How Hudson Connects 80+ Retail Locations with Beekeeper

We love any opportunity to sit down with our customers and hear how Beekeeper has helped connect and empower frontline workers. We got the chance to do just that with Hudson, a Dufry company, and one of the leading North American travel retailers.

At Beekeeper’s Frontline Future 2021 virtual summit, Customer Success Manager, Ronni Louie sat down screen-to-screen with Dan Fordyce, Hudson’s Regional Vice President of Operations. 

Click here to download the Hudson case study

Fordyce shared insights from the company’s digital enablement journey with Beekeeper. Here are some of the highlights from the session. 

Staying Connected with Employees Across North America

With over 1,000 store locations in airports, commuter hubs, landmarks, and tourist destinations across the United States and Canada, Hudson is one of the most well-known travel retail brands. The company operates travel convenience, specialty retail, duty-free, and food and beverage destinations, with a global brand portfolio including Dunkin’, FAO Schwarz, Coach, and more.

As the company continues to expand, staying connected with workers across North America is more important than ever. In 2018, Hudson started using Beekeeper. “It certainly seemed like a great opportunity to leverage a tool such as Beekeeper to really enhance our employee engagement.”

– Dan Fordyce, Hudson’s Regional Vice President of Operations

The company uses Beekeeper for: 

• Employee recognition programs
• Schedule sharing
• Real-time travel and weather alerts
• Training teams on product knowledge and launches
• Peer-to-peer communication and collaboration
• Staying up-to-date with important company initiatives and programs

An important part of the mobile collaboration tool has been creating a channel for peer-to-peer communication in addition to its location-specific channels. 

“We have an Employee Voice Stream which is open to all of our employees in North America and all day long we see our employees posting things. Employees use Beekeeper to share valuable information and celebrate our success together.” 

Providing Better Customer Service with Product Knowledge Sharing

Hudson carries a wide variety of products, including food, beverages, books, newspapers, magazines, accessories, electronics, and more. There’s a lot of information store associates need to know.

Our internal research has shown that on average, frontline workers spend three hours a week just searching for information. With a centralized communication platform, information is immediately accessible.

Beekeeper helps the company share product knowledge and product launch information, enabling employees to access information when they need it. Empowering employees with knowledge allows them to deliver stronger customer service, and turns them into “product experts,” “experience makers,” and “customer service stars.”

Beekeeper creates a fully connected workforce that’s reachable in real-time at Hudson. And that’s never been more important than now, as the company recovers from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have leveraged Beekeeper to celebrate the return of our employees to work, the reopening of many of our stores, and opening of new stores that we continued to build even throughout the pandemic,” Fordyce said.

As for Beekeeper and Hudson, “It’s been just an extraordinary journey since that pilot in 2018.”

Watch the replay of Hudson’s session to learn more and get exclusive access to all Frontline Future 2021 content!

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