Shoulder

The effectiveness of live videos impacts employee and customer satisfaction

Retailer

1100

LATAM

With 61 retail stores for women across 15 Brazilian states, Shoulder has been renowned in the fashion market since 1980 for always staying up to speed with the latest international trends. Their mission is to "bring to the Brazilian woman clothing with an urban DNA that breathes sophistication, elegance, versatility, and comfort." Of their 1,100 employees, about 700 work in their stores.

The company began trading with no communications department at all, but has gone on to become a pioneer in this area. Now, a little over two months since the implementation of Workplace, the company has made real gains, including a significant increase in their reach and also their employee involvement, which has doubled as compared to the prior corporate social network.

Results

75%of their employees joined Workplace in the first month

93%of those employees use the mobile platform

80%are active monthly users

135More than 135 groups created in less than one month.

How Workplace has helped

Live videos and a change of mindset

At Shoulder, Workplace has proved to be more than just a tool for work and communications. Today, the platform has become an effective network for decision making. The employees stay updated not only through the groups but also through surveys, questionnaires, and, above all, videos. Despite the short time since the tool was implemented, the Board can already see positive change in the team's mindset and way of thinking, and in the performance both among the retail staff and the operations and administrative staff. Communication with the stores has become faster and more assertive, and the teams are working more productively.

The videos are the employees' favorite resource. The quality department, for example, uses live video to stay aligned with the product specifications. They also use videos to explain why, for example, vaping is not allowed in some rooms, or to give advice on looks to help with the sales process. The live tips on looks and combinations are the responsibility of the marketing department, which even has a dedicated group called the Fashion Lab. This use of live videos is an effective way to share experiences and also, in this case, product care, which helps to improve their customer service and increase their sales. The videos offering advice on looks reached more than 400 people in less than three days. Also, the visual merchandising team has started broadcasting weekly live videos showing how to set up the store window displays.

Integration of all employees

In the retail segment, when employees are distributed across different regions, nothing is more effective than having a tool that guarantees interactivity without geographic limitations. All Shoulder employees can use the platform and 85% of them have already created an account. Of these, 80% are active monthly users and 93% use the tool on mobile devices. The company divides its personnel into small multidisciplinary groups, called squads, each of which have specific objectives. For this reason, Workplace's "groups" resource fitted them like a glove.

In line with their plans, they no longer use WhatsApp for business purposes and, naturally, it has been replaced by Workchat, the only messenger that can be used to communicate with the CEO. More than 50% of the employees communicate on a weekly basis via Workchat.

Live videos with the CEO

The day Workplace launched at the company, the CEO Beny Majtlis greeted the employees with a live video, taking the opportunity to emphasize the company's goals in implementing the tool. Even taking into account employees on other shifts who had not yet registered on the platform that afternoon, 86 people saw the live transmission. Today, the video has been seen by more than 700 employees and has 115 comments.

The tool also allowed the company to do something they never would have been able to before: Through Workplace, the employees were able to watch the CEO and product planning team's business trip to China. From the other side of the world, the team sent videos and shared the experience directly with employees, who felt like part of the entourage.

Majtlis has made numerous live videos as well as posting other videos to the platform, and the Board believes that the CEO's active involvement has increased the sense of belonging among employees. The ability to talk live with all the employees brought Shoulder another benefit: Before implementing the platform, the opening of a new store meant having to wait for photos of the event to be able to share them with the rest of the company. Now, that sharing takes place in real time and the new store's differentiating features can be shown directly in a live video.

A young tool for a young audience

The majority of the employees are between 25 and 35 years old, so it was essential for the company to obtain a tool that would match their values and needs. Workplace allowed more fluid communication, with more expressive language thanks to the use of emoji, gifs, and videos. Now, the employees behave like bloggers and communicate using the kinds of terms used by digital influencers, which has made their daily work more relaxed, fun and—most importantly—more interactive. As a result, employee satisfaction has increased.

For the CEO, Workplace is perfect, since it brings him into the young people's world as well as providing the tools needed for the company to be able to integrate their physical and digital channels and follow retail trends in real time.

Sales personnel always kept in the loop

Although they have not been using the platform for long, already the employees of Shoulder cannot imagine working without Workplace. The agility it gives them to solve problems and the ability to exchange information are key to the satisfaction among employees, customers, and the Board.

With Workplace, the marketing team sends to sales personnel the content that clients will see on Instagram, enriched with advice for each product, such as a blouse with a different way to tie it, or a scarf that can be worn in various ways, thereby helping with the sales process. That way, nothing is missed: The employees are always fully equipped to respond to a customer, even if their questions are about the latest post they just saw on Instagram.

Thanks to the platform's agility and its file-sharing feature, which is integrated into their internal solutions, the tool has left their email inboxes empty. Now, any new software acquired by the company needs to offer integration with Workplace as a prerequisite.

The company is also planning to implement bots to provide automatic assistance to the employees and relieve the pressure from some of the departments, starting with Human Resources.