Farm Boy Serves Up Best Shopping Experience with Loop Mobile Customer Engagement

Fresh Food Chain Improves Customer Satisfaction and Provides a Unique Shopping Experience Differentiated from Big Box Retailers and Traditional Grocers

Ottawa, Ontario – December 9, 2013 – Named one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies, Farm Boy™ continues to serve up the best fresh shopping experience with Loop® Mobile Customer Engagement by Benbria. Committed to maximizing customer satisfaction, Farm Boy deployed Loop to engage with customers and act on their insights, requests and comments in real-time.

“Farm Boy is committed to be the fresh food experience service leader,” said Jeff York, CEO of Farm Boy. “We make it a high priority to respond to all of our customer comments and requests as quickly as we possibly can and ensure that our front-line store associates can act on them in real-time. While this might seem like a simple task, there are significant operational hurdles to overcome and do it well.”

Farm Boy investigated several options to address their requirements, including commercially available survey systems, however, they did not provide the level of real-time operational sophistication required for collecting customer comments and directing to the front-line store associates for action and closure.

To meet this need, Farm Boy deployed Loop as part of a tiered roll out plan. As shoppers frequently provide feedback and make requests via comment cards, phone calls and website, Loop assigns responsibility to the department manager best able to act on it. For instance, the manager in the bakery department can be notified via email or text message of specific issues related to baking goods and that they are responsible for taking action and following up with an appropriate response. Customer requests are efficiently tracked, and accountability for closing on customer comments and requests are clear to all stakeholders in all departments. “In addition to providing timely responses to the customer, various staff at Farm Boy now use Loop instead of email as an internal communication tool to discuss and implement operational improvements driven by valuable customer input,” said York.

While Loop is operationally unique in its ability to collect, track and direct actionable customer experience data in real time to staff for action and closure, it also gives Farm Boy the ability to view detailed metrics. Real-time reports measure the employee’s speed of first response and time-to-close on customer comments, as well as staff’s product knowledge, service quality and friendliness – ultimately holding employees accountable to ensuring a consistent shopper experience across all locations.

Now that Farm Boy has experienced first-hand the benefits of the Loop solution for improving the customer experience while significantly reducing operational complexity, Farm Boy plans to extend its existing Loop deployment to give customers a surefire method of delivering their input quickly and easily while shopping using a web-based app on their mobile device. “As we enter the next phase of our deployment, we expect the level of real-time feedback and requests to increase as it becomes even easier for our customers to tell us what they think. As this happens, Loop allows us to have a real-time interaction with our customers to help us improve every day,” added York.

“For more than 30 years Farm Boy has captured the hearts of shoppers seeking quality fresh products and friendly service,” said Andrea Baptiste, CEO, Benbria. “Being recognized as one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies is indicative of Farm Boy’s personalized service and their commitment to the quality of the shopping experience. Partnering with Farm Boy to that end has helped them to create a deeper personal connection between their employees and loyal shoppers.

About Benbria
Benbria is leading in the area of mobile customer engagement enabling retail, hospitality and restaurant brands to deliver a superior customer experience that goes above and beyond their competitors. Using a variety of mobile, in-store and on-property technologies – including SMS, email, Web, mobile app and kiosk – Loop enables brands to capture and direct real-time customer requests, concerns, suggestions and positive input to management and employees for action and closure. Closing the loop through on-the-spot staff action helps brands to quickly enhance the customer experience during visits, save dissatisfied customers, improve in-store sales conversion rates, avoid online criticisms and foster positive reviews. For more information: www.benbria.com.

About Farm Boy Inc.
Farm Boy is an Eastern Ontario family owned food retailer recognized for its produce, meat, bakery, cheese and fresh kitchen prepared items. Incorporated in 1981, the company provides a unique fresh shopping experience in comparison to big box retailers or traditional grocers. Farm Boy produces its own extensive line of private label products made with absolute dedication to the highest standards of quality and freshness. Headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, the company currently has 14 stores in the Greater Ottawa, Cornwall and Kingston regions with more stores planned.

Contact:

James Geneau
Benbria Corporation
jgeneau@benbria.com

Farm Boy Inc
Carolyn Trudel
T: +1-613-747-2363
E: ctrudel@farmboy.ca