Using technology to handle labor woes, the importance of maintaining menu consistency while adding limited-time offers (LTOs), and how getting customers to enter a convenience store starts with the moment they’re looking at the building were among the subjects CSP’sAt Your Convenience podcast recently discussed with Steve Morris (pictured), president of St. Paul, Minnesota-based Retail Management Inc.
Retail Management Inc. handles the operations, marketing and accounting functions for any small-format retailer including convenience stores and truck stops, vape shops and liquor stores. Operations include staffing and supervising, product replenishment and ordering, and vendor negotiation.
What follows is an edited transcript from the podcast:
At Your Convenience: Please talk about some of the biggest challenges in running convenience stores today.
Morris: Typically the first thing I hear from owners and for us as we run stores all across the country is labor woes. How do we get the job done and meet the needs of the customers with the labor force we have? That’s a constant battle and challenge. How do we leverage technology to handle labor woes? If we look at what that means for the industry, that’s either self-checkout or that’s autonomous foodservice where it’s doing the work for you, and you don’t have to go out and brew the coffee.
At Your Convenience: Could you share one or two tips on improving food service operations at c-stores?
Morris: The trick to foodservice is it has to be the same every time, but it has to be new every time. You have your repeat customers, your core customers, who are going to order the same thing. They come in for their ham and cheese croissant and their 16-ounce coffee every day, and you’ve got to be able without fail to deliver on that. But at the same time, you want to expand your horizons and appeal to different demographics and grow the customer base.
“The LTO world is trying to figure out what is trending.”
So, you’ve got to still execute the everyday stuff as well as trying new things and figuring out what works and then figuring out what the next thing is after that. From an operation standpoint, that means every single day you have to have your checklist, your operational to-do lists, running without fail. Doesn't matter who’s working. Doesn’t matter if it’s raining or snowing or it’s 70 degrees and sunny.
You have to execute on those operational things of washing, rinsing and sanitizing all the equipment, stocking it and cleaning it and ordering it. And all of those things are, in a football world, called blocking and tackling, right? That’s the everyday stuff you have to execute on, but at the same time in the football world, you have to come up with new plays and new defenses and offenses. And so foodservice operationally is you have to do the basics without fail, but you also have to keep an eye on what's next. It’s a constant evolution.
“The trick to foodservice is it has to be the same every time, but it has to be new every time.”
At Your Convenience: Could you talk a little bit more on the importance of maintaining menu consistency while sprinkling in LTOs? You previously told me how you can never take basic black coffee or a hamburger, if that’s in your wheelhouse, off your menu. But you have the peanut butter burger, the Juicy Lucy, at some of the stores you manage.
Morris: The cheeseburger and burger are the staples, the ones that are expected almost as much as roller grill items are expected in the industry. And when somebody sees your brand or your store, there’s an expectation that you’re going to deliver upon that. But there’s always that element of being surprised and, “Maybe I’ll try something new.” And so you brought up the peanut butter Juicy Lucy, which, if you just listen to it on the podcast, you’re like, “What is he doing with peanut butter and a burger?” But I’m telling you, it works. And that really is appealing to a sense of adventure and appealing to a sense of, “Hey, it’s how you market that.” It’s salty and sweet. It’s a stuffed burger with peanut butter. And then we put a blackberry jam on the toasted bun.
I’m going to back it up with great signage in really appetizing pictures and descriptors. The key to that is to always consistently deliver the basics, the cheeseburgers, the black coffees of the world. This means it can never be cold. It always has to be the right temp and fresh and appetizing, but at the same time when that person walks in the door, or maybe you get one of those folks outside fueling and you appeal to their sense of adventure, and they say, “I’ll try that.”
That’s what the LTO world is, trying to figure out what is trending. I spend a lot of time with our food vendors like Sysco Foods and US Foods and our wholesalers to really ride the wave of what is trending. Hot honey is absolutely a trending thing right now—and how do we infuse that hot honey into our products? Is it a roller grill product? I wouldn’t have picked that up had I not had those relationships with the suppliers and gone to the National Restaurant Association convention and listened to that dialogue of what’s trending.
“Foodservice operationally is you have to do the basics without fail, but you also have to keep an eye on what’s next. It’s a constant evolution.”
At Your Convenience: When we spoke previously, you talked about the McRib effect and to a lesser degree, the Shamrock Shake effect. Could you revisit that?
Morris: One of the common things that I hear from owners and operators is, “This LTO worked great; we’re going to put it on the menu.” Hold on. The LTO worked because it was limited. You created the drive. You created the marketing necessity for it. So that’s the Shamrock Shake and McRib. If you put the Shamrock Shake and the McRib in 365 days, are those top 20 menu items? Likely not.
But because you’ve built a marketing campaign around it—I can only get it for a period of time—you create that desire and create that purchase intent, right?
At Your Convenience: Let’s talk about menu planning. It’s June right now. How far out are you planning?
Morris: I do a 12-month marketing calendar. In the fall, I’m working with food suppliers all the time. Around October, everybody comes out with the shipper calendars. By Nov. 30, I'm locked in. I can always make changes, but I know what my calendar is. I do 60-day marketing periods. I know that July and August is the Olympics, so I’m always going to try to figure out how to reference the Olympics.
“Hot honey is absolutely a trending thing right now—and how do we infuse that hot honey into our products?”
At Your Convenience: You had talked about the LTOs and how you advertise them on the fuel pumps and so forth. How do you get a customer to turn a gas station trip into a foodservice shopping trip? How do you tap into the sights, smells, excellent photography? How do you entice the customer, potential customer, to come in the door?
Morris: I wish I had that complete answer for you because I would be an absolute millionaire in the industry. And that’s a constant changing and evolving battle. Is it digital? Is it at the fueling point? Is it storefront signage? I think it’s all of those things, and I think the answer lies in making sure you’re executing consistently on all of those programs from the outside to the inside. And one thing that I like to remember is if I’m lucky enough to have gotten the person to have turned left into my parking lot—meaning it was a not just an easy right turn into my store—I really want to capitalize on that effort from that customer. So, how does my storefront look like? In most seasonal locations you can plant flowers or at least make sure the landscaping is taken care of.
Also, how is the paint? Do you need repairs? How is the maintenance and your facility? If your grass is long outside in the summertime and you have weeds all over, it’s a very difficult food purchase. If you have trash all over your parking lot and the trash can is overflowing, it's a very difficult food purchase. That purchase adventure starts at the driveway, at the moment they’re looking at the outside of your store.
Also, is it clean and bright inside? Am I leveraging marketing materials, signage, etcetera, to make food appetizing? How do I use food photography and how do I leverage those marketing materials from the outside to get them to walk in? Because once the customer walks in, I stand a better chance [of making a sale].
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