Tractor Supply VP Michael Diedrich on What It Takes to Drive "Legendary Service"
Chris and Anne kick off Day 3 of NRF 2025 live from the VusionGroup Podcast Studio with Michael Diedrich, VP of Store Productivity at Tractor Supply, discussing how the retailer is redefining store productivity while delivering legendary service. Discover how Tractor Supply leverages tools like Quorso's AI Co-Pilot to enhance customer interactions, streamline operations, and ensure consistent performance across 2,300+ stores.
Key Moments:
- 0:10 - Introduction to Michael Diedrich and his 23-year journey at Tractor Supply.
- 2:12 - Measuring productivity and performance across Tractor Supply stores.
- 6:12 - How Quorso is revolutionizing sales missions and team engagement.
- 9:15 - Evolving leadership visits with AI-driven insights.
- 11:28 - Leveraging new technologies for instant product knowledge and legendary service.
- 13:39 - Backend optimization with the “Tractor Way” process.
- 14:55 - Plans for 2025: Relentless focus on productivity and customer engagement.
#nrf2025 #tractorsupply #retailtech
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Transcript
Hello, everyone.
Chris Walton:This is Omnitalk Retail.
Chris Walton:I'm Chris Walton.
Man Mazinga:And I'm Man Mazinga.
Chris Walton: , which you can find in booth: Chris Walton:Come on by, stop by, say hello.
Chris Walton:We've enjoyed meeting everyone for the last couple days.
Chris Walton:You can see all the great tech within the booth as well.
Chris Walton:But joining us today and to start the day off is in Omnistar.
Man Mazinga:Oh, boy.
Chris Walton:In Omnistar.
Man Mazinga:Yes.
Man Mazinga:To what do we owe the.
Michael Diedrich:I know.
Michael Diedrich:What a special day.
Michael Diedrich:I actually feel like it's special to meet both of you for the first time.
Michael Diedrich:So this is a big deal.
Michael Diedrich:Yeah.
Michael Diedrich:Yes, it will.
Michael Diedrich:I'm happy to be here.
Chris Walton:Yes.
Chris Walton:We're excited to introduce our Omnistar, Michael Diedrich, the vice president of store productivity at Tractor Supply.
Chris Walton:Welcome to Omnitong.
Michael Diedrich:Thank you.
Michael Diedrich:Glad to be here.
Chris Walton:It's great to have you.
Man Mazinga:Michael.
Man Mazinga:Let's start a little bit by just learning about you and your background and then your current role at Tractor Supply.
Michael Diedrich:Yeah, thanks for the question.
Michael Diedrich:Actually, in a couple of weeks, I'll celebrate 23 years with tractor Supply.
Michael Diedrich:So it's been a little while.
Michael Diedrich:I think we had about 200 stores when I started, so it's been quite the.
Michael Diedrich:Quite the journey.
Man Mazinga:And how many are you up to now?
Michael Diedrich:2300 as of a couple days ago.
Michael Diedrich:Right.
Michael Diedrich:So, yeah, very excited to be here.
Michael Diedrich:But, yeah, 23 years with tractor Supply.
Michael Diedrich:Always on the operations side of the business.
Michael Diedrich:So whether that's store manager, district manager, regional manager.
Michael Diedrich:Then I had the opportunity to go to the store support center just outside of Nashville.
Man Mazinga:Nice.
Michael Diedrich:And I did a few roles there, whether that was customer solutions center, some strategy.
Michael Diedrich:Really always my passion is the customer and the team member, and so I've been super fortunate.
Michael Diedrich:Every role I've had has always supported either one of those two folks.
Michael Diedrich:Team member and our customer.
Chris Walton:So.
Michael Diedrich:And today my official title is store productivity, which I think means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
Chris Walton:Dig into that a little bit.
Michael Diedrich:Yeah, it can be a little boring depending on how you look at it.
Michael Diedrich:But no, honestly, my role today and my team's role is all about making sure our team members have as much time as possible in front of the customer at the end of the day.
Michael Diedrich:Like, we are so good at overcomplicating this business, but I want our team members to be armed with the information they need at the moment, they step in front of the customer.
Michael Diedrich:And so that's how we look at productivity.
Michael Diedrich:How do we get the most time possible in front of those customers?
Man Mazinga:That's a really cool metric.
Chris Walton:It's really interesting.
Chris Walton:Really interesting way to think about it.
Chris Walton:I've never heard about that before.
Chris Walton:And so you grew up in the field.
Michael Diedrich:I did.
Chris Walton:Right.
Chris Walton:You grew up in the stores.
Michael Diedrich:I did.
Chris Walton:We always love when we have field leaders on our show.
Chris Walton:It's a rare treat, honestly, a lot of times when we're doing these interviews.
Chris Walton:So it's great to talk to somebody that grew up in the stores.
Chris Walton:So I'm curious.
Chris Walton:You mentioned productivity.
Chris Walton:As a former field leader, too, I'm always curious about this question.
Chris Walton:How does Tractor Supply measure the productivity or performance of one store relative to another?
Michael Diedrich:Yeah, that is a great and difficult question.
Michael Diedrich:I'll start with this.
Michael Diedrich:We think it's really important to spend as much time as possible in the field.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Michael Diedrich:Our best ideas, and this is proven out time after time, our best ideas are going to come from the people doing the work.
Michael Diedrich:So my team, actually my entire team is remote different areas of the country.
Michael Diedrich:So, yeah, we are always out in the stores doing the work and trying to understand how to make those stores as productive as possible.
Michael Diedrich:So I'll kind of start with that.
Michael Diedrich:From a metric standpoint, though.
Michael Diedrich:Yeah, I guess a lot of people listening will probably feel the same way.
Michael Diedrich:We have a lot of metrics.
Chris Walton:Yeah, right, right.
Michael Diedrich:I would be hesitant to give you a number because it is a lot of metrics.
Michael Diedrich:But we do have a very specific way we look at the stores.
Michael Diedrich:You know, we're going to look at very usual things everyone else does.
Michael Diedrich:It's going to be CX metrics.
Michael Diedrich:It's going to be sales.
Michael Diedrich:We assign very specific goals to our stores that our district managers and regional managers are responsible for.
Michael Diedrich:But the end of the day, I think at our level, we have all the metrics we need to make sure our stores are successful.
Michael Diedrich:Where the rub or where the opportunity is is that's just too much in the field.
Michael Diedrich:Right.
Michael Diedrich:It can become overwhelming.
Michael Diedrich:What's the most important metric if I'm a store leader, a store manager, even a team member, what is it Tractor Supply wants me to do?
Michael Diedrich:What's the most important thing to me, and so I think that is probably pretty common among a lot of retailers, is how do you boil that down to the most important things?
Michael Diedrich:And I would say we've gotten better at it.
Michael Diedrich:Every year we get better at it and we Continue to utilize technology to help get smarter about what those metrics should be.
Chris Walton:Yeah, well, and that's the art of the store manager too, really, is to understand and sort through what are the different priorities in a given day in your store to understand what you need to do.
Chris Walton:I used to have a metric that I used to use when I was in the field.
Chris Walton:You know, it was called sogt.
Chris Walton:It was, how are your sales?
Chris Walton:How are your operations?
Chris Walton:How's your.
Chris Walton:For us, it was guest customer experience scores.
Chris Walton:And then of course, how's your team, too?
Chris Walton:Because your team engaged.
Chris Walton:What's the turnover look like?
Chris Walton:All those things.
Chris Walton:Absolutely right.
Chris Walton:Those are.
Chris Walton:Those are really the four buckets, I think that fall.
Michael Diedrich:We have those same buckets.
Chris Walton:Yeah, I imagine you do.
Michael Diedrich:Most important to us, though, is the interaction with the customer.
Michael Diedrich:Again, this whole business boils down to people.
Michael Diedrich:And that moment we get to stand in front of one of our Tractor Supply customers.
Chris Walton:Do you measure that in any way?
Chris Walton:I'm curious.
Chris Walton:Like, how do you measure whether or not your employees are able to spend more time with their customers?
Michael Diedrich:We do.
Michael Diedrich:We do it through a variety of different ways.
Michael Diedrich:We have a lot of CX metrics that we measure.
Michael Diedrich:Service Management Group is our third party that helps measure the customer experience.
Michael Diedrich:So our stores have access to that.
Michael Diedrich:Obviously, as you go up in the organization, we have access to it, but we're constantly looking at what is that experience.
Michael Diedrich:And you all probably know we've been recognized a few times now through Forbes and ACSI as having really great customer service.
Michael Diedrich:So we know it's working, but we've got to continue to be relentless about getting in front of that customer.
Man Mazinga:So one of the things you called out that I didn't even realize that your whole team was remote, I think that's even more.
Chris Walton:It's really interesting.
Man Mazinga:But one thing that I've always appreciated about all the people at Tractor Supply that we've talked to is that from your chief supply chain officer, Colin Yankee, right down to, you know, the.
Man Mazinga:The like person just kind of coming up in the organization, they are in the stores all the time.
Man Mazinga:Hal Lotton, your CEO, we were just talking about in the stores all the time.
Man Mazinga:Now that is amazing.
Man Mazinga:But when we're talking about what metrics your store's teams need to follow sometimes I imagine while it's, yes, you have.
Man Mazinga:You have these points that you're trying to hit on, there's still things that Hal will see when he comes into the store that you'll see that Colin will see when they come into the store.
Man Mazinga:And so one of the things that you've adopted as a team is Corso's AI copilot.
Michael Diedrich:Yes.
Man Mazinga:So I'm curious to understand how like, that gives you.
Man Mazinga:Yes, you can each put your priorities into that list, but that's kind of helping the associates know.
Man Mazinga:Okay, we have a store visit coming up.
Man Mazinga:How do we know that we're maximizing, you know, what our leadership is expecting of us, but then most importantly, how we get that time in front of the customer.
Man Mazinga:How is copilot helping your team?
Michael Diedrich:Yes.
Michael Diedrich:So to be clear, the most important visit in a tractor supply store is from the customer.
Michael Diedrich:So that's our mentality.
Michael Diedrich:We can all visit the store all day long.
Michael Diedrich:None of that matters.
Michael Diedrich:All that really matters is.
Chris Walton:Well said.
Michael Diedrich:Yeah.
Michael Diedrich:But certainly we do.
Michael Diedrich:You know, we get out in the store, we see a lot of things.
Michael Diedrich:I am delighted to talk about Corso.
Michael Diedrich:I actually get the opportunity later today to present with Julian Mills, the CEO of Corso.
Michael Diedrich:We're.
Michael Diedrich:We're on the stage here and super excited about that because back to the point about too many metrics and how do you slim it down?
Michael Diedrich:That's exactly what Corso does.
Michael Diedrich:So we did a pilot with Corso a couple years ago.
Michael Diedrich:The pilot was extremely successful.
Michael Diedrich:I was skeptical.
Michael Diedrich:I would say, yeah, yeah, hear the buzzwords.
Michael Diedrich:AI and technology and all.
Michael Diedrich:Everything the technology is going to do for you, but in the moment it gets in the store, like, is it really going to resonate with the team?
Michael Diedrich:And, yeah, I will tell you, beyond just being a great group of people to work with, like an excellent group of people at Corso, it is driving significant results.
Man Mazinga:What kind of stuff are you seeing that caused the most immediate impact?
Michael Diedrich:The most immediate impact comes from what we call sales missions.
Michael Diedrich:So of course we call them missions.
Michael Diedrich:We really went out of the gate just talking about how to drive sales.
Michael Diedrich:Okay, so you might get a mission on.
Michael Diedrich:Just think of anything.
Michael Diedrich:You know, we sell a lot of pet food and livestock feed.
Michael Diedrich:You might get a mission that says your store is underperforming stores like you in this particular category.
Michael Diedrich:What Corso allows the store to do, though, is figure out the day, the time of day, the day of week, that.
Michael Diedrich:That sales of that particular.
Michael Diedrich:In this case, actually, the SKU level is underperforming.
Michael Diedrich:More important, though, is Corso guides the store on what actions it take.
Michael Diedrich:So we're not just going out there saying, hey, you've got an issue.
Michael Diedrich:You should sell more of this.
Michael Diedrich:I'm guessing the store probably already realizes they want to sell more stuff.
Michael Diedrich:But we're.
Michael Diedrich:We're helping them with the actions to take that.
Michael Diedrich:And the one thing I will say about Corso is it's very.
Michael Diedrich:It's very visual.
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Michael Diedrich:And our stores are extremely competitive.
Michael Diedrich:And so there's a chart in Corso and you see as the.
Chris Walton:See how you stack up.
Michael Diedrich:You see the dip and when the mission kicks off.
Michael Diedrich:And then the stores love to watch themselves climb up into the green.
Chris Walton:It is motivator in the field.
Michael Diedrich:It is the best motivator.
Michael Diedrich:93% engagement.
Michael Diedrich:And we've held that strong since the day we rolled out.
Michael Diedrich:Which find me another thing that you can put into a chain with 50,000 team members that you get 93% engagement.
Michael Diedrich:Our team members love it.
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Chris Walton:I want to go back to answer question a little bit though too, because I think it brings up an interesting point too is so since you've rolled that out, how have the store visits from the leadership changed or adapted to the technology?
Chris Walton:Like, how have you had to do things differently?
Michael Diedrich:Yeah.
Michael Diedrich:So I think more of that will come.
Michael Diedrich:If I was to tell you where we are in the journey with Corso, we're probably 10% there, which is just crazy to think about the impact Corso is going to make at Tractor Supply.
Michael Diedrich:We are actually going to put our store visits and our audits through Corso.
Michael Diedrich:So all of that will be in Corso and it will trigger district managers as they do a visit.
Michael Diedrich:It will create a mission based on things that the DM rated in that visit.
Michael Diedrich:It will create a mission for the store to react to.
Chris Walton:Got it.
Michael Diedrich:So it's just getting a lot smarter about who.
Michael Diedrich:What we do inside the store makes sense.
Michael Diedrich:That's using technology to help.
Michael Diedrich:Right.
Michael Diedrich:Like not just technology for the sake of having it, but actually making the life of us.
Chris Walton:When I imagine the district leader too, has that information of what has been bubbled up in Corso before he goes into the store too.
Chris Walton:And can.
Chris Walton:Then everyone's on the same sheet of music in terms of where the system has been directing them.
Chris Walton:And then they can follow up on that when they go into.
Michael Diedrich:And we're actually just getting ready to kick off DM specific missions.
Michael Diedrich:So now making the life of a district manager easier, we will eventually get to the point where a DM will know where to go, where to spend their time based off of that data.
Chris Walton:I love that.
Chris Walton:Instead of just expecting to be in every store X amount of times a month.
Chris Walton:That's great.
Chris Walton:Oh, my God.
Chris Walton:All right, so.
Chris Walton:So you guys have.
Chris Walton:You guys are Famous for your legendary service, as you like to call it.
Michael Diedrich:Yes.
Chris Walton: rities are you looking at for: Michael Diedrich:Yeah, that's a good one.
Michael Diedrich:I'm glad you brought up legendary service, though.
Michael Diedrich:I've loved the opportunity to talk about legendary service.
Michael Diedrich:People ask, like, why legendary?
Michael Diedrich:How did that come?
Michael Diedrich:You know, we are a mission and values driven company and our mission is to work hard, have fun, make money by providing legendary service, great products at everyday low prices.
Michael Diedrich:I don't think it's an accident that the founders use the words legendary.
Michael Diedrich:Not good, not great, but legendary.
Michael Diedrich:And so back to what I was saying in the beginning.
Michael Diedrich:It's so important that every one of our team members has the time they need to spend in front of that customer.
Michael Diedrich:You know, our customers, when we look at the comments they make, it's not about the product, it's about the interaction.
Michael Diedrich:It's about we know their dog's name, we know how many chickens they have, we know they bought the chickens from us.
Michael Diedrich:Yeah.
Michael Diedrich:And so it's so important that we have that relationship with our customers.
Michael Diedrich:So legendary service drives everything we do.
Michael Diedrich:And so we're continuing to use more and more technology to support leading with Legendary.
Michael Diedrich:Give you just a few examples.
Michael Diedrich:So one thing is all of our team members have a device, right, that they have on them inside the store.
Michael Diedrich:And so we empower them with as much information as possible.
Michael Diedrich:So the moment they get in front of the customer, they have it.
Michael Diedrich:So we call it learning on the go, but learning in the field in the moment, in front of the product, not in front of a computer, in.
Chris Walton:A back room, on the floor.
Michael Diedrich:But people are used to TikTok and Instagram, right?
Michael Diedrich:They're used to this really quick nuggets of learning.
Michael Diedrich:And so that's how we transferred our learning into very short videos in the moment on the sales floor, on the handheld device.
Michael Diedrich:We also think it's important for the team members to understand their contribution to their specific store, for sure.
Michael Diedrich:And that's harder than it sounds because it's like, how do you do that?
Michael Diedrich:So we actually created, we call it Power of the Red Vest because all of our team members wear the red vest.
Michael Diedrich:And Power of the Red Vest is really at a team member level, showing them their impact to their specific store based on some of those key metrics we were talking about.
Michael Diedrich:And then the other one I'll mention, I think you guys have heard about, you can't, you know, not talk about AI.
Michael Diedrich:But hey, hey, Gura is the app we use Inside the store that's using generative AI.
Michael Diedrich:So Gura is greet, uncover, recommend, and ask.
Michael Diedrich:Okay, so if you say, Michael, in the simplest way, how do you provide legendary service?
Michael Diedrich:We use Guru, our map, uncover, recommend.
Michael Diedrich:All right, so hey, Gura plays off of that.
Michael Diedrich:And our team members can speak through the earpiece or type in and immediately get an answer to any product question.
Michael Diedrich:So in a tractor supply store, I like to use this example.
Michael Diedrich:Someone will say, how much of this roundup to kill weeds do I need to mix in a gallon sprayer?
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Michael Diedrich:Well, you either need to memorize that.
Chris Walton:Yeah, right.
Michael Diedrich:Or go to Google and find it.
Michael Diedrich:Or now just click the button and say, how many roundup to it right in front of the customer.
Michael Diedrich:It's speaking in the earpiece.
Michael Diedrich:Team members get that immediate team member.
Man Mazinga:Is an expert for pretty much, right?
Michael Diedrich:Pretty much right away.
Man Mazinga:Like day two on the job, they.
Michael Diedrich:Could be an expert between learning on the go, power of the red vest, understanding their impact, and then using a tool like hey Guru on that handheld to immediately get them.
Michael Diedrich:Yeah.
Michael Diedrich:I mean, think of the products we carry and the kind of questions our team members get.
Man Mazinga:Can't imagine.
Michael Diedrich:But another, it's not technology.
Michael Diedrich:But another thing I'll mention is, you know, we hire our customer.
Michael Diedrich:We hire people who live out here, the life out here.
Michael Diedrich:We hire people who are passionate about taking care of those customers.
Michael Diedrich:So it's just very natural for them to interact with the customer.
Man Mazinga: what you're excited about in: Michael Diedrich: Yeah, it is: Chris Walton:So hard to believe.
Michael Diedrich:I can't believe.
Chris Walton:Feels like it's off with a rousing start too, doesn't it?
Michael Diedrich:Yes, it does.
Michael Diedrich:I think it's quick for my team and for me.
Michael Diedrich:You know, we talk about just being relentless about removing work from the stores.
Michael Diedrich:And I know, I'm guessing a lot of retailers say that we really want to just be relentless.
Michael Diedrich:You know, I've been doing this for a long time, and I think we get comfortable with certain things.
Michael Diedrich:We assume we have to do certain things because that's just the way we've always done it.
Michael Diedrich:And what I love about Tractor Supply is just we are willing to just go break it and make it better.
Michael Diedrich:So we are going to be relentless about productivity, about taking low value workout, about finding ways to again get that team member in front of that customer.
Michael Diedrich:That's all that matters at the end of the day.
Michael Diedrich:That's all that matters.
Michael Diedrich:Taking legendary service of our customers.
Chris Walton:You know, Michael, one thing I want to ask you too, before I let you go is we've talked a lot about the customer service side, which really translates to the front end of the store.
Chris Walton:Anything on the back end of the store that you can talk about?
Michael Diedrich:Yeah, we have a process.
Michael Diedrich:We love to name things, if you haven't realized that.
Michael Diedrich:All the way.
Michael Diedrich:We have a process we call the tractor way, which is just really the way we operate inside the store.
Michael Diedrich:Our biggest body of work really is freight, unloading the truck, getting it to the sales floor.
Michael Diedrich:So a few years ago, we really, again, about being efficient and productive, looked at that process and.
Michael Diedrich:And really created a way to make it the most efficient we think it can be.
Michael Diedrich:So we have a very, very detailed and specific way we unload the truck, bring it to the floor, stock it again.
Michael Diedrich:What I think is so great about the way we think about things is we did all that not with operations in mind, but again with the customer in mind.
Michael Diedrich:The faster we can put that freight out, the more accurate we put it in the right spot, the better we can help the customer.
Michael Diedrich:So we do a good chunk of our productivity work is on that back end.
Michael Diedrich:But it's still with the idea of how does it impact the customer.
Chris Walton:Right, right, right.
Chris Walton:And if you do it get everybody doing it the same way, then it's easy to continue to innovate and invent along that process too, as you go forward.
Michael Diedrich:I mean, we have 50,000 team members, so every footstep.
Michael Diedrich:Yeah, like every second it matters.
Michael Diedrich:It's got to be optimized.
Chris Walton:You want people out there talking to customers.
Michael Diedrich:Yeah, for sure.
Chris Walton:It's a great way to think about it.
Chris Walton:That is a huge nugget here to start us off on day three of nrf.
Chris Walton:Thank you, Michael.
Michael Diedrich:You're very welcome.
Michael Diedrich:Thanks for having me.
Michael Diedrich:Thanks for having you.
Chris Walton:You are welcome back anytime.
Chris Walton:As is any Omnistar ever.
Chris Walton:But yes, you particularly since we now are meeting you in person.
Chris Walton:That concludes our interview with Michael.
Chris Walton:We're going to be here at the Fusion Group booth all day long.
Chris Walton:Booth number four, nine three eight.
Chris Walton:And Anne, until next time, be careful out there.
