The Kooples deploys Yoobic digital workplace solution

French fashion retailer, The Kooples, says that it has increased employee engagement, utilising frontline staff expertise to inform product design, and exceeded compliance and customer satisfaction targets in partnership with Yoobic.

The French fashion retailer has more than 1,000 frontline staff in 330 stores across 13 countries including 20 in the UK.

It recognised the need to modernise and streamline communications and visual merchandising, quality and maintenance processes across its store network and, accordingly, deployed Yoobic’s mobile first platform in 2018.

Blue tee, white sunglasses: Destination Holidays ✔️#thekooples #ss21 #summeroffreedom pic.twitter.com/0OhoyuhNAC
— The Kooples (@The_Kooples) July 7, 2021

“The first challenge was needing a tool which could be picked up quickly by the frontlines teams and above all a tool capable of meeting our need for agility, to retrieve information quickly,” says Livio Tabbi, Retail Director Europe at The Kooples.

“In the past, telephones were forbidden on the sales floor, but today they are an essential tool for accompanying customers, for understanding the product and for training.”

“The average age of our teams is 28, they spend on average four hours per day on their smartphone, so we needed to design solutions that fit to their expectations.”

The Kooples tapped the Yoobic platform to improve VM standards across its network. It launched a series of missions, delivered to staff on their mobile devices in the flow of work, focused on ensuring the appearance of each store met the retailers’ exacting standards.

Within ten months, the rate of VM compliance across the entire network doubled. The retailer then began using the platform to focus other key performance targets.

It created a faulty product mission that allowed store staff to identify flawed products, whose sale and subsequent return, was impacting profit margins. Using feedback from frontline staff, it reduced the rate of defective products by 50% and has been able to improve the design and production processes.

Tabbi comments: “We meet a crucial challenge, which is customer satisfaction, because our aim is to ensure that 100% of the products in stores meet customer expectations.”

The platform has also enabled the retailer to bring the expertise of its 1,000-frontline staff into the forefront of both the sales and design and purchasing functions of the business.

Store staff are encouraged to share their store floor sales pitches via the platform, which are then compiled and shared to all staff via weekly newsletters.

The Kooples also uses the tech to regularly survey store staff to get their feedback on products and product attributes allowing the design team to refine future collections based on customer preferences.

It has also transferred all the maintenance management of its stores into the platform, allowing stores to send messages direct to the maintenance department when issues arise increasing efficiency and speed of resolution.