Dollar General is known for providing value to its customers with a wide physical presence, especially in rural America. Little known is that it provides them with a modern digital experience.
That is changing. Charlene Charles, director of operations for the company’s DG Media Network, and Paul Bucalo, senior director of digital and marketing technology, leverage data analytics and targeted messaging strategies to drive value. We strive to provide our customers with a more seamless experience. A chain store that calls itself an “American general store.”
Charles and Bucaro said: Biztech Editor-in-Chief Bob Keaveney talks about the progress of the initiative and what’s next.
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Biztech: Who is Dollar General’s typical customer?
Charles: When you think of our typical customer, think of rural America. 80% of the communities we serve have a population of 20,000 or fewer. They are a close-knit community. Outwardly, most are family members.
We have over 19,000 locations and people look to us to save them time and money. The locations of these stores provide convenience and help people purchase branded products at lower prices.
We pride ourselves on reaching communities and reaching hard-to-reach customers that many other retailers don’t or can’t. Collectively, they have significant purchasing power.
Biztech: How digitally savvy are your customers?
Charles: I’ve often used the term “mythbusters.” We have information that shows that customers who engage with us digitally are twice as productive as the average customer. They engage with us all the time in the store. Our shoppers do a lot of things online before going to the store. They shop in advance, create a list, check prices, and explore our digital coupons and cashback offers. They’re thinking, “How can I get everything in place before I go to the local directorate?” They are very passionate about digital and we see that over and over again. They engage with us online and then go to a store to make a purchase.
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Biztech: This group of consumers engages with brands digitally differently than other retailers. What is your digital strategy?
Charles: For us, when we say “cohort,” it suggests that everyone is either analog or online, and we see it more as a spectrum. That’s why we maintain an omnichannel approach. We’re diversifying touchpoints to ensure we’re talking to everyone, no matter where they are on their journey, including email, connected TV, meta, and websites. We also continue to publish printed materials. In some areas.
Biztech:You’ve talked about the importance of providing a consistent experience for customers online and in-store. How will that play out at Dollar General?
Bukalo: Imagine a customer looking at a weekly circular. It can be done on our site, on your smartphone or in print. If our app is installed, when a customer walks into a store, we push a notification to their phone letting them know there’s an offer they can ‘clip’ on the spot and save money. They fill their baskets, go to the sales location and redeem those offers. It combines digital and analog.
Biztech: Can you talk about what you do with data collection and analysis to get the most intimate portrait possible of each customer?
Charles: When we talk about a unified view of the customer, we mean vendor-amplified, owned, and paid space. We don’t want to duplicate engagement and marketing efforts. You don’t want to waste your investment.
We also want to properly suppress it. If you’re working on a larger effort, there’s no need to target the exact same group of customers and try to convert them into a single item. We emphasize this because many retailers’ media networks are siled. We work together to gain an integrated view of our customers.
Biztech: How has this translated into technology adoption?
Bukalo: We worked hard to consolidate all customer data into a customer data warehouse and launch a data lake that captures signals from stores and transactions. We can take these signals and cascade them into a clean zone, and we can start drawing conclusions from that data through machine learning models and more traditional types of data analysis. This is data zone 1, or the traditional “IT zone,” and it requires technical skills to get into it. That’s where our decision science team comes into play.
And just recently, we started launching self-service capabilities for businesses. It’s a customer data platform that enables our employees and partners to discover unique audiences based on the attributes they’re looking for. The customer data warehouse then connects to the digital experience, whether it’s a content management system with a library of offers or connected to Adobe Target with personalization and experimentation capabilities. Masu. You’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t from a customer experience perspective.
Biztech: Where is Dollar General on its digital journey? What’s next?
Charles: I see a place where we can engage with brands and bring their holistic journey to life. It’s a constant, evergreen approach, rather than, “Here’s your audience, here’s your campaign, and here are your results.” You’ll get an answer faster that way. More A/B testing and experimentation is the key to solving these business problems.
Bukalo: We want to move on to multivariate experiments. Once you can do that efficiently and scale, the next step is to build the customer experience. There is no need to wait and evaluate the results. It runs in real-time based on what the algorithm has learned about the customer. By doing so, you can go beyond a standard offer for everyone and get an offer customized for your specific audience based on knowledge of their past behavior.
