Shownotes
In this Retail Technology Spotlight series, Chris Walton sits down with Soroosh Seyhoon, Chief Revenue Officer at Zello, to explore how capturing and analyzing frontline voice data is transforming the way retailers understand and manage store operations. From AI-powered in-ear assistants to real-time operational intelligence, Soroosh explains why the conversations happening on the sales floor represent an untapped goldmine of data that most retailers are completely ignoring.
Drawing from deployments across hundreds of store locations, Soroosh shares how Zello is helping retailers move beyond measuring outputs like sales and throughput to finally measuring the inputs, the frontline communications that drive those results. The conversation covers everything from reducing associate turnover and accelerating onboarding to auto-reporting safety incidents and uncovering hidden staffing inefficiencies hiding in plain sight.
From digitizing push-to-talk communications to replacing two-device workflows with a single-pane-of-glass solution, this episode offers a practical roadmap for retailers ready to stop flying blind on what's actually happening on the floor and start building the connected store of the future.
Key Topics Covered:
- 00:01:44 - The friction points plaguing store operations today and why "hearsay" is running retail
- 00:05:40 - How voice data transforms store operations from outputs to inputs
- 00:08:38 - Meet Ella: Zello's AI agent that answers associate questions in real time
- 00:16:20 - Real-world examples: price check patterns, safety incidents, and broken buttons
- 00:21:19 - Where retailers should start to get the biggest bang for their buck
- 00:24:16 - What's next: proactive AI agents, PBX integration, and push to connect
Over 8 years and nearly 200 episodes, the Retail Technology Spotlight Series has featured some of the biggest names and boldest thinkers in retail. Explore the full archive here: https://omnitalk.blog/category/spotlight-series-podcast/
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Transcripts
This Retail Technology Spotlight series podcast is brought to you by the Omnitalk retail Podcast Network.
Speaker A:Hello, everyone.
Speaker A:I am Chris Walton, your host for today's interview and interview in which we are going to explore the question of how can we use technology in new ways to help our store associates.
Speaker B:Most of the technology transformation that's happened for the last decade is focused on the outputs and the results, but we're not really measuring the input.
Speaker B:Why don't you put that agent in the ear?
Speaker B:We call our agent Ella.
Speaker B:Ella can answer all of those questions just like a supervisor.
Speaker B:They kept getting these price checks for the same product over and over again.
Speaker B:Anybody still using radios, it just.
Speaker B:That's crazy.
Speaker B: We live in: Speaker B:Don't go say, hey, can you repeat.
Speaker B:Turn that into a voice layer that drives a level of visibility that nobody had before.
Speaker A:Employee turnover isn't getting any better.
Speaker A:Training is getting harder.
Speaker A:Heck, one could even argue the average retail job is even less.
Speaker A:Less safe than it was five or 10 years ago.
Speaker A:So what can we do and how can we make a dent in some of these issues?
Speaker A:Those are the questions we're going to discuss today.
Speaker A:And to help us answer them, I'm pleased to introduce Saroosh Sehun, the chief Revenue officer at Zello Soroush.
Speaker A:Welcome to omnitalk, Chris.
Speaker B:Thank you so much.
Speaker B:Thanks for having me.
Speaker B:Excited to be here.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm excited, too.
Speaker A:I mean, this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart from the time I spent in the field, you know, and back in my Target days.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:So I'm curious.
Speaker A:I want to get right to it, and I want to start with this question first.
Speaker A:Like, how would you sum up the friction points at the store level, you know, as you see it?
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And also, was I.
Speaker A:Was I too hyperbolic in the opener and the teaser there, or.
Speaker A:Or do you think I got it right?
Speaker B:Yeah, look, I think I'll jump in by just saying, like, the friction points are all over the place.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:The friction points are, you know, whether they're.
Speaker B:They're, you know, related to turnover and personnel and new people on the floor, whether they're related to loss prevention.
Speaker B:You know, you.
Speaker A:You.
Speaker B:You nailed it.
Speaker B:Safety.
Speaker B:Like, these are all friction points.
Speaker B:Like, the stores have to run.
Speaker B:They have to run as efficiently as possible.
Speaker B:They have to run safely.
Speaker B:They have to obviously be a great brand experience for the customer and ultimately be profitable for the.
Speaker B:For the brand as well.
Speaker B:So they're.
Speaker B:They're really kind of all over the place.
Speaker B:And, and if you don't mind?
Speaker B:I'll, like, take it a little further and say, you know, I think these friction points, you know, there's.
Speaker B:There's no feedback, real feedback loops on these friction points today, meaning what's happening through voice and conversations of the front line, right?
Speaker B:Through the reality of the operation day to day, it.
Speaker B:It ends up being sort of hearsay, if.
Speaker B:If you don't mind me calling it that, because you kind of hear what happened through conversations, right, that are reporting up the chain.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But reality is like, you don't.
Speaker B:You don't have that live data to turn the hearsay into.
Speaker B:To actually hearing what.
Speaker B:What was said.
Speaker B:And, and so, like, that's what I like to focus on is when you capture that frontline voice and.
Speaker B:And how we're operating within those friction points to solve problems constantly.
Speaker B:You know, you turn that into a voice later voice layer that just drives a level of visibility that nobody had before.
Speaker A:So I want to.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:So I want.
Speaker A:I want to push you on that a little, on a little bit, too.
Speaker A:When you say hearsay.
Speaker A:Yeah, because that.
Speaker A:That's a new word.
Speaker A:I hadn't heard that before, you know, and the way I always thought about it, too, was, like, my time in the stores, it was based on, like, anecdotal information that people were sharing.
Speaker A:And oftentimes the loudest voice is the one that got heard.
Speaker A:Whether or not how they were assessing the situation turned out to be correct or not.
Speaker A:Is that a function more of.
Speaker A:Is the hearsay idea more a function of how stores are organized?
Speaker A:Is it a function of the fact that people are coming in and out?
Speaker A:That training's hard.
Speaker A:You constantly are regenerating your staff.
Speaker A:Is it all of those things combined together as one big confluence, it just leads to this.
Speaker A:This outcome?
Speaker A:Or is it also a lack of systems or knowledge to understand and track and monitor it as well?
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's both, right?
Speaker A:Like, it's all of it.
Speaker B:It's complicated.
Speaker B:I mean, there's a lot happening simultaneously and.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I think there is a lack of systems and technology that takes it from being a story like, oh, did you hear about this safety incident or this spill or this customer experience?
Speaker B:Did you hear about how, like, this customer walked out the store angry about, like, it turns into.
Speaker B:Takes that storytelling into, well, how did my front line operate?
Speaker B:When you capture the frontline actions and, and how do those actions happen?
Speaker B:Like, the frontline works on voice.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:They talk to each other constantly, real time to handle those situations.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And so instead of instead of telling the stories, you can go back and replay, right?
Speaker B:Watch game, tape what happened?
Speaker B:How did my team communicate?
Speaker B:How did we operate?
Speaker B:So that, you know, it's a little bit of all of it that I think in the world that we live in today, like, it shouldn't be optional anymore to capture that actual real layer of data that the stores operate on.
Speaker B:Voice.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, I can remember back in my days in store, the future.
Speaker A:Like, you know, the whole idea was like, you know, coming out of that experience and learning, like, hey, we need to have a system of record for what things are happening in a store.
Speaker A:Whether it's a vision system, a voice system, even just data recording in a certain way as people are pathing through a store.
Speaker A:All that matters.
Speaker A:So, so then, Surush, what are.
Speaker A:What can I.
Speaker A:What can be done?
Speaker A:Like, it's.
Speaker A:The problem is really complicated.
Speaker A:If you've worked in the store, I know you're watching this or you're listening to this and you're like, these guys are hitting on this.
Speaker A:This is really complicated.
Speaker A:So, so what can be done?
Speaker A:What are the actual fixes here?
Speaker B:Yeah, look, if you, if you jump to the conclusion, it's.
Speaker B:It's this, this intelligence layer that was your voice data, right?
Speaker B:Like, ultimately, can you capture that?
Speaker B:Can you leverage that?
Speaker B:Can you run insights against that to.
Speaker B:To actually understand what was said and how did the team operate?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:That's kind of the, the conclusion.
Speaker B:But how do you get there?
Speaker B:Like, that's, that's the part that Zello makes easy, right?
Speaker B:And we've been focusing on this, this whole idea of.
Speaker B:Okay, fine, we went from why do.
Speaker B:Let's just start with this.
Speaker B:Like, how do.
Speaker B:Why do associates carry two devices to begin with?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Why is there one smart device on one hip and a radio on the other?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:Like, right.
Speaker B:Is that how you operate at home?
Speaker B:Like, do you.
Speaker B:Do you walk around with multiple ways of communicating with your family?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Like, I guess you could joke and argue that, that maybe we need to with our children just to kind of connect to them in the world we live in today.
Speaker B:But like that translator, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:But that paradigm shouldn't exist anymore, right?
Speaker B:So single pane of glass.
Speaker B:You hear that all the time, right?
Speaker B:Whether it's a POS system or a communication system, inventory system.
Speaker B:So single pos, Right?
Speaker B:So, sorry, single pane of glass.
Speaker B:Okay, well, why can't the instant communication layer also be on that single pane of glass?
Speaker B:Well, now it can.
Speaker B:So let's do that.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Then you start Talking about devices.
Speaker B:Okay, well we only have devices for certain people on the floor.
Speaker B:Well, okay, what if, what if your communication framework didn't have to be like company issued devices?
Speaker B:It can be, but what if you could take the, the person's personal iPhone, right, or Android device and, and also put your infrastructure communication through an app onto that, that device.
Speaker B:Let's make it easier for the front line to communicate whether they have, you know, supervisor issued sort of smart device or not.
Speaker B:And, and again, just sort of put that, that, that experience that people are used to push to talk, flipping to.
Speaker B:Okay, now it runs on my personal device or on my smart device that I'm already carrying.
Speaker B:Now give me like, you know, an earpiece where maybe the customer doesn't have to hear all of the conversations.
Speaker B:Now make that accessory look, you know, look and feel like my brand, right?
Speaker B:So this is all sort of optionality that exists, right?
Speaker B:You don't, you don't want to walk around as a frontline associate, you know, looking like you're listening to music when you're trying to help customers, right?
Speaker B:So you can, can you fit the sort of brand there and then, and then can you also like to take it a step further if you have this capability and, and sort of this access to, to talking to one another, the next sort of friction point just in the operation.
Speaker B:Yeah, let's back to the turnover concept, right?
Speaker B:I'm brand new, I just got in the store.
Speaker B:I've been working here for a week.
Speaker B:I'm hitting my first Saturday.
Speaker B:It's busy as hell, man.
Speaker B:I don't know how to handle the situation.
Speaker B:Where's my supervisor?
Speaker B:Hey, like I'm calling for a supervisor, I need to ask a simple question that really I would know if I'd been here for three weeks, but I don't.
Speaker B:Right, well, well, why don't you put that agent in the ear, right?
Speaker B:In the world that we live in today, right?
Speaker B:And we, we call our agent Ella.
Speaker B:But, but Ella can answer all of those questions just like a supervisor can.
Speaker B:But you don't have to wait for the supervisor, right?
Speaker B:You don't have to stress out the supervisor who might be handling a customer escalation or something else, right?
Speaker B:So now you add this agentic sort of knowledge base interaction and a normal human voice into that same device, into that same accessory, you know, push the button, say, hey, you know, do we have inventory?
Speaker B:Like do we have this product in size X, right?
Speaker B:Or hey, what do I do when, when this like glass breaks in this aisle?
Speaker B:Or what do I do when a customer is trying to return this thing.
Speaker B:Like it all of a sudden takes your new person who's working on the front line and it ramped their, their training right to where they're just as effective as the next frontline person.
Speaker B:And they probably feel better about it too.
Speaker B:Like it's not just, oh, like selfish, I need to train these people in a quicker way.
Speaker B:Well, if you get more done and you don't need as much help to do sort of some of the basics, well, man, you feel like you're accomplishing things, you know, as a frontline associate, you know, and there's a, there's a rewarding part of being self sufficient.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:In anything that we do.
Speaker A:Well, yeah, the other part too, I think there's, there's a confidence factor too.
Speaker A:You know, as a new employee, you have the confidence that you've got somebody that's there to help you in your ear, wherever it may be, you know, as you're trying to learn your job.
Speaker A:Like, my favorite story that I, that I tell all the time is I remember my first, like week of training, I was getting cashier trained and there was a robbery at the Target store down the road from us.
Speaker A:And I said to my manager, I was like, hey, how do I open the cash registers if somebody sticks a gun in my face?
Speaker A:He's like, well, don't worry about it.
Speaker A:You just call me.
Speaker A:I'm like, I don't have time to call you.
Speaker A:I don't have time.
Speaker A:But in what you're describing, I could be like, hey, there's a guy, I need help.
Speaker A:Tell me how to do this.
Speaker A:Walk me through it.
Speaker A:And you know, I'd feel much better about going into that situation than I did, you know, going into that situation back in the day.
Speaker A:But why is the voice, why is the voice such an important element of this?
Speaker A:Explain that a little bit more for us.
Speaker A:Like, I like, why is that such a all encompassing layer of intelligence that is pretty much untapped in terms of how we currently operate?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, look, is there, is there really like any sort of replacement for hearing, like when you're sort of watching game tape?
Speaker B:Again, I'm a, I'm a, you know, I'm a sports guy.
Speaker B:Like, you know, love, love the analogy of, like, how do you get better reflecting, etc.
Speaker B:Like, is there a better way to reflect on what happened in your operation than hear exactly what happened and understand, you know, what was communicated how quickly, at what time in relation to one thing that happened?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And voices Just like, what do we do when we, when we, when we're born?
Speaker B:Like, we learn how to walk, crawl and speak, know or crawl, walk and speak in, in more in that order.
Speaker B:But like, you know, so, so, so voice is sort of the UI of operations, right?
Speaker B:It's how people in the front line operates.
Speaker B:And again, like, when you, when you now again tap into this gold mine of both things that are going well versus things that are maybe not going well, you learn based on reality and not, not a, you know, not a story that was told or something you heard about happening, you know, on, on the front line.
Speaker B:It just, it just changes the, it honestly, it changes like how, how closely the stores are aligned to the corporate objectives, right?
Speaker B:If you think about that, you know, you can go ask like, hey, you know, you can go ask of the data, the voice data, right?
Speaker B:Hey, our corporate objectives are A, B and C, right?
Speaker B:We're trying to accomplish these things.
Speaker B:Tell me which of my stores, based on the frontline conversations are very aligned and tell me which ones are not aligned, right?
Speaker B:And you might learn something from that answer that you've never even had access to before.
Speaker B:You might, you might learn that, man, like, the stores that are not aligned to our objectives are actually the ones that are selling the most or having the best customer.
Speaker B:Customer experiences.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Maybe, like they've learned something quicker, haven't reported it back because reporting back against the.
Speaker B:Maybe a company direction is not the easiest thing to do.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker B:Does that, does that make sense?
Speaker A:It does, it does, yeah.
Speaker A:And so, like, yeah, I mean, get.
Speaker A:Basically what you're getting at is we only know what we know and there's so much we don't know in terms of what's happening on the sales floor.
Speaker A:And so from a management standpoint, then what I'm hearing you say too is like, we've actually been flying a little bit blind in terms of measuring or monitoring the inputs that we're expecting to get the outputs that we are measuring.
Speaker A:Because in retail we're really good at measuring the outputs.
Speaker A:We're really good at measuring sales.
Speaker A:You know, we're really good at how.
Speaker A:Measuring how fast we can push the truck, but we're not really good at understanding what drove those outputs to begin with.
Speaker A:Is that what you're saying?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think, yeah, I think you nailed it.
Speaker B:I think most of the technology transformation that's happened for the last decade is focused on the outputs and the results, but we're not really measuring the inputs.
Speaker B:Like, everything has sort of Been built for headquarters, right?
Speaker B:To, like, watch what's happening in the store.
Speaker B:So watch the floor.
Speaker B:And not so much for the floor to talk back or to listen to the floor.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:So the associate now with your voice intelligence layer, the associate is the sensor.
Speaker B:It's what you're measuring, you know, no longer the output or the subject.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I think it's.
Speaker B:It's an interesting.
Speaker B:And I say no longer.
Speaker B:I think.
Speaker B:I think these two things are combined, right?
Speaker B:Like, you need to do both.
Speaker B:You can't do one or no.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:You got to measure both sides of it.
Speaker A:But it's really.
Speaker A:It's really fascinating when you think about it, because, you know, having been in retail as long as I.
Speaker A:As I have been and was what you're talking about did not exist.
Speaker A:Like, it's a black.
Speaker A:It was a.
Speaker A:It was a black hole.
Speaker A:To understand, like, you know, what is the quality of my sales engagement?
Speaker A:What is the quality of my cashier, you know, engagement?
Speaker A:How long is it taking me?
Speaker A:How long is a sales associate taking to find a product when queried by a customer who's not able to find something on the shelf or they need to go look in the back room?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:All that's absent unless we start putting the level of intelligence into it and start recording the data in a way that you're describing.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean.
Speaker B:I mean, to take it maybe a step further and kind of think you kind of hit on staffing levels and, you know, what's happening at the cash register.
Speaker B:Like, you know, how do.
Speaker B:How do store ops plan for staffing levels?
Speaker B:How is that planned?
Speaker A:Like, right at the sales levels from year before and what you're projecting for this next period of time, Right, exactly.
Speaker B:And then a little bit of like, oh, you know, okay, Saturdays are the most busy, depending on exactly what your, you know, your store ops are doing.
Speaker B:But like, oh, Saturdays are really busy.
Speaker B:Let's staff up for it.
Speaker B:But like, what if.
Speaker B:What if on top of that, you learned that, man, like, the reason we don't have high sales on Friday or Thursday, right.
Speaker B:Is because we're like, if you listen to the voice data, we constantly have backups at the cash register.
Speaker B:We constantly have requests for help for more cashiers to come to the front, right?
Speaker B:And guess what's happening?
Speaker B:Our customers are walking out and not transacting, so the output of sales isn't there.
Speaker B:And so you're like, it's this, like, just like, cyclical problem of.
Speaker B:Of like, solving the wrong problem, you know, whereas maybe Thursdays could be better than Fridays and Saturdays if we were staffed appropriately.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And the best store managers are the ones that know that inherently, they're intuitively understanding that, and they're changing or augmenting their payroll within the budget that they get to make to account for that.
Speaker A:But there's really no window into why it's happening and no trend, no feedback loop back to headquarters to tell them that that's happening too.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:So what are.
Speaker A:That's a great example.
Speaker A:So, like, what are some other concrete examples you can share where you've seen this kind of theory put into practice and have an, you know, an actual impact on the business?
Speaker B:Yeah, you know, one of my.
Speaker B:One of the very first.
Speaker B:When we kind of rolled this out a while ago, one of the first stories that popped out immediately that, you know, when we were testing with one of our customers in a few of their stor, it was this.
Speaker B:This example of.
Speaker B:Of they kept getting these price checks for the same product over and over again, like in their data.
Speaker B:Like, man, why do.
Speaker B:Why do customers keep asking for a price check on this one plant?
Speaker B:And, you know, so then they.
Speaker B:Because it showed up in the data, like, product abc, this one plant, right?
Speaker B:They go out and they start looking at the floor and they start observing what's happening.
Speaker B:And it turns out, like, the, the price.
Speaker B:The price label that was on that thing, like, it was.
Speaker B:It was put on the plant, right?
Speaker B:Where they water it, right?
Speaker B:Sort of down low where it's getting watered every single day.
Speaker B:And the price was rubbing off, right?
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And so, like, like, wait a second.
Speaker B:What if.
Speaker B:What if we just change the way we do the label, right?
Speaker B:Like, stop putting it down here where we're watering, move it up or change the label.
Speaker B:And again, like, you know, just.
Speaker B:Just that, that imagine like, the efficiency that creates over time if.
Speaker B:If it showed up in the data within a couple of weeks, that this one product continues to get price checks.
Speaker B:You know, imagine the impact that has kind of across other sort of trends that they're seeing in the data.
Speaker B:So that.
Speaker B:That was one of the first examples that popped up.
Speaker B:But, man, like, we've heard everything from.
Speaker B:Oh, look, look.
Speaker B:Another real problem is safety incidents.
Speaker B:You alluded to this at the very beginning, this recording of safety incidents.
Speaker B:Like, it's not that people don't want to record the safety incident that it happened.
Speaker B:It's that it's not easy to do it.
Speaker B:And so with.
Speaker B:With the ability to have, you know, this voice layer this.
Speaker B:This intelligence on the voice later captured, like what if, what if safety incidents were auto reported right.
Speaker B:Directly into your safety system and that it, you know, then.
Speaker B:Then kind of triggered the process to, you know, eliminate or try and eliminate those.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, so we've seen, we've seen like recently there was an example in the customer's data where, you know, a returned glass bird feeder got left on the counter.
Speaker B:Associate end up cutting their hand on it.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Oh, wow.
Speaker B:Safety incident that happened because it was.
Speaker B:The customer was returning it because it was broken when they opened it in the box right out there on the counter.
Speaker B:Broken.
Speaker B:Instead of following the right process of immediately doing something about it, associate cuts her hand on it.
Speaker B:It was not reported in any systems.
Speaker B:The only reason they captured it was because it was in the voice data.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Associates are talking to each other about help.
Speaker B:Someone who cut their hand, another one that, that recently popped up, another customer who invested in, in a, in a button to.
Speaker B:At the cash registers.
Speaker B:There's a button at the cash registers to ask for help.
Speaker B:So what happens normally when, when the cash registers lines back up, you know, go over the PA system or, or the radio, whatever that you have used traditionally to ask for cashiers to come to the front.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Well, this customer had invested a bunch of money, done a bunch of testing.
Speaker B:They had created a button.
Speaker B:Every cash register had a button.
Speaker B:So, like, you could click the button and it followed their protocol to request help.
Speaker B:Well, this button had been broken for a long time in, in one of these stores.
Speaker B:Nobody had said anything.
Speaker B:They had sort of reverted back to old ways.
Speaker B:And it wasn't until they were, you know, analyzing the voice data that, that they realized, like, wait a second, why aren't they using the button that, that we put out there?
Speaker B:And so it broke a while ago and they just didn't take the time to report it and, and you know, get, get that fixed.
Speaker B:So they had made investments in, you know, improving operational efficiency, but they went by the wayside.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:Because, again, you're missing what's happening on the front line if you're not, you know, you know, listening to those, those conversations.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:God, it reminds me of a case in business school too, where there's the difference between explicit and implicit processes.
Speaker A:And retailers are notorious for thinking their, their explicit processes are followed to a T, when in reality, what ends up happening is what you described.
Speaker A:The store teams are the best there is at figuring out how just to get things done and make things work in the circumstances that they're given.
Speaker A:And so they create all these implicit processes around what they're doing.
Speaker A:And that's exactly what, you know, just happened with the decision not to use the button.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Funny, you reminded me of, like, you know, not, not business school, but parent school.
Speaker B:Like, you know, everybody's children's children are the best children in the world.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Like my, My child, when he learned how to drive, of course, would be the safest driver in the world, would never break the speed limit.
Speaker B:Well, guess what?
Speaker B:Life360 told me Life360 told me he hit 90 miles an hour and I took his truck away from him, like, right.
Speaker B:16 Years old.
Speaker B:So again, like, yeah, it's funny, right?
Speaker B:Maybe a little related, but not exactly.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So I'm guessing, I'm guessing that use case is ringing.
Speaker A:Hope for a lot of people, but I'm guessing a lot of their use cases we shared at the stores are too.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So if people are listening, they're like, okay, you know, I'm kind of, I'm getting what Chris and Sarosh are throwing down here in terms of, you know, there is this black hole in terms of data and understanding what's happening in the stores.
Speaker A:And, and the voice can be a tool if we can unlock it with technology to help us get that, to understand what inputs are creating the outputs.
Speaker A:If you were to advise the retailer executives listening, the retail executives listening, Sarosh, where would you tell them to focus first?
Speaker A:Like, where are they going to get the biggest bang for their buck if they try to implement something like we've been discussing, where should they try to hone in first?
Speaker B:Look, my advice would be to first of all turn this on.
Speaker B:Like, turn on this capability, right?
Speaker B:Because there's going to be things about your business and your stores that are a little bit different.
Speaker B:The questions that you're going to ask of the data are going to be unique to you, you know, like, and, and that's probably a part of sort of your differentiator in terms of how you operate.
Speaker B:Not probably that.
Speaker B:That is right.
Speaker B:And I think, I think like, you know, asking.
Speaker B:It was interesting.
Speaker B:I, I saw one of my customers asking this question of, like, you know, if you were to advise leadership of the top three priorities based on, on the comms that you're seeing in my stores, like, what would those be like?
Speaker B:You can start to ask those questions of the, of the voice data and again, gain insights that for your operation is probably going to be a little unique to, to what it is that you do.
Speaker B:So it's like, man, the first thing is, is like, just, just turn this on for a period of time and, and start capturing the data and, and then you're going to like, you know, it's just, it's sort of like the evolution of, of AI is you start playing with, you know, you name it, whether it was Chad or Grok or Claude or whatever, you start playing with it and you start changing the way you operate and you start realizing, like, man, I haven't asked these questions.
Speaker B:I haven't had this sort of, you know, visibility before.
Speaker B:It's, it's kind of similar.
Speaker B:So look, you got to digitize your, your frontline communication.
Speaker B:That's kind of first and foremost, right?
Speaker B:So, you know, that's, that just to me is table stakes today.
Speaker B:Like anybody still using radios, it just, it's, it's kind of using radios and two things on the hips of your associates, like, that's, that's crazy.
Speaker B:I don't care what frontline we're talking about.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then, and then like start to digitize it and, and look, one of the beauties, like before we talk about all this other voice, voice layer, like information or capability.
Speaker B:When you digitize the experience of communications on the front line, you have intentional conversations happening between people that belong in channels that are relevant to their job, if that makes sense, right?
Speaker B:So you're creating efficiency by not having just radio traffic come across to everybody, right?
Speaker B:And it's like, wait, were they talking to me?
Speaker B:Were they not talking to me?
Speaker B:What did they say?
Speaker B:I missed it, right?
Speaker B:When you digitize it, there's no more I missed it.
Speaker B:First of all, if it was in your channel, it's relevant if you heard it.
Speaker B:If you missed it, hit the replay button.
Speaker B: Like, we live in, we live in: Speaker B:Don't go say, hey, can you repeat?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:That's, that's kind of wild.
Speaker B:So like, bring, bring that digitization experience to the communications first and then immediately turn on, on the capturing of the voice data so that you can learn, you know, learn from your operations.
Speaker A:That's a great point.
Speaker A:There's a lot of ways to just smooth out the productivity, regardless of what next level you're going to take.
Speaker A:The technology to create the kind of, to act on the better intelligence too.
Speaker A:I never thought about that.
Speaker A:So where does it go next then?
Speaker A:Like, where.
Speaker A:You know, we've talked about, you know, the, I mean, this is, I mean, essentially this is tech that's all available today if you want to get behind it and start investing in it.
Speaker A:But like, where do things go next in terms of what we're talking about what are the capabilities that are, that are down the road.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's really just my favorite thing that we do every day is we sit here and talk about that.
Speaker B:And the speed of innovation today is incredible compared to just a few months ago.
Speaker B:So what we're seeing and what we're focused on, again, talking to customers in the market.
Speaker B:So first, real time, like real time agentic, not reactive, where it's like, hey, what do I do when the customer return this?
Speaker B:But the agent hearing the conversations and then maybe proactively jumping in and saying, hey, look, last time this happened, here's what you can do, right?
Speaker B:Or you know, proactively, like, you know, asking for a size 10 and being like, hey, listen, there's no tens, but we have a ten and a half and a nine and a half.
Speaker B:Like you want to ask them if they have those.
Speaker B:So just this sort of proactive real time agent as a part of the channel that's, we're having a lot of conversations around that.
Speaker B:The other, the other thing that's really exciting for me, honestly.
Speaker B:And we're, we're working with some really big retailers on this.
Speaker B:Like, we're, we're talking, I don't know if you know what PBX integration is, but, but in, in short, your, your, you know, your communication platform also not just being your push to talk answer, but also being integrated into your phone system, right?
Speaker B:So that associates are answering the phone, talking to customers, are talking to each other.
Speaker B:Again, the single pane of glass concept.
Speaker B:And so in my head, where I'm going is like, oh, wow, like so, so you can, you can talk on the phone with each other.
Speaker B:You can talk on the phone externally with customers.
Speaker B:You're having push to talk conversations.
Speaker B:You're, you're sharing, you know, it's multimedia, right?
Speaker B:So you're sharing images, you're texting and all of that.
Speaker B:Like, we're just adding to that operational data, right?
Speaker B:So now imagine commingling like, hey, when.
Speaker B:How many times a day are customers asking this information and how is my frontline reacting to it, right?
Speaker B:And how many times am I saying, no, I don't have the product, and I hang up, right?
Speaker B:Like, instead of some other proactive way of coaching my front line to, to, you know, try and encourage, you know, some sort of a positive interaction with that, with that customer.
Speaker B:So where we're going is, is bringing, we're, you know, we're talking about it today actually in my office.
Speaker B:We're like, it's no longer push to Talk.
Speaker B:It's, it's push to connect.
Speaker B:It's in every way that you might connect with, with your co associates or with customers.
Speaker B:Like, we're taking Zillow into this, like, push to connect.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So when you need to connect to another human, internal, external, we're going to do that through our platform.
Speaker B:But, but like, to, to me, where that goes next is, is the data.
Speaker B:Like, the data is what's exciting.
Speaker B:Again, going back to measuring the inputs and not just the outputs.
Speaker B:Like, how is it operating?
Speaker B:What is happening now?
Speaker B:You have real insight to what.
Speaker B:We all do this, right?
Speaker B:Our zoom meetings are all recorded.
Speaker B:You go back and get a summary of the notes of what happened.
Speaker B:Why, why isn't it the same on the front line?
Speaker B:It's exactly the same.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So that, that's exactly where we're headed.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker A:And yeah, and the digitization is the key piece there and it's a foundational element of a connected store.
Speaker A:Ultimately, at the end of the day, that's what we're talking about here is like, how do you create a more connected store?
Speaker A:Push to connect.
Speaker A:I mean, you said it right?
Speaker A:I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's why we're having this conversation.
Speaker A:All right, but I, before I let you go, I would be really remiss, you know, if I wasn't very direct in saying, you know, having worked in stores, getting tech to work inside stores, we can have webinars, we can have discussions, we can have podcasts, we can make it sound really easy, but you and I both know it's a lot harder than it appears.
Speaker A:So what are some of the lessons you've learned along the way as you've tried to implement this?
Speaker A:What are some watch outs you'd have for the retailers out there?
Speaker B:Look, I probably had some of the same sort of like, questions in my head, Chris, before coming to Zillow a little over a year ago now, I came from a world of doing, you know, software implementations that took six months at best.
Speaker B:Couple years kind of normal, like big ERP overhauls in, in terms of how people operate or how customers operate, man.
Speaker B:Like, we rolled out to 600 plus store locations in less than 90 days.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:With one of our customers, for example, the ease, like, and this is, this is huge kudos to the team at Zillow that got us to where we're at today in terms of just really easy deployment of the software.
Speaker B:You know, just an app that goes on their smart devices that they already have in the hands of their associates or combined with their, you know, byod, they bring their own devices.
Speaker B:Like, honestly, I was also sort of questioning one of, one of my first all hands meetings here at Zillow.
Speaker B:I got the question of, hey, you know, what are you going to do about sort of making implementations for our customers easier?
Speaker B:And I was like, I looked over at, I won't, I won't say his name, but I looked over it at him.
Speaker B:He knows who he is.
Speaker B:And I was like, what are you talking about?
Speaker B:Like, easier, easier than this.
Speaker B:Like, let me show you the world that I came from.
Speaker B:And of course, like, what I realize is, man, Playbooks.
Speaker B:Like Playbooks.
Speaker B:So that you understand, like, hey, what kind of a, you know, what kind of a retail operation is it?
Speaker B:Is it like a, you know, thousand square foot, 10,000, 100,000 square foot operation?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:So there's things that we're doing in order to make sort of those Playbooks and those, those, that methodology a little bit easier so that out of the box customers can be like, oh, here's my template for how I'm going to configure my channels.
Speaker B:Who should be in them, right?
Speaker B:But, but things like, you know, mdm, MDM integration, out of the box, standard.
Speaker B:Sso.
Speaker B:Right, Standard, right.
Speaker B:So just make it really easy when they log into the device, they're up and running just like they turned it on.
Speaker B:So honestly, like, you know, I'm answering that question with a little bit of a twist in that way because, because honestly, it's not that hard to turn on an app that digitizes the conversation for you.
Speaker B:On, on the flip side, I think, I think what's really cool about, you know, modern technology is that when we're, when we're innovating and bringing new capabilities, it to test those, like you test those in a handful of stores and it's really easy to do that too, right?
Speaker B:You have pointed sort of deployments into those locations and you start testing new capabilities and you don't assume that they're ready for Showtime across the board, right?
Speaker B:You, you start testing with a handful of stores, your kind of biggest, you know, your biggest.
Speaker B:The stores kind of put their hands up.
Speaker B:It's funny, we had a major sort of luxury retailer deploy over the last year and they were planning on going to like roughly 10 stores.
Speaker B:And they came back to me and said, man, like, word got out.
Speaker B:We have like five other stores that are big, begging to be a part of the pilot.
Speaker B:Like, would you guys.
Speaker B:And I'm like, of course.
Speaker B:Like, you got five stores that want to be a part of this pilot.
Speaker B:We're, we're all in.
Speaker B:So you got to find those people who are wanting to test new technology, want to be kind of front end of that experience and want to give you feedback both for, for us as a vendor, but also for you, you know, kind of altering your, your operation.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's good to hear you say that though, because I think that's one of the things that I think sometimes gets lost in the, in the field discussion too, is like, you know, especially with technology the way it is now, if you are willing to get, if you as a retailer and the technology company are willing to hold hands and get, and get your hands dirty together collectively, even in just one or two stores.
Speaker A:The great thing about the stores is if they find something they like, man, they're going to rush to it, you know, and so it's going to make the eventual rollout or further implementation that much easier down the road.
Speaker A:But you've got to start there.
Speaker A:You can't just be doing it like in theory, you know, in a lab somewhere, a workshop.
Speaker A:You've got to be able to like, get it in the hands of people.
Speaker A:Is that true?
Speaker B:Yeah, that's, that's exactly right.
Speaker B:It's funny.
Speaker B:We try and recreate when we roll out new capabilities and we try and test, right.
Speaker B:We got, we put everybody on the same network as Zello, right, which is roughly 100 people, and we're testing things.
Speaker B:But like will the things that we're testing in our office versus the reality of the operation running simultaneous to testing it are two different experiences.
Speaker B:So we try and catch as much as we possibly can.
Speaker B:But when we have these customers that are willing to, you know, test a few things at a time on the front line, where it's a real operation, it's, it's, yeah, it's a completely different.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker A:Gets the whole tailwind behind you.
Speaker A:All right, man.
Speaker A:Well, that was fantastic.
Speaker A:That was fun.
Speaker A:I, I, I think you, I think everyone listening can probably tell that.
Speaker A:I just, I love this topic.
Speaker A:I love the idea of, of the connected store, the smart store, whatever you want to call it, and making the store associates lives as easy as possible and also getting better at retail along the way.
Speaker A:So if soroush, if people found this conversation interesting, they want to get in touch with you.
Speaker A:What's the best way for them to do that?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Thank you, Chris.
Speaker B:Look, I'd say like, if you, if you run store ops or you're flying blind on what's actually happening on the floor.
Speaker B:That's the problem we solve.
Speaker B:You want to talk to me or Zello?
Speaker B:Easily.
Speaker B:Easy enough.
Speaker B:Just sorushello.com hopefully you're gonna, like, type that somewhere, Chris, for them, because I know my name's not the easiest.
Speaker A:It'll be in the podcast description.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker B:And then, of course, Zello.com, which is just hello with a Z.
Speaker B:But, yeah, that's it.
Speaker A:Well, Saroosh, thanks for taking time with us today.
Speaker A:We really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker A:Thanks to producer Ella for producing this podcast.
Speaker A:She always does a fabulous job with all of her edits.
Speaker A:And on behalf of all of us at Omnitalk, as always, be careful out there.