“Axonify helps us take our frozen food knowledge and expertise to the next level.”
– Lindsay Johnston, Director of Training and Development, M&M Food Market
How M&M Food Market is taking customer service to the next level
As a specialty retailer, M&M Food Market provides customers with meal options that go beyond shopping for pantry staples and become something special; it’s right there in the name.
What started as a single-store, grassroots operation nearly 45 years ago has grown into a frozen food and dessert utopia where a reputation for top-tier food is nearly as important as the knowledgeable staff that greet you when you’re looking for meal inspiration.
“We pride ourselves on having a specific point of differentiation, which is our Meal Advisors, our employees working in the store,” says Lindsay Johnston, Director of Training and Development at M&M Food Market.
“You can get frozen food anywhere across the country but coming to an M&M Food Market, you are able to interact with a meal expert. We have close to 400 frozen products in our store plus we have a bunch of kitchen and pantry essentials to help complete a meal and make preparing a meal easier. Interacting with that Meal Advisor who has the expertise is what really makes us stand out. How Axonify helps us is with being able to take our frozen food knowledge and expertise to the next level.”
Making the connection
To supercharge that food expertise, the team at M&Ms implemented Axonify’s Communications product, a powerful internal communication tool that’s a central hub for all workers, with options to personalize, engage and inform rapidly—and at scale.
From daily training, to company-wide messages, the question of reaching the right people with relevant updates, when they need it most, is answered. And the relief is palpable.
“One of the biggest obstacles is reaching the frontline employees,” says Laura Kelly, Training Specialist with M&M Food Market. “I actually started as a Meal Advisor working in a store and can personally speak from that experience about how hard it is to get all the messaging that comes from head office from just reading emails.”
Ensuring key updates get to the right employees means they can apply that specialized knowledge when customers are sorting through the store’s abundant frozen products and help with meal planning—something they aren’t getting at other retailers.
“We are an extra stop for people so we really need to give them a reason to come to us and then once they’re there, show them all the things that we sell and how they can really get a complete meal from start to finish with us,” says Kelly. “It’s really important that we nail that first experience with a customer because we risk them never coming back if we don’t.”
Engagement + personalization = customer success
Being able to reach all employees and personalize messages as needed, as opposed to flooding inboxes with emails that might be overlooked, has been game-changing for M&M Food Market.
“We used to send emails more frequently but it’s hard to add any enthusiasm or personalization to a message—it’s just text on a computer screen,” offers Johnston. “Now we can take those messages, spin them, put them into a little video or a colorful post and deliver the same message in an engaging way. We’ve taken some messages and really just consolidated the key points and turned them into something that can get to everybody on their device in real-time rather than to an inbox that may or may not be viewed until later. That’s another big benefit.”
And the opportunity to get feedback from staff, whether it’s a comment or reaction made in Axonify, is invaluable and helps leaders understand what’s working, what’s not, and what the staff are the most excited about.
And the enthusiasm starts at the top.
“It has been surprising that our CEO is the No. 1 fan! He’s the first one to comment on many of the posts,” shares Kelly. “Seeing his comment next to a Meal Advisor from out east and a Franchise Partner out west—a ton of different people communicating across the country is really exciting.”
“It’s current, it’s real, it’s new.”
A thoroughly modern tool that entirely rethinks how best to connect with staff has offered the M&Ms team a welcome way to spark conversations that aren’t limited to one-way communication.
“It’s current, it’s real, it’s new,” Johnston says. “We want these conversations. We want the two-way dialogue. We want the recipe sharing. Whenever we are in-store and we talk to people and ask, ‘What’s your favorite food?’ it spirals into the most amazing conversations. We don’t have to be in-person or be limited by who we work with physically. We can share ideas across the country. That ability to have two-way conversations, to share fun recipe ideas is something I’m looking forward to.”
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