Having worked at Wawa, one of the most popular convenience store chains in the U.S., for over two decades, Terri Micklin was well versed in growing and scaling in the c-store space.
But when Micklin joined GetGo Cafe + Market, the c-store arm of grocery chain Giant Eagle, she knew her capabilities needed to evolve.
“The biggest difference has been balancing how you grow all of the banners together,” Micklin, president of GetGo, said in an interview. “It’s knowing grocery, it's understanding pharmacy, it's thinking about my area of expertise in the convenience and fuel segment, and then figuring out how do you operate as one with excellence.”
Micklin, who joined GetGo as a senior vice president of development and strategy in 2022, was promoted to president in April as the company’s parent, Giant Eagle, underwent a major executive haul. Micklin recently sat down with C-Store Dive to discuss this leadership shift, as well as GetGo’s plans to grow its loyalty platform, EV charging program and more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
C-STORE DIVE: You’re about six months into your role as president of GetGo. Tell me what your main priorities are as you move through your first year leading this convenience store retailer.
MICKLIN: The big priorities right now are really around how we align our businesses and enterprise, really doing a great job of linking up the guest experience, from the supermarket to fuel to convenience to carwash to pharmacy — and linking all of that with our rewards program.
We're tackling a neighborhood approach that thinks about value and quality. How do we create the most value for our guests? How do we make sure that we help stretch their dollars in this inflationary environment? We're talking about how do we make [things] both easy for our guests to come in and out and then how do we make it really easy for our team members to focus on customer service to serve the guests the right way?
What’s GetGo doing now or targeting down the line with its rewards platform?
MICKLIN: We’re working first on making sure that the rewards program is really easy to understand, and that now you can use it across all of the different environments so you can earn and redeem anywhere. As a customer, you get to choose how you want to redeem your points. You can redeem them and try to reduce your gas bill, or you can go and make reductions off your grocery bill. We're giving you more optionality.
And then in about a month we're going to have some really exciting new changes coming to the loyalty program that I think is going to make access to that much easier for all of our customers.
Are those going to be changes in terms of how points are earned, the structure of the program or an app remodel?
MICKLIN: You're seeing a lot of changes through our app with personalization. Today we link bank accounts through an ACH program for AdvantagePay, which is becoming myPerks Pay. We've been transitioning, so we'll have the formal launch of myPerks Pay direct. And with that will come some other payment mechanisms and different ways that you can earn throughout the system.
You took on your position in April, but Giant Eagle officially announced that in August during a big restructuring for the company, which included a new CEO and several other executive appointments. Can you share what was the mindset behind this restructuring?
MICKLIN: In the prior structure, we actually had almost each line of business running its own organization. Now we're all operating as one and we're bringing that same message down to our store-level teams. The fundamental shift is this notion of operating as one and creating this environment of this neighborhood focus. And as we lean into that we'll just be able to create more and more value for our customers as well, because we're creating those linkages.
GetGo had previously tapped Grabango’s checkout-free technology. Is there any sort of expansion with this type of technology in the works, or any other technology that you are exploring?
MICKLIN: Through the Grabango test we learned a lot — we've really leaned in more towards self checkout. We've been making improvements on our self-checkout experience, to make that even easier. We've been making some really big enhancements in our app in terms of mobile order. The mobile order process is so much smoother, the app interface is so much stronger, that it's a speedy, easy experience now.
We're working on some great technology updates to our food ordering system — our kiosk environment in-store. That's in the midst of an upgrade right now. We've got a couple of other tests in the works right now. We continue to partner with Cooler Screens on the digital interface at our walk-in coolers, for our beverage centers. We're on our final phase of rollout right now for electronic shelf labels in all of our stores.
[There’s] lots of little things like that, that we're peppering through from a technology test perspective, to see what works.
Talk to me about some of the things GetGo is doing on the labor front to retain and find new talent.
MICKLIN: What's important is we want our talent to love being with us and to want to stay with us… so most of our work is really leaning into that retention part.
To that end, we're constantly updating the uniforms to make it fun to come in. We do a lot of team member experience elements, lots of recognition for them. We love doing different contests in our stores — that's one of the ways we unlock just a little bit of fun for our store teams.
Are you experimenting with any systems that are aimed to specifically make life easier for your staff?
MICKLIN: Yeah, we are always looking at ways to make it easier for our team members. The goal is that they should have more time spent interfacing with their guests than they should be sitting at a desk or in an office.
So, temperature sensors and probes. We're doing some tests right now with Digi-Sense on how do we get better at maintaining all of our temperature checks from a food safety perspective with less labor? Rather than having a team member walk around, temp everything, have to write it down, how can we automate that process for them so that they can see if they have an issue but they don't necessarily have to be spending a large part of their day doing that.
We're also testing really simple improvements in our barcode and time stamping process [for] when we put product out and when it needs to be pulled off the shelf.
Around the time when you became president, GetGo launched its proprietary EV charging stations. Can you give us an update on that?
MICKLIN: We have four more locations right now that we're getting ready to go online and we have another 15 locations that are pipelined across Giant Eagle, GetGo and Market District. You'll see more and more of this, and it will be a mix of our proprietary [chargers], partnerships with Tesla and partnerships with EVgo. We've been working across the different organizations to take advantage of some of the NEVI grants that are out there as well. Ultimately, the position is that we should have EV charging at every location.
Can you tell me about the big challenges that you're facing right now?
MICKLIN: The biggest challenge right now really is the economy. I need to find a way to stretch every guest dollar a little bit further. How we're doing that is we're trying to lean into those products that every customer really wants, and find ways to get them into their hands with more affordability without having to impact any quality that we've been known for.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
MICKLIN: This notion right now of personalization… that's what I want to convey more than anything else. It's what will differentiate us and what makes us fit for the future and allows us to grow off of our plans.
