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OUR RETAILERS Retailers address the pandemic WARREN WILMOT OTR CEO What has been your greatest lesson to date, navigating through this pandemic? One of the greatest \\\\\\\[lessons\\\\\\\] we’ve taken from the unprecedented situation with COVID-19 is how well the OTR team has responded to the rapidly changing environment. This has been largely due to our operational structure, supporting more than 150 sites, and strong investment in communication and logistics. Having 24/seven trading hours for our sites and drive-through service at nearly 30 per cent of our sites also meant that OTR was prepared for the strong demand from customers for supermarket essentials during this pandemic. With all the challenges you’ve faced, what has been your proudest response? We’ve been proud to call our OTR team members superheroes as ‘essential workers’ and share that message at all sites on our digital screens. Customers have welcomed this message as well. What extra measures have you needed to implement to provide a safe and highly productive environment for both your staff and your suppliers? From early March, OTR began to introduce a range of additional measures to help protect our customers, team members and the community. Automatic hand sanitisers were installed in more than 150 OTR stores, including the QSR food outlets within OTR, where takeaway and drive-through service could continue. Sterile wipes and paper towels have always been provided to customers using fuel pumps, which was brought to the attention of our customers through simple and effective forecourt signage and social media posts. Additionally, customers are being advised to stay 1.5m away from each other through floor markings in-store. To further create a productive and safe environment, the OTR app has also positioned our business well to adapt to the government requirements. This has enabled OTR to encourage all customers to: • Pay at the pump for their fuel with the OTR app or credit card (where available). • Pre-order their favourite coffee and essentials on the OTR app, and collect in-store, via the Night Pay window or via our drive-through (where available). • Make payment by card or in-app rather than cash as much as possible. • Use hand sanitiser provided at all sites. • Use sterile wipes or paper towels provided on the forecourt to handle the petrol bowser. 14 CONVENIENCE WORLD MAY/JUN, 2020 Human behaviour is never easy to navigate. What positives have you experienced from both consumers and suppliers? We’ve been pleased with the support and response from our suppliers, such as Lion, Tiptop and Fleurieu Milk, which have adapted to the demand by providing additional deliveries to ensure we can meet our customer needs as much as possible. It’s also been positive to see customers supporting safety requests from staff and respecting the hard work of our team members under very trying circumstances. Where does our industry still need help and what response do you need? Fuel sales have dropped significantly due to everyone being encouraged to stay home. This has had a dramatic impact on our industry. However, OTR’s balance of food and shop essentials, in addition to fuel, has softened some of this impact across our business. How has your community interaction changed over the last couple of months? OTR has always had a focus on in-app pre-ordering of food, coffee and shop items on the OTR app, which became an advantage in encouraging contactless payments and minimal in-store transactions. Our open hours also enabled customers to shop for whatever they need, whenever they needed to buy it, which has reduced crowds and promoted social distancing in-store. Our community support through ‘OTRGive’ has seen us donated nearly $270,000 since the program launched and this has continued throughout the pandemic, with additional food care packs delivered to vulnerable community members isolating, in partnership with local \\\\\\\[South Australian\\\\\\\] supplier Skala Bakery. If you had a message or a call to arms to our entire industry, what would it be? We’re an essential service. We’re always here for our customers to provide retail convenience excellence. We’re keeping great team members in jobs and furthering their careers. This has never been more important as an industry than right now. “OTR has always had a focus on in-app pre-ordering of food, coffee and shop items on the OTR app, which became an advantage in encouraging contactless payments and minimal in-store transactions.”