
and get very specific about that problem,
it allows you to start to say, OK,
well what am I going to
do to solve that problem,
A=and how do I start to think about,
in the click, the double-click,
the triple-click down with that problem
and then galvanize everybody to run at it?
And we talked before about
this "Four In A Box,"
the business, the engineer,
the product person and
the customer person.
If you can get those four people isolated
around a customer problem,
it's very easy to quickly run,
"Okay, well how do we solve that?"
And we've been able to pick
those customer problems.
And if you pick the right
ones, you find that actually,
as you're clicking through,
"How do we solve for that?,"
solutions become really
apparent very quickly.
And typically as you
solve for those solutions,
they have sort of broader ramifications.
And so, if you think about something
like contactless payment within the store,
as soon as you start to think about,
"We've got to get customers
in and out of the store
in the safest way possible for
them and for our associates,"
you start to think about,
well that's going to require,
like where are the places
where they may have to touch things?
Where are the places
where we might have
these points of friction?
It allows you to start to think about,
how do I start to peel those back.
And as you open the systems
to start to do things like
figure out contactless payment
and "How can I have
somebody show their phone?,"
that creates a whole lot of other solves
that you can make for the
customer at the same time,
which is really exciting,
I think for all of us.
That's right, and that
leads to product discovery,
and then a phase where
your ideas will diverge
and then tests and prototypes emerge,
and then we converge on a solution.
And I think that's been one
of the biggest differences.
Janey, I'm excited about Walmart+.
I'm really excited that
we've gotten to this point,
and we're ready to announce this.
I'm excited about the way of working
and the differences you've made.
And I'm really excited about
changing the experience
and improving the experience
for Walmart customers,
associates and the user.
It's exciting change,
so I'm looking forward to what you
and the team are gonna
accomplish over the next few,
I'd say years, but you know,
every month feels like a year,
as you said, and every
month feels like a day,
there's so much going on.
But thanks for everything that
you and the team is doing.
I'm looking forward to it.
Thanks for coming on this morning.
You're welcome, thank you.
Thanks, everybody.
