GNC meets customers’ digital needs and finds opportunity in a crisis

Help people live healthier lives by giving them easy access to wellness products. That foundational value statement helped launch a simple storefront in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1935, and it still holds true today. With more than 4,800 locations in the U.S. and Canada, GNC has become a global wellness brand that prides itself on meeting the growing and fast-changing needs of its customers.

That mission was put to the test in the spring of 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many other retail businesses, GNC experienced sudden declines in store traffic, was hampered by having to shift customer service representatives to remote work, and saw a welcome but challenging increase in digital orders — four times the traffic compared to pre-COVID.

Health and wellness products were suddenly in high demand, and loyal as well as new customers turned to a trusted business. For GNC’s ecommerce team, filling orders on time wasn’t the only worry. The team also needed to meet high expectations for great service and an exceptional experience.

GNC’s digital triage system is now stronger and more informed than ever. In daily meetings, developers, customer service, QA, ecommerce, and other stakeholders have insight into channel friction and receive instant alerts when a problem occurs. Plus, leadership receives weekly CX reports that highlight positive and negative trends. That means data and insights from Verint Experience Management are being shared across the organization at every level — tactical, operational, and strategic — coordinating cross-functional efforts and streamlining actions.

Spurred by the improvements it has seen, GNC plans to implement “buy online, pick up in-store” (BOPIS) options at hundreds of stores across the U.S. and Canada. Chadwick and his team are eager to see the results. “Feedback from those BOPIS orders will be added to our system, letting us see how the process is going and further enabling our holistic view of the customer experience,” he says. “The positive changes that have taken place are surprising and encouraging,” Chadwick concludes. “We’re adding permanent CX positions. Our customer chat is now seen as an equal channel because we’ve seen how easy it makes it for customers to talk to us, whether they’re happy or upset.

And we have data to back up decisions. If a promo isn’t working, we can replicate the problem immediately. My team can see it, customer service can see it, our executive team gets a read-out, and all of our agents are on the same page. GNC is a big company with many moving parts, but we’re all seeing the same feedback data, so we can coordinate and respond as one. Our customers have noticed, and we have clear evidence that the changes we made have had a positive impact on sales.”