Joe Megibow, CEO of Purple and Ken Cassar of CassarCo Strategy each give us a sneak peak into their keynote presentations on digital retail strategy and U.S. online consumer behaviour during the COVID crisis

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail, I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada and This episode is brought to you by omNovos, Canada’s Retail Customer Engagement Solutions Provider. Combine all of your customer data into a single view to create real-time, personalized connections with your customers in our new contactless world. Learn more at www.realcustomerengagement.com.

On this episode we meet Andrew Tepperman, President of Tepperman’s who takes us through the long, rich history of this Ontario based furniture retailer and how they draw on their heritage and decades of experience serving customers to modern brand and format innovation to compete in a crowded category.

Next, I catch up with Matthew Dixon, Chief Product and Research Officer for the Austin-based AI venture, Tethr. An accomplished business researcher and writer, author of three Amazon and Wall Street Journal best-selling books on loyalty, sales strategy and customer service, —and is a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review with more than 20 print and online articles to his credit. We talk about the impact the COVID crisis has had on customer service, call centres and ultimately customer satisfaction and loyalty.

But first, lets check in with Andrew from Tepperman’s

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Thanks to Andrew and Matt,for being my guests on this episode, and to omNovos for their generous sponsorship. If you liked this podcast you can subscribe on Apple, Spotify or your favourite podcast platform, please rate and review, and be sure and recommend to a friend or colleague in the retail industry.

I’m Michael LeBlanc, Founder and President of M.E. LeBlanc and Company Inc. and you can learn more about me on www.meleblanc.co or of course on LinkedIn

Until next time, have a safe week!

Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.

Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels, most recently on the main stage in Toronto at Retail Council of Canada’s Retail Marketing conference with leaders from Walmart & Google. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.

Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025, Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail, RTIH has named him a top 100 global though leader in retail technology and Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.

Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.