Back in 2016, Tesco CEO Dave Lewis said that the entire Tesco team was focused on serving customers a little better every day, with new fresh food brands being picked up ahead of expectations, removing reasons for customers to shop elsewhere. And it really is. At the end of 2022, Tesco holds a leading position in the UK grocery market. Much of this achievement is based on the advanced digital technology that Tesco began to adopt consistently a few years ago. We are talking about the My Tesco service and our tesco/experience connectivity.
My Tesco – a digital service
Tesco is the UK's leading grocery retailer, accounting for a quarter of all offline grocery sales and more than half of all online grocery sales.
Tesco, while introducing effective digital sales technology, is exploring the opportunities and challenges of using the Internet as a complementary channel to traditional retailing. Today, grocery sales through online services have become higher than traditional in-store grocery shopping.
Tesco's loyalty program involves registering a customer with the My Tesco system. My Tesco account becomes the platform for the registered customer to do shopping. With the help of this account Tesco's strategy of making online retailing profitable is realized.
We wrote about the My Tesco loyalty program here. Over the past 15 years, Tesco has transformed its customer experience, business model and operating model digitally by investing in a modern click-and-collect website, a digitised in-store experience and a customer loyalty platform based on data capture and granular processing.
To support its digital service, Tesco is restructuring its retail sites, adding new customer service departments in shops and changing opening hours. The company is also cutting operating costs by £1.5bn, including by improving the "efficiency and responsiveness" of its distribution system, as well as simplifying its shop operating model.
To support its digital service, Tesco is restructuring its retail sites, adding new customer service departments in shops and changing opening hours. The company is also cutting operating costs by £1.5bn, including by improving the "efficiency and responsiveness" of its distribution system, as well as simplifying its shop operating model.
The new changes included the introduction of fees for online order fulfilment services, such as click and collect, which were previously free. The company has also improved service levels by introducing services such as click and collect within a day.
Tesco was the first retailer to make the shift from 'bricks and mortar' to 'bricks and clicks' with the emergence of Tesco Direct, an online grocery platform with 'click-and-collect' functionality.
How to login at https://www.ourtesco.com/experience
To offer additional convenience to shoppers and improve the profitability of the business model by reducing the cost of home delivery, Tesco created an omni-channel 'click-and-collect' function whereby shoppers placed orders online and picked up their packaged products at their chosen pick-up point.
You can log in to ourtesco.com/experience from https://login.ourtesco.com
Here you will need to provide Username (@tesco.com ID) and password.
The user can then proceed with the selection and purchase of the products. Once the order has been collected, it can be paid for and picked up at a convenient shop.
How ourtesco.com/experience works
Whenever a customer uses ourtesco.com/experience their data is collected and processed to maximise their customer profile. Therefore, Tesco's greatest advantage is the vast amount of data it collects about customers through its loyalty programme. Having this data at Tesco benefits both the brand and the consumer, as Tesco uses this data to improve the customer experience.
For example, Tesco knows what a customer buys most often, how often they shop, how old they are and their shopping patterns. Based on this data, Tesco can remind shoppers to buy something they may run out of, or suggest a similar product from those bought by people with a similar shopping profile. Tesco also uses the data collected for tailored special offers, offering recipes using purchased, or discounts on individual eligible items.
Tesco's data processing approach can combine data from the cash register and mobile device to understand which products a shopper considered but ultimately did not buy. This information is extremely valuable to the company and can help them target shoppers.
Introducing digital in Tesco shops
Tesco is investing heavily in in-store digital initiatives to enhance the new operating model. Shoppers are being offered the prospect of a 'seamless digital experience' in shops.
The first stages of this strategy use handheld 'Scan as you shop' devices and self-checkout counters instead of traditional cash registers. This is how shopping at Tesco is done without the involvement of Tesco employees. From a business perspective, this results in cost savings as fewer employees are required to perform manual checks. The downside of this innovation has been an increase in theft. Tesco is combating this theft by using digital receipt technology and dedicated cameras at the self-service checkout counters, which alert staff in real time to the illegal actions of customers when they are scanning their purchases.
In addition, in-store cameras, record when trays of fruit and vegetables in the fresh produce aisles run out and instantly send messages to shop staff for immediate restocking. The e-labels eliminate the need for Tesco employees to change 5-10 million paper labels each month, freeing up valuable staff time, and saving the company money. Furthermore, electronic shelf labels allow instant price changes throughout the day, allowing Tesco the flexibility to introduce promotional prices. Finally, employees are equipped with portable smart badges that provide stock levels and additional product information when scanned, allowing shop employees to answer customer questions in real time.
Tesco has huge potential in updating its supply chain through digital initiatives. More and more companies are relying on technologies such as sensors and geolocation, robotics, big data and cloud services to achieve supply chain efficiency and cost savings.
