S5E10 From Task Overload to Customer Focus: AI Solutions for Retail Associates

Retailers are asking store associates to do more with less—shorter staffing, longer task lists, and higher customer expectations. In this episode of The Retail Razor Show, hosts Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden explore how AI is reshaping frontline retail teams from overwhelmed to empowered.

Joining the conversation are:

•  Jeff Strasser, General Manager of AI Business Solutions for Retail & Consumer Goods at Microsoft

•  Nolan Wheeler, CEO & Founder of SYNQ Technologies

Together, they dive into:

•  The biggest challenges facing frontline store associates today: task overload, reduced staffing, and customer service trade-offs

•  How AI can automate and simplify corporate task lists, freeing up time for customer engagement

•  Why voice-first, hands-free AI is a breakthrough for associates, with SYNQ’s solution connecting two-way radios to Azure OpenAI for instant answers in the aisle

•  The importance of integration and governance when deploying AI at scale in retail operations

•  Real-world examples of AI reducing friction, improving training, and accelerating onboarding

•  How to measure success with the right KPIs: time-to-answer, customer satisfaction, and associate productivity

•  What’s next for AI in retail over the next 24 months—and how retailers can prepare their teams today

This isn’t about replacing people—it’s about augmenting store teams with AI-powered tools that make their jobs easier, improve morale, and elevate the customer experience.

If you’re a retail leader, innovator, or operator, this episode is packed with insights on how to start small, scale fast, and empower your frontline workforce with AI.

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About our Guests

Nolan Wheeler – CEO & Founder, SYNQ Technologies

Nolan Wheeler founded SYNQ in 2015 after a successful multi-decade career in retail. With experience in asset protection, store operations, and store transformation, Nolan founded SYNQ with a vision for transforming how retailers think about operations and merchandizing. Nolan lives in Victoria, BC with his young family, spending as much of his time on the water as possible.

Retail Clinic on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@RetailClinic

SYNQ Technologies - www.synqtech.com

Jeff Strasser – GM, AI Business Solutions for Retail & Consumer Goods, Microsoft.

Jeff oversees Microsoft’s AI Business Solutions portfolio for the US Retail & Consumer Goods enterprise customer segment. Jeffrey’s organization supports clients’ business priorities to grow revenue, optimize costs and deliver customer and employee satisfaction through AI led solutions. Recently, Jeffrey has been leading discussions on the application of generative AI to improve the efficiency of work and operations, accelerate decision-making, and support client leadership with strategies to build an AI first culture and deliver on business impacting solutions.

Microsoft Cloud for Retail - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/retail/microsoft-cloud-for-retail

Chapters:

00:00 Previews 

00:54 Show Intro 

04:27 Welcome Jeff Strasser & Nolan Wheeler 

07:29 Challenges Faced by Frontline Store Teams 

14:14 AI Solutions for Retail Operations 

19:59 Voice AI and Real-World Applications 

25:34 Data-Driven Retail Insights 

30:55 The Power of Voice Agents in Retail 

32:05 Integrating IoT and Voice for Seamless Operations 

34:22 Building Effective AI Agents 

38:21 Starting with AI: Metrics and ROI 

41:18 Overcoming Barriers to AI Adoption 4

7:24 Future Capabilities and Getting Started 

54:01 Show Close

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voices for 2025 & a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2025. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Retail, & AGI Thought Leader, a Top 50 Management, Transformation, & Careers Thought Leader, a Top 100 Digital Transformation & Agentic AI Thought Leader, plus a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is CEO of Luxlock, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2025, and a Retail Cloud Allianceadvisory council member. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Currently, Casey is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T.

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.