CStore Decisions
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Todd Hauptmann
Technology continues to shift across numerous areas of the c-store space, changing the ways convenience stores manage inventory, connect with customers and operate their business.
CStore Decisions caught up with Todd Hauptmann, VP of IT, Road Ranger to learn more about how the chain is engaging with technology today. The Road Ranger network spans seven states across the Midwest from Wisconsin to Texas, and it recently celebrated the opening of its 50th location earlier this year.
CStore Decisions (CSD) What trends are you seeing/watching when it comes to c-stores and technology?
Todd Hauptmann (TH): We look at technology initiatives in terms of impact and value across three key areas: 1.) safety, security and compliance; 2.) operational efficiency; and 3.) customer insight and acquisition.
Safety, security and compliance: This is all about maintaining the safety, security and resiliency of our systems and network operations. Within that area we’re closely following the requirements for PCI v4, virtualization and moving production payloads to the cloud and all things cyber-security related in what feels like an arms race to ensure our security portfolio continues to offer protection against threats from malicious actors.
Operational efficiency: The focus here is exploring any solution that reduces operating cost, increases accuracy and/or eliminates human effort and allows our in-unit managers to get away from their back-office PC to spend more time with their internal team and external guests. Within this space we’re looking at automated inventory replenishment, workflow automation, self-checkout solutions and more. This is also where we’re tracking legislation around swipe fees and any solution that may allow us to lower our cost of card acceptance.
Customer insight and acquisition: Lastly, we’re exploring solutions that will help us better understand our customers, their buying preferences, how they want to engage with us, etc. The big focus for this space is around how best to leverage fuel pricing platforms, reputation management outlets, social media feedback and consumer feedback through actionable response platforms. We are also focused on tracking evolving trends around mobile phones and integration of loyalty offerings. This is done by capitalizing on our loyalty platform, using our Ranger Rewards app. The digital app is another way, out of many, that we gain insights and continue to build out our general business intelligence and data visualization.
CSD: Have you done anything differently with technology in the past year or are you planning to roll out anything new that you can mention in 2024? If so, what?
TH: We are just wrapping up a refresh of our point-of-sale payment devices. This was in part to ensure we’re staying ahead of the curve on mandated changes for PCI v4, but has had the added benefit of eliminating unnecessary friction we were experiencing with our legacy payment devices, especially when attempting to process cardless payments (i.e., Apple Pay, Google Pay). With the introduction of EMV we started seeing a shift in consumer behavior towards contactless payments which has only accelerated post-COVID, with many of our consumers now expecting a frictionless, contactless buying experience anywhere they shop.
I’m also really excited about an engagement we’ll be kicking off in Q2 to modernize and streamline our employee onboarding, timekeeping, scheduling and payroll processes. We have been using various antiquated, siloed systems that did not “talk” to each other and therefore required data to be manually re-keyed multiple times. These legacy applications are all being replaced with a single, modern, integrated, cloud-native solution. The data consolidation alone will deliver hundreds of hours in monthly time savings and allow us to eliminate numerous, manual data quality checks. Ten years ago, this project would have been very capital intensive, requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars in upfront hardware and software licensing costs, but given the ubiquity of cloud offerings today we have the ability to leverage nearly limitless infrastructure resources with the luxury of only paying for the compute power we ultimately end up using.
CSD: Tell me briefly about how your c-store chain is using technology today. What are some key tech initiatives that are making a difference?
TH: Road Ranger has invested a large amount of time into refining our purchasing and receiving processes, both to assist our store managers in submitting orders that will account for existing sales, but also providing insight to our store leadership teams to ensure that once a delivery is made, the product quickly makes its way back to the shelves.
We’re also deeply focused on our CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform and better understanding our customers to provide tailored offers and messaging. It’s been a lot of fun tracking the measurable changes in number of store visits, basket size and overall engagement and brand loyalty as we play with different offers and communication techniques.
We’ve also been doing some really cool things in Power BI, delivering operational scorecards and data visualization that has enabled our business leaders to capitalize on new opportunities and quickly address areas of the business that may be at risk.
CSD: What are some challenges that convenience stores face in adopting and implementing new technologies, and how can they be overcome?
TH: The biggest challenges we see are 1.) maintaining business continuity given that we’re open 24x7x365 and do not have downtime to deploy and test in-store technology; 2.) ensuring that any process change is properly communicated, understood and executed across all shifts and 3.) managing the deployment of anything new across all applicable stores in our network.
To deal with the business continuity risk, we run any new technology initiative through our lab. We have an environment that mirrors what’s used in our stores that allows us to understand workflow, prompts, etc. and replicate the experience our store staff will have upon deployment. This testing environment also allows us to refine our deployment plan, test security, data access, network load, etc. Once we’ve successfully completed our testing and reviewed any change with our respective stakeholders, we typically follow a three-pronged deployment: pilot sites, regional deployment, full deployment. At each phase we have a go / no-go checkpoint to validate that things are working to plan.
In terms of training and communication, we take both a top-down and bottoms-up approach. For our front-line staff, we have a messaging app which allows us to push alerts and messaging to them during shift check-in. We also leverage weekly operational leadership calls to ensure managers are aware of things in flight and projects that may impact their stores. We’ve also invested in an online training platform and have a dedicated training team that helps us ensure we’re delivering relevant reference material to our staff.
Lastly, we’ve been adjusting our standards and deployment framework to allow greater modularity around what technology goes to our stores. We historically have used a one-size-fits all approach, but that often resulted in technology being deployed to stores that couldn’t benefit from it, our would be unable to deliver the expected return on investment. This has also forced a change in how investments are scoped with our vendors, ensuring solutions are right-sized for sites that will benefit the most from the offering.
Stay Tuned
To learn more about how Road Ranger and other chains are approaching technology, including artificial intelligence, mobile integration, self-checkout, autonomous checkout, an omnichannel approach to retail and more, check out the May issue of CStore Decisions.
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