MULO Brands Are Reinvesting in Human Service
For years, the direction of store and restaurant technology seemed clear: move more transactions into apps, kiosks and self-checkout, and ask employees to do less of the routine work. That investment has made many visits faster. It has also made the human service interactions that remain more consequential.
Aritzia, Macy’s and McDonald’s are approaching that challenge from different directions. One has made personal styling part of its identity; another is investing in associates at a selected group of stores; the third is preparing a large-scale hospitality training effort. Their shared bet is that a good location experience cannot be delivered through speed alone.
Service as Part of the Product
At Aritzia, style advisers do more than point customers toward a rack. They suggest outfits, help shoppers navigate fitting rooms and tailor recommendations to individual preferences. The retailer describes its advisers as specialists in personalized styling. That gives a customer a reason to visit a boutique even when much of the merchandise can be browsed online.
The approach is not new for Aritzia, and it would be a mistake to credit its growth to human service alone. Product, store expansion and digital sales also matter. But Wall Street Journal reporting on its stores shows how deliberately the company has made advisers part of its “Everyday Luxury” positioning. Personalized attention is not an extra at the end of a transaction; it is one of the things the brand sells.
That comes with a trade-off. The same reporting describes high sales expectations and concerns raised by former workers about the pressures of the model. Service can feel helpful to one customer and intrusive to another. A multi-location brand has to define what a good interaction looks like, train for it and give employees enough room to read the customer rather than follow a script.
What Macy’s Can and Cannot Measure
Macy’s is testing a different proposition across its Reimagine stores: put more attention into the locations most likely to benefit from improved service, merchandising and presentation. In its September 10 second-quarter results, the company reported 1.9% comparable-sales growth at its Reimagine 200 stores, compared with 1.1% for the Macy’s banner overall.
That difference matters, but it is not proof that additional associates alone produced the lift. The targeted stores are receiving several changes at once, and their location mix may differ from the rest of the chain. The more useful question for retailers is whether customers at those stores can find what they came for, receive help when they need it and leave with enough confidence to return.
Macy’s has also reported improved customer-experience measures at its reimagined locations. To make the investment case, a retailer would need to examine those measures alongside visits, conversion, repeat purchases and the additional labor cost … ideally comparing similar stores rather than only a selected group against the chainwide average. Otherwise, “better service” risks becoming an explanation applied after a sales gain rather than something the business can actually manage.
Hospitality at Franchise Scale
McDonald’s faces a harder version of the consistency problem. A customer may order through an app or kiosk, but the handoff, the greeting and the response when something goes wrong still depend on the restaurant team. The Wall Street Journal reported that the chain plans to retrain restaurant workers on hospitality later this year and make hospitality a more important part of franchisee evaluations.
In a franchised network, that is more than a marketing message. The brand can set standards, but individual operators hire, schedule and coach the people who meet customers. A hospitality score may flag an issue; it cannot, on its own, tell a franchisee whether the problem is rushed handoffs, thin staffing at lunch, weak training or a store manager who does not have time to coach.
The emphasis is also a reminder that automation has changed the job, not eliminated it. When technology takes the order, employees have fewer chances to build a relationship and more pressure to get the remaining moments right. A warm greeting does not make up for a long wait or an incorrect order. Good human service has to fit the way that particular location actually operates.
The Location-Level Test
These examples are not evidence of a wholesale return to labor-heavy retail. Apps and self-service remain useful when customers want control or convenience. The shift is more selective: use technology for predictable tasks, and make sure a person is available where judgment, expertise or recovery can change the visit.
For a MULO brand, the practical test is local. Do shoppers come back more often after receiving advice? Do human service complaints cluster around particular shifts or stores? Does an added associate improve conversion enough to pay for the hours? Those answers will vary by format and trade area. The strongest case for human service will come from locations that can show what customers gained and what it cost to deliver.
