Oct 2, 2018

By Doug Baker, FMI Vice President, Industry Relations - Private Brands, Technology

The customer is always right. That mantra was engrained in me at an early age when I worked at my first food retail job. My employer trained me well; I was empathetic, responsive and exuded a positive attitude – even when a shopper was having a bad day and I was the closest sounding board for his or her complaint. Since it’s Customer Service Week, many of our members wish to remind their associates of their own core values as they relate to serving their customer and find new ways to better engage with shoppers across their communications channels.

One new way to better engage with shoppers is through a new digital tool called SmartLabel®. At a very basic level, we can all anticipate the question, “Is there [blank] in this product?” We’ve asked it ourselves. Thanks to a SmartLabel®, associates can easily show a consumer how to download the app on their own phone to investigate ingredients beyond the traditional label. You can literally help your customers discover not only what ingredients are included in products, but also why those ingredients are in the product, what they do, or even where they come from by using SmartLabel®. SmartLabel can include detailed descriptions on:

  • Allergens;
  • Usage instructions;
  • Information about how the product was produced;
  • How animals were treated during the development process; or
  • The product’s environmental impact.

We have an opportunity to empower grocery shoppers to have more confidence and address their questions about the food and consumer or household products they buy. More than 7 in 10 shoppers want to find out more about the grocery products they buy than they are currently able to get with traditional on-package labels, according to a national survey*.

Shoppers can instantaneously access product information by simply scanning a product’s QR code using the SmartLabel app or one’s camera feature on a smartphone, going to www.smartlabel.org, visiting the SmartLabel product’s landing page online, or calling a product’s 1-800 number to be given SmartLabel information over the phone.

Visibility for the SmartLabel program is growing, so even if your company is not participating in the program, more than 30,000 food, beverage, personal care, household and other products throughout food retail stores are already using SmartLabel.  

Help us get the word out and share a new SmartLabel associate training video with your employees. You can share the YouTube link in your corporate e-newsletters or even request a file for your intranet site. During Customer Service Week, you have the ability to empower your shoppers and further prove your associates as trusted authorities.

* Survey Methodology: Atomik Research was commissioned to run a general population online survey of 1,002 adults in the United States who do the grocery shopping for their homes, whether independently or shopping for others within the household. The survey, conducted May 3-4, 2018, has a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points with a confidence interval of 95 percent.