Schnucks has been around for 75 years and it has lasted that long because it constantly engages and listens to its loyal customers, developing locally relevant and intimate relationships.
Those relationships form the solid foundation of brand loyalty at Schnucks.
“Within marketing, we have your standard advertising marketing, omni-channel, and multi-channel departments,” Schnucks President and Chief Operating Officer Anthony Hucker explained to Loyalty360. “Within those, Schnucks operates a Merchandise Analytics Center (MAC) and we spend a lot of time on customer research in focus groups, listening to our customers. We also have external market research studies. I find one of the most powerful ones to be those where I can listen and watch existing, lapsed, and competitors’ customers behind a one-way mirror in our focus groups. I believe we get a lot of our intelligence from that type of engagement with our customers.”
Founded in St. Louis in 1939, Schnucks is a family-owned company led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Todd Schnuck. The company operates 98 stores, 93 in-store pharmacies, and employs 15,000 teammates in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa.
Hucker said customers are getting savvier every day.
“Price transparency is here,” he said. “It’s not around the corner. Showrooming is here. Managing information and the velocity of change are where great retailers can differentiate themselves. It’s important to know your customers in order to deliver what they want and need. Taking our Midwestern region, for example, there is less population density in Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Indiana. It’s important that you find crossover strategies that are relevant to Generations X, Y, and Z.”
Among the brand’s biggest challenges is building brand architecture.
“We are a premier Midwestern grocer with nearly 100 stores in five states,” Hucker said. “One of our primary goals, from the marketing perspective, is to build our brand architecture−the rudimentary, foundation blocks about who we are as a company. Schnucks has a strong advertising platform, but there is room for improvement on the marketing side and on the omni/multichannel side. Obviously, the world is changing rapidly and our customers are changing−and we are working hard to ensure that we keep pace with it and them. Being an omni-channel retailer is about flexing the format as well as the channel.”
Some suppliers believe they have to have the brightest and shiniest new toys, Hucker explained.
“You have to sift through all of that to see what will resonate well with customers,” he said. “When we make decisions, they’re based on three things: quantitative analytics, qualitative research and gut instinct. That instinct, of course, is based on your experience and what you believe success looks like in a particular realm. Again, it’s about having people on your team who are a lot smarter than you running these teams. My job is to be the question, not the answer.”
With a team of 15,000 teammates in stores, offices and warehouses, Hucker said the company has found it needs a series of missions to satisfy its overarching vision, which is to “nourish people’s lives. Ideally, we are all working on goals that strengthen our ability to nourish peoples’ lives through food and nutrition, pharmacy and healthcare, and community partnerships. By becoming intimately involved in the well-being of our customers, we can be locally relevant and very nimble.”
About the Author: Mark Johnson
Mark is CEO & CMO of Loyalty360. He has significant experience in selling, designing and administering prepaid, loyalty/CRM programs, as well as data-driven marketing communication programs.