In this episode, I interview the CEO of McCarthy Uniforms, Vanessa Iarocci. She tells us about adapting to the demands of modern retailing and responding to both the challenges and opportunities that COVID-19 has brought to the business. With a background in consulting and banking, Vanessa describes what she brought to the table when she became the CEO of a retail company coming out of insolvency - and what she has learned along the way.
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
In this episode, I interview the CEO of McCarthy Uniforms, Vanessa Iarocci. She tells us about adapting to the demands of modern retailing and responding to both the challenges and opportunities that COVID-19 has brought to the business.
With a background in consulting and banking, Vanessa describes what she brought to the table when she became the CEO of a retail company coming out of insolvency - and what she has learned along the way.
Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode please consider leaving a rating and review, as it really helps us grow so that we can continue getting amazing guests on the show.
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!
Until next time, stay safe and have a great week!
Michael LeBlanc
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. In this episode, I interview the CEO of McCarthy Uniforms, Vanessa Iarocci. She tells us about adapting to the demands of modern retailing and responding to both the challenges and opportunities that the COVID-19 crisis has brought to the business. With a background in consulting and banking, Vanessa describes what she brought to the table when she became CEO of a retail company coming out of insolvency, and what she's learned along the way.
Vanessa Iarocci
You know, someone gave me the great advice to not actually have a strong point of view in new leadership roles for at least three to four months, do a lot of listening. So, that's exactly what I did. I really spent a lot of time listening to our customers, to our suppliers, and most importantly, to the employees. And, I think there had been a bond of trust broken between those three stakeholder groups and the leadership team that was in place at the time. So, I spent a lot of time listening to where the pain points are. And then, we really systematically year one, focused on just eliminating the pain points.
Michael LeBlanc
Let's listen in now.
Vanessa, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How you doing this afternoon?
Vanessa Iarocci
I'm well, how about yourself, Michael,
Michael LeBlanc
It's great to hear your voice. And thanks for making the time to chat with me. Let's, let's start the beginning. Tell me about yourself and your background and your role at McCarthy Uniforms?
Vanessa Iarocci
Certainly, well, thanks for having me. My background, in a quick summary, I started off my career as a CA at PwC. And, I worked in mergers and acquisitions largely with middle market private Canadian companies for 12 years. And then, I went off to be a banker for a few years. And I think I, what I really always wanted was to be an entrepreneur. So, when one of my former clients, McCarthy Uniforms, who had been an advisor to, came on the market again, and the founding family wanted to buy it back, they needed an operator for the business. And, I was really excited to take a stab at what was then quite a substantial turnaround as the, as the business had hit some distressed in 2016.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, that's an interesting career path, right. You kind of, you get the CA so you know how to read the books, but then, you know, you, from an advisory role to an operator role is not, it's a big leap, right. And for some people, it's, it's a big challenge, because it's a very different role, right.
Vanessa Iarocci
Oh, it absolutely is. And I would say, you know, the, the few years that I had in banking, were really instrumental in preparing me for this role. Because, you know, as an advisor, you get paid to have all the right answers. But, what I very quickly learned, being a leader of a large team is, you know, what you have to do is empower others and get things done through your teams. So, you know, I'm glad I had those few years of experience, but nothing really prepares you for, you know, being in the line of fire day in day out as a CEO of a private company, for sure.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, one thing that, that actually prepared both you and I is we're both Alum of Rotman so, I'll call that one out just for our friends back at Rotman. So, we've got that in common which is,
Vanessa Iarocci
Great
Michael LeBlanc
Which is great. Alright, so talk about, talk about McCarthy's. You, tell me about the origin story. You mentioned family owned and now family reopened. I guess the journey the business beyond, has been on, it sounds like it's been a bit rocky and then, and now, you know, the verticals you participate in and who you sell to and give me a, just an overview of the business.
Vanessa Iarocci
Absolutely, happy to. So, McCarthy's was founded in 1956, by Bob McCarthy, which makes the business 65 years old this year. And, I understand there's very few Canadian companies that have this kind of longevity. So, really proud to be carrying the torch for the time being with such a long standing Canadian owned brand.
Michael LeBlanc
It's a bit of a responsibility, though, right? I mean, I, it's funny, I worked for Hudson's Bay and you go up to the boardroom and there there's the original charter from like 1600s, and you feel some tweak of responsibility. You don't, you don't want it to be the one that blinks out on your watch, right? So it's
Vanessa Iarocci
Absolutely no, I say right from the beginning, I don't want to be the one to take the school bus down off our roof.
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Vanessa Iarocci
And, and definitely there's that heritage feeling at the company. We have employees that have been here 30 years who remember Mr. McCarthy. And, there's definitely a different feeling in a company like this for sure.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Vanessa Iarocci
And a different sense of responsibility. You do feel that you know, my job is really, you know, to make the company better for the next person who is going to take my seat. Because it's 65 years already, I can certainly say I won't be doing this for 65 years, unfortunately.
Michael LeBlanc
Or for, or fortunately, you've done, you've done your tour duty. Okay, so but you mentioned the school bus on the roof. So, for those who live in, in the Toronto area or who have driven in, or have driven into Toronto from the airport, you might have looked off the Gardiner, and seen a school bus on a roof and wondering how it got there, of course, and what's it for. But tell me about, obviously, it's uniforms, but it's school uniforms. Tell, tell us all about it.
Vanessa Iarocci
Sure. So, when the, when the company was founded, it was founded to serve Catholic School Boards in Toronto, who have traditionally been in uniform. And, that's one thing most folks don't know about our business, they assume it's just private school or, you know, elite school uniforms. Catholic School Boards have had a long-standing tradition, as have other faith-based education institute, institutions of wearing school uniforms. So, those were really the roots of the business. And, for a long time, the business was primarily focused on the school uniform market coast to coast. We have a store in BC, and we serve our customers out in on the East Coast, in New Brunswick as well. So, that's the majority of our core business is school uniforms.
When I joined in 2016, one of the things that we really identified that was required to take the business forward was a bit more diversification. So, at that time, we made a decision to really try to understand if there was an opportunity for us to enter the workplace, you know, uniform market, specifically catering to the public sector. And, the reason was, because a lot of our expertise is dealing with public sector procurement and everything that entails. It's a bit of a two-layer customer relationship, if you will.
Michael LeBlanc
Right, right. And, it has been a category, if I think about it, that it's attracted some interest, right, some competition, I should say, from other retailers. Because it, you know, it's big market, and on the outside looking in, it's the provision of uniforms. But, tell me about the complexities of the business. Like what, what makes a specialty retailer like yourself different from, you know, a mass merchant who decided to sell off the, off the rack uniforms that the students could wear?
Vanessa Iarocci
Yeah, so, it's a question we get a lot, for sure. Looks like a really simple business from the outside. Especially,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, yeah.
Vanessa Iarocci
If you come to one of our fit days, and you think, wow, it must be so easy because you have guaranteed customers. But, if I take it back to first principles, what a uniform program is, is really creating a sense of community for a customer base that you serve. And, part of that responsibility includes always having exactly what they need, and being very inclusive. So, unlike retailers that can only stock in season, or in high volume sku, we do commit to being able to fit every single member of a community program that we serve. And so, we do maintain a small cut and sew factory here in Toronto. Because if you have a disability, if you happen to be pregnant, if you're not in a typical size range, we will absolutely still have a uniform for you. And you know that certainly the distribution side of it.
But if I go back to the comment earlier about the two layer customer relationship, what most people don't know, and I'll use workplace as an example, is you have a public procurement body that really is a governance body that's overseeing a process and, you know, evaluating you against a variety of criteria, including your ability to serve the community, your commitment to social responsibility, your ability to provide data and analytics reporting back to a public sector customer. So, there's a very broad set of accountabilities that we have.
Michael LeBlanc
So, it's fair to say the RFPs, as we would call them, have got more complex, not less.
Vanessa Iarocci
Oh, absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Vanessa Iarocci
I think RFPs, I mean, I think they're up to like 100 slides of submission.
Michael LeBlanc
Wow.
Vanessa Iarocci
And, a
Michael LeBlanc
For a, for a uniform. So, it's quite, it's quite broad reaching, right? I mean,
Vanessa Iarocci
Oh absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc
What's your role in the community? How, I get how, you know, as you're describing it, I get how a specialty retailer needs to have, as you say, sewing on, take care of everyone by having custom, custom fit, but it sounds like it goes well beyond that, right?
Vanessa Iarocci
Oh, absolutely. There's a lot of quality standards. For example, we get our products independently tested for things like seam breakage, pilling, colorfastness. We submit those product testing results as part of RFPs. And, you know, there, there are quite a broad set of criteria that public sector will use in evaluating uniform supplier.
You know, and something that was really interesting in, in light of our entrance into the workplace uniform market, really was when we figured out how we were going to tackle this space, you know, the first thing of background in design thinking, and the first thing that we did was actually go and talk to customers making these procurement decisions. And interestingly, there wasn't a whole lot of need for product innovation. They weren't really interested in vendors who were competing on price. But, what was really required was a lot of service innovation. And, what I mean by that is, you know, the folks procuring uniforms for, say, a local municipal road worker team, they would have these manual spreadsheets. And, they would have, you know, no track record of who bought what, when, how many employees had received their uniform. You know, vouchers were being used for things other than uniforms. So, the way we entered that market was to focus on the service innovation of building the right technology that made the job of the procurement officer easier and more accurate. So, it's kind of interesting, because when people say, well, how did you win, you know, a pretty substantial public market procurement contractor against a retailer who has way more stores and way more inventory? And, it's always surprising to people when I say it was all in the front end service innovation, because we were solving a procurement problem, not a product problem.
Michael LeBlanc
And, I don't want to dwell on it, you, you mentioned it, but when you arrived, it was a turnaround. So, tell me about what, what led to the challenges and then more, more interestingly, what you did, and some of the things that you tactics and strategies you did to turn the business around and, and get back on its feet.
Vanessa Iarocci
Sure, so, it wasn't easy to turn around. We acquired the assets of McCarthy's out of a notice of insolvency process. So, no secret there, it was actually our starting point was insolvency. So, it was ground zero. Even though it's a 65-year-old business, it had hit a rough patch. And, you know, I certainly wasn't there during, during the years that led to the insolvency. But, I can speak to what I would say I observed from ground zero was that the business had sort of lost its sense of purpose. Uniforms are not as commoditized or transactional, as you might think. We're really partners with our customers. And so, the first thing that we really had to do is rebuild trust with our customers, because the very basic deliverable of having your uniform on time, they had lost trust in our brand. So,
Michael LeBlanc
Is it your experience, you know, tapping into your background that the retailer's getting into trouble with a lot of little decisions, or a few big ones? What do you, what do you think on the whole?
Vanessa Iarocci
That is a really good question. And, you know, someone told me when I took this role that the difference between being the VP and the CEO is you get paid to be CEO to make the right big decisions.
Michael LeBlanc
The big bets, right. I mean,
Vanessa Iarocci
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, Roger Martin from, from Robin calls it you know, strategy, sometimes about making big bets. And he doesn't mean going to Vegas bets. He means, you know, big strategic decisions that, that turn the business left, right or center.
Vanessa Iarocci
Right. And I did feel that pressure for sure. There were decisions, you know, like we would,
Michael LeBlanc
(inaudible). Treated your predecessors, right. I mean, that.
We'll be right back with my interview with Vanessa Iarocci right after this brief commercial message.
Kirk Allen
Hi, this is Kirk Allen, co-founder of Reshift Media. We're a digital marketing company that works with hundreds of retailers around North America, in fact, around the world. We develop digital strategies, including website development, app development, social media and search. Would love for you to join us for an upcoming three-part live stream series, 'How to emerge from the pandemic, with a digital growth plan', produced in conjunction with the RCC, and you'll hear from all sorts of retailers from M&M Foods, Surmesur, Dogtopia, Harry Rosen, and of course, Michael LeBlanc will also be one that will be interviewing.
So, a lot has changed during the COVID-19 times. This is a three-part session that will start on Tuesday, May 18th. And, we'll talk about what's happened over the last year and a bit and how the pandemic has changed the digital game for retailers.
During this session, we'll examine how consumer purchasing and digital media consumption has changed since COVID-19 began. And We'll also discuss what this could mean for your business in the future. One thing is certain, the new normal will be different from what we knew pre-COVID. Visit retailcouncil.org/events to learn more, and register for this free event starting Tuesday, May 18th.
Vanessa Iarocci
But, to your point about focusing too much on the details, I think, you know, one of the first decisions I made was actually to streamline our pricing model. And that involved reducing price for one of our bigger customers. And, you know, the economics of that on paper probably weren't great. But, that customer as a results resigned with us for an eight year term, giving me the stability that I needed to restructure the business more broadly. Because, you know, you can focus so much on bright shiny objects and innovation, but you lose your core, and you need your quarter survive. So,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, foundation, right. You need that, that strong foundation,
Vanessa Iarocci
Absolutely, absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc
To secure, to secure, because, you know, if people have been with the company 30 years, so much experience built up, you really got to, you have to look after them both, because you have a responsibility, but also because you know, that's what will propel the business forward. So, let's let's explore that a little bit, the leadership element, you know, that no doubt you, you'd lead people before, but in taking this role, tell me about, you know, just, just how you approach that and, and your leadership style.
Vanessa Iarocci
Certainly. So, I definitely have more of a collaborative inspirational leadership style, than a command-and-control leadership style, which I, which I think was a shift for the business. You know, someone gave me the great advice to not actually have a strong point of view in new leadership roles for at least three to four months, do a lot of listening. So, that's exactly what I did, I really spent a lot of time listening to our customers, to our suppliers, and most importantly, to the employees. And, I think there had been a bond of trust broken between those three stakeholder groups and the leadership team that was in place at the time. I spent a lot of time listening to where the pain points are. And then, we really systematically year one, focused on just eliminating the pain points, so that we could get back to delivering our core promise of you know, we get you your product on time, in the condition we promised it to you in. Very basic, but that had been somewhat lost in the shuffle. So,
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Vanessa Iarocci
You know, it seems intuitive that you have a uniform, you know, if you pick green as your polo shirt color, they should all be the same shade of green. But, if someone has decided in an office, disconnected from the front line that you know, just in time inventory will save you X dollars, you know, they'll make that decision based on economics, but forgetting that, that trade off means you're going to get variation in color if it's not on the same production line. So, you can't always make the decision just based on what you see on paper.
Michael LeBlanc
I guess, I guess in the context of schools, it means you got to, you look out in the auditorium, and you see a sea of kids, and they all look different. Which is not really, the object like the foundational objective was that it was a uniformity, literally, uniform.
Vanessa Iarocci
This was an example of making decisions based on spreadsheets versus understanding what's important to the customer. So, a small variation in a color for a school that's, for example, a performance school where the kids are on stage under performance lights, because they might be a choir school, that makes a really big difference. So, when you ask, when you ask our customers what's important, they'll, you know, rank order, have the uniforms on time, because there is a surge, you know, August, September surge. And make sure they're uniforms, make sure they're the same, and that they lost. And, it all sounds really, really simple,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, right.
Vanessa Iarocci
But, then, then you're optimizing for profitability, you start to make trade-offs like, oh, maybe I don't want to hold so much inventory out of season. Well, then that introduces a lot of supply chain risk. And that, then you're very, very dependent on those summer deliveries. And then, you can't serve a customer in February who walks in the door. So,
Michael LeBlanc
It's really a, it's a fascinating discussion, because if you, bring up Roger Martin again, he his latest book talks about being so efficient and being so just in time that you've actually, you make uneconomic decisions. And, it's the tyranny of super efficient. And we've seen that in supply chain, particularly now in the COVID era, right. They were so rigid, so efficient that when they had to flex, they, many of them broke.
Vanessa Iarocci
Oh absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc
And, right. I mean, I'm sure you do everything from packaging to raw materials, right. You're in the middle of that as well. So, let's talk about, about the, like many of these things, what we're talking about happened in the, in the before time, pre COVID, but in the in the COVID era many leaders are trying to figure out how to lead in an era where maybe you’re at home more often. There is certainly a different way that you interact with people. How have you adjusted your leadership style to the COVID era?
Vanessa Iarocci
Yeah, that's a great question. This has been a real learning curve, I think for all of us. You know, I think first principles, you want leadership to be human in a crisis like this. So, I would say, you know, March 13, 2020, I will certainly remember that day, I sat down with a blank piece of paper, maybe it's my background in consulting, but, but I almost needed a framework for myself.
Michael LeBlanc
I was just gonna say, did you draw quadrant?
Vanessa Iarocci
I did. Well cause I had to
Michael LeBlanc
I knew you did.
Vanessa Iarocci
I had to redefine success, and I thought, you know, I had this profitability goal and this growth goal. And, okay, all that's like, going right out the window now.
Michael LeBlanc
Just don't tell me you did it on a napkin. Then it becomes, you know, kind of a legacy.
Vanessa Iarocci
Very cliche.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Vanessa Iarocci
And it was a little bit about, okay, our purpose is now to actually survive in, through this crisis. But also, how do you rethink, how do we use this as an opportunity to rethink so that we can come out of this and, you know, so called build back better, take that approach. And, you know, for a lot of years in our space, we've been talking about digital transformation. And, and better serving customers online. COVID was a real opportunity for us to truly, because we were under the gun, really think about revisioning the retail experience online, like the true retail experience. And, what I mean by that is, it's very easy as a retailer to think all you have to do is throw your products on a Shopify site and that's it.
But, if, if I think about our business, our business involves this transfer of knowledge from a Uniform Specialist to a parent who doesn't know anything about a uniform policy, who is unsure about fits, and not sure what to buy. And so, we recreated that digitally by having interactive webinars, by making our school portals very interactive with videos about the actual policy itself. How to fit the uniform, what to buy, and then giving our customers the opportunity to chat and Skype in with a Uniform Specialist if they need it along the way. The pressure of, of COVID, got us to end of job on that digital customer experience much faster than if COVID hadn't existed.
Michael LeBlanc
What, what things you're going to leave behind as a business, or as a leadership style? Is there anything you can think of that you're going to leave behind. I've had executive leaders who swore up and down they would never have their head office staff work at home. They, you know, some have told me that, you know, they do envision going back to work, but more hybrid. And some are saying, listen, we're just not going to travel the way we did before. What, what do you think you're gonna leave behind in the post COVID era?
Vanessa Iarocci
Definitely, I, I've always been a fan of remote working. And, I think that's because I worked once for a really forward thinking leader who because of my maternity leave, has sort of structured a really innovative, remote working experience. And it worked fabulously. So, I think, though, what remotes done is, it's proven out in our business, that being remote doesn't mean that we're not working, we're just working very differently. And so, certainly, I think I'd love to give, continue to give our team the opportunity to work remotely.
The things we won't be leaving behind, we did lots of things manually that COVID forced us to automate. Whether that be we, you know, we as to physically go to grade nine information nights, and do a little presentation about uniforms, and COVID forced us to instead hosts live webinars with our customers. And, we found that to be an actual better opportunity to prepare our customers because what they did is, it was just about uniforms, you know, they weren't learning about math class, and parking and all these things and, you know, way more efficient. I mean, we went through 1000s and 1000s of customers just last month online, the whole team got to participate. It's been a real hit with our customers for sure. As has the online shopping and curbside pickup. Because our business was known for these really, really long, August lines. And this year, we didn't have August lines because we had you know, we went from 6% online shopping when I started to 65%.
Michael LeBlanc
Wow.
Vanessa Iarocci
A couple weeks ago. So, that's a structural like, significant shift, right?
Michael LeBlanc
Why do you think it takes, and I have a, I have a podcast with Steve, author Steve Dennis, he has got a book called, 'Remarkable Retail', the Remarkable Retail podcast and, and we often talk about in, in our discussions and with our guests why it takes a crisis for retailers to innovate. So, as I listened to you describe what you're doing differently, I mean, some things are different, right. So, there's more, you know, in the COVID era, everyone is way more acceptable of remote work. They're way more acceptable of I don't need to go into the gymnasium to see about grade nine uniforms, I can watch that online. It, what do you think holds organizations back from doing that to begin with, like you describe a long line in August, that's probably been happening for, you know, 64 years. What do you think holds organizations back?
Vanessa Iarocci
I think many organizations are afraid of changing things that are working. So, you know, McCarthy's did have a 64-year track record where the customers came on August long weekend and lined up. And, you know, when I joined and I remember telling the team, you know, I really see this business as probably being more than half online in the next decade. And they thought I was just nuts. They said people will never buy uniforms online, it's impossible. It's,
Michael LeBlanc
Never happen.
Vanessa Iarocci
(inaudible) the moment
Michael LeBlanc
The (inaudible) of no
Vanessa Iarocci
Crazy, crazy lady from Bay Street coming in.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, yeah.
Vanessa Iarocci
Telling us they're gonna buy uniforms online. And so, part of it was really understanding that our consumers are now benching, benchmarking us not against other uniform providers, they're benchmarking us against the Amazons of the world. And, and their behaviours have already changed. Like the bus has left the station. Their behaviors have changed, and we need to adapt. And it's simply a different way of doing business. So, I think, fear of changing what's working, probably a little bit of you know, a business like ours, that is very process driven,
Michael LeBlanc
Bit of legacy right.
Vanessa Iarocci
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
You know, been around it, until you got into financial trouble, it pretty much worked for 64, or,
Vanessa Iarocci
Oh absolutely. Even, even in the financial years, like, operationally, the model was the same. And I think, when you have a process driven business like ours, you're really afraid of changing anything in the process chain.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Vanessa Iarocci
Because then, you know, it disrupts,
Michael LeBlanc
It's like,
Vanessa Iarocci
One small change is very disruptive for them.
Michael LeBlanc
It's the kind of you're worried about the knock-on effect. If you change one little thing what happens. You remind me of this, you know, the stories of Franklin Barbecue, in Austin, Texas,
Vanessa Iarocci
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
Where, where he says, listen to a people line up at four o'clock in the morning, and it's a big party. And, and it's part of the thing.
Vanessa Iarocci
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
I could, I could imagine, listen, that's part of what people do here. And
Vanessa Iarocci
Yes,
Michael LeBlanc
You leave that stuff behind. All right, last question for you been very,
Vanessa Iarocci
Sure,
Michael L
Generous with your, with your time. Top three things retailers should be thinking about, as they imagine the Cov, post COVID business world?
Vanessa Iarocci
Sure. That's a tough one. Well, I think the first one is expect the unexpected. This won't be quick. But I will say I had participated in a strategy exercise in Jan 2020. That said, what's the single point of failure for your business? And, I thought, okay, the single point of failure would be for some reason that I can't even imagine there'd be no schools in session.
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Vanessa Iarocci
And it asked for you to assign a probability and I put 0%.
Michael LeBlanc
Should have given it a one, as you learned, everything's got 1%.
Vanessa Iarocci
And I kept that piece of paper, I kept it as a reminder to, you know, there's no such thing as 0%.
Michael LeBlanc
Right, right, right.
Vanessa Iarocci
So, expect the unexpected. I think the second thing is, I, you know, it's going to sound cliche, do you think the digital buying experience is here to stay? I really, being digital first is absolutely critical. But I think
Michael LeBlanc
Do you think that's distorted right now, though? I mean, we're in the GTA stores, and many, many, many stores are closed in the brief time when I can't remember the terminology, when Ontario pumped the brakes, or whatever the heck they called it. You know, they had to close Square One and big malls at 2pm and like people rushed back,
Vanessa Iarocci
Yes.
Michael LeBlanc
Because it felt like a piece of normality. So, you know, I think COVID put the gas you know, press the gas on eCommerce but I'm not sure it put a brick on it. So, it'll be interesting to see this kind of regression, so to speak, to the mean that everything now but I'm not sure it will stay all everything.
Vanessa Iarocci
No, I 100% agree. And I'd say that's my third point is. We are humans and we'd like to interact with other humans. If I ask anyone you know, what is the one thing you miss most about COVID, it is, the number of people that say I miss, you know, walking around a shopping mall. And I miss just being able to talk to someone. And, and so I do think the in-store experience is going to be something that people crave. But, I do think in terms of what that in store experience is, is going to be different. I think, you know, as, as you've talked about on your podcast, the customer experience in-store has changed and the bar has been raised. So really, the idea of surprising, delighting people, I think is going to become even more important, because that will be the in-person expectation.
Michael LeBlanc
Right on.
Vanessa Iarocci
And I think the efficiency that you experience online, people will expect that seamless omni channel experience in-store. And, I can give you a quick example. A trend we noticed in our in-store customers this summer was that a family might, you know, we were open in August, a family would come in, they try on the uniform. They'd identify what they wanted. And then they would say, can I order this online and have it shipped home? So, we ended up as a kind of generic rig, because our systems weren't set up to deal with that particular issue at the time, we just set up an online terminal. So, then we'd be online shopping for the customer in store. So, that is becoming an increasingly common trend.
Michael LeBlanc
It's that removal of the friction, right? It's like the dissemination of the channels, the kind of removal of friction, I still want to try my uniform on see how, but you know, then I just want to go, I just want to order it online.
Vanessa Iarocci
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
It may or may not be the fun part.
Vanessa Iarocci
Yeah, it's interesting, right? Like, I don't want to carry the bag, or, you know, I'm worried that, you know, it won't fit. So, I think I'll wait another few weeks, or I can delay the payment of this item. So, you know,
Michael LeBlanc
Or any number of things that customers want to do, right?
Vanessa Iarocci
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, They can do it another way.
Vanessa Iarocci
Yeah, this idea of omni channel is so important. And we're, I'm really glad that we have always felt our new system on an omni channel platform. So, if you call our call center, they can tell you what's in a store. And if you're in the store, you can place something online and have a curbside pickup at another store. And, I think that's really, really critical. It would have been a real headache if we did not have that kind of digital infrastructure for sure.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, congratulations on your, on your success and so far and continued success, I'm sure and it's been a great to delve into both the origin story and the modern business that is McCarthy Uniforms. I wanted to thank you Vanessa, for joining me on The Voice of Retail podcast. Great to meet you and great to hear the story.
Vanessa Iarocci
Yeah, thank you for having us.
Michael LeBlanc
Thanks for tuning into today's episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure and follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify or wherever you enjoy podcasts so you don't miss out on the latest episodes, industry news and insights. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review as it really helps us grow so that we continue to get amazing guests onto the show. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. Leblanc & Company Inc. And if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Until next time, stay safe. Have a great week.