AT&T is getting serious about retail with the opening of a flagship store in Chicago. Photo: Courtesy of AT&T
Since everyone started using mobile phones, the mission of all those AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile storefronts has been to sign up customers. And it’s worked magnificently. Practically everyone who wants a cell phone now has one — “100% penetration” in the parlance of telecom geeks. The question now for the retail experts at the nation’s wireless carriers is what new purpose can all that expensive real estate serve?
AT&T’s new flagship store, which opens today along Chicago’s tony Michigan Avenue, offers one answer. The design and function of the 10,000-square-foot space — and the thinking behind it — speak to how our bond with our phones has changed in the last two decades, and where the profits of these massive wireless companies will come from next. It’s less about selling you the next handset, and more about selling you on an experience.
If you are like most customers of the nation’s second-largest wireless carrier, your current relationship with AT&T is mostly financial. You pay them every month, and occasionally you shake your fist at the sky when a call is dropped and curse the day you had your heart set on an iPhone. From the moment you walk into the Michigan Avenue store, the experience is meant to start changing that hardened, transactional relationship.
The obvious retail model to follow would have been the Apple’s, but Paul Roth, AT&T’s president of retail sales and service, says he didn’t start with their longtime partner when initially sketching out the multimillion-dollar store. “Our starting point wasn’t, who is the best retailer?” Roth says, “but who has the best customer service?” Roth and his team spent time with Harley Davidson, Ritz Carlton, Starbucks and Nordstrom to see what they could learn. “Our business has nothing to do with coffee or motorcycles. We were trying to understand how to build that type of customer loyalty.”
Clearly customer service is one of the key lessons. As you walk into the 40-employee store, workers have been instructed to walk up to you within 10 feet and 10 seconds, introduce themselves and then ask your name — a Nordstrom flair. As you scan the reclaimed teak interior, let’s say you want to know where they’ve stashed the latest tablets. Stealing a page from Ritz Carlton, an employee will escort you there — never point the way, that would be uncivilized — and help you get started.
Whether you’re there to simply pay a bill, ogle new phones or the compare latest tech for in-car communication and home security, an employee walks you to the door to send you off when you’re done.
“It’s like they were a guest in your home,” says Roth. “We believe the future of success in retail is when you can create an emotional, engaging experience. That’s what we are trying to do here.”
Roth acknowledges that “emotional and engaging” is perhaps not the way most people would describe their experience with a visit to an AT&T store (crowded and bland are two words that come to mind). “It’s evolving,” is all he would say when asked to characterize what it’s like now.
Roth’s point is that AT&T knows there is a great deal it can improve upon, and it’s making a huge effort to change how its stores look and feel. And there is a huge amount at stake. While you might think everyone just buys their gear online, the stores are still AT&T’s largest sales channel for hardware, according to Roth.
It’s the software on display, however, that hints at where the future lies, not just for AT&T, but every carrier.
The store is divided into distinct areas that focus on getting the most out of your gear at home, during work, for entertainment, and in your car. In each zone, employees with specific areas of expertise help you with the latest software and services for your smartphone or tablet. A fitness section features Fitbit’s exercise tracking gizmo and a wireless scale. An all-electric Nissan leaf features a prototype service that can track the speed, location and driving style of your teenage drivers.
Are there phones and tablets? Sure, but they aren’t the stars anymore—it’s what you can do with them as they wedge themselves into every aspect of our lives that matters. That’s Roth’s goal with the new Chicago store: to help AT&T build a relationship with customers that makes the wireless carrier a constant in their lives, a helpful resource in all things mobile and wireless. The flagship store is the highest expression of that intent, and while its teak and glass design won’t be exported to the 2,300 other AT&T stores, the approach will be, he says, including the emphasis on your entire digital life and a new standard for customer service.
Will that translate to an emotional, engaging experience? Maybe, especially if superior customer service becomes a distinct part of what going to an AT&T store is all about. A warm, genuine greeting, and an escort in lieu of a pointed finger can make any experience better. Even paying your phone bill.
