Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor® blog at Retaildoc.com

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I attended the National Retail Federation’s 99th Annual Big Show in New York this past week. While primarily geared to the biggest retailers, they had an excellent half-day sponsored by American Express OPEN for independent retailers, which was a first and should be expanded.  

No real surprises as to what the most prevalent topics would be: social media, new ways of using technology both online and in-person, and m-commerce (mobile phone payments and shopping.)

Personalities are the focus of my new book so I might as well tell you now, I’m a Driver personality; an innate fixer. While I think it was a great convention, here are fourth things that would have made it even better – maybe next year when the Big Show turns 100:

1 – A Giant Twitter Board.

Instead of rehashing social media do’s and don’ts like it was 2008, how about a dozen huge HD displays showing actual tweets about the largest brands in attendance. Bonus would be displaying all the #nrf11 tweets in real time – both good and bad. The board could do the same with Facebook Fan pages and others.  It would have brought the need for monitoring social media, personality of your business, etc home to all the attendees much better and sparked dialogue among attendees.

2 – Wi-Fi Throughout The Javitts Center.

This has to be embarrassing to NRF that this facility can’t provide reliable connections. NRF should partner up with their solution providers AT&T and Verizon and the rest to fix it.  Social media was worthless on the show floor and cost vendors some buzz.

3) Split The Award.

The NRF Foundation Customers’ Choice award, conducted by BIGresearch came up with these results:

• 1. L.L.Bean
• 2. Overstock.com
• 3. Zappos.com
• 4. Amazon.com
• 5. QVC
• 6. Coldwater Creek
• 7. HSN
• 8. Lands’ End
• 9. JC Penney
• 10. (tie): Kohl’s
• 10. (tie): Nordstrom

What disturbed me about these awards was that most were online shopping pages. Though 90% of business is still done in stores, 8 of these awards went to only 9 or 10% of the industry; LL Bean only has about 14 stores nationwide.

“Customer Service” is a very gray term. Was it because you could return things easily? You got great coupons? They had free shipping? Is that “customer service”? Not in my book.

This is a dangerous message to me that it is not about PEOPLE but policies. I would suggest NRF split this award going forward into the top 5 online shopping pages (like Overstock.com, Amazon, etc.) –and the top 5 bricks and mortar stores that may also have a multi-channel approach (Nordstrom, JC Penney, Carte & Barrel, etc.) Otherwise, it’s just a way of rewarding the programmers, not the people who interface with customers every day. Which leads me to my fourth…

4) Remember It’s About People, Not Computers.

Got it technology is important. Got it analysts can slice and dice information a million ways. Got it the IT gurus know who’s shopping. But how can we hear over and over again about the “customer experience” and leave out the people engagement? How do retailers surprise and delight when management has decided to manage by % of labor, not human capital?  Smart retailers will realize that they need to sell the merch in 2010, not just stack it.  That doesn’t come about by price-matching and encouraging customers to stare into the palm of their hands, but engaging them with interesting and interested employees.

The National Retail Federation is a great organization that brings the industry giants in one place each year as well as sponsoring various events and programs throughout the year.  If you attended the convention this year and any of these ideas have value or if you can think of others, please include in your comments below.

Tomorrow:  putting some of the flagship retail brands to the test in SOHO and lessons for success.

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