Most retailers have all the information they need to improve sales, drive cost savings and improve efficiencies sitting within their existing key applications, systems, networks and human resource. However accessing this information when you need it and where you need it is an increasing challenge. Many new communications technologies, while offering excellence in their own right, do not automatically improve our ability to get things done any faster due to their disparate nature.  More devices, more networks, more applications all in multiple locations simply increases communication frustration and breakdown. What’s needed is a simple way of unifying all platforms, devices, networks and applications into a single user application. It’s called Unified Communications (UC). It operates on the principle that everyone has a single contact number, irrespective of device, PBX, network or location. You only have one email address so why would you want more than one telephone number? Once you have that single number you can simply choose which device you want to be contacted on, using either a graphical or speech interface, more of which later.

OK, so today you can implement an open standards IT layer that unifies your entire existing voice and data infrastructure, but how can it improve your business processes, supply chain and sales operations?

What’s in it for the retailer?

The key to a successful UC deployment is to analyse the ways in which your key people interact with your customers, each other and your key business applications.  This includes the staff who work on the shop floor in direct customer contact, agents in your call centres managing voice, SMS and email interaction, your mobile workforce of regional managers and procurement teams and your central HQ support functions.

This is so important because although UC is for everyone, each of your employees will have very different requirements for devices and functionality. At the end of the day, communication is about the minutiae of how we work, whether you’re desk or till bound, a shop floor assistant or mobile manager, what devices and networks are to hand, physically what’s most comfortable or appropriate for the job, and so on.

Closing the sale and keeping your customer loyal

With so much competition across all retail sales channels, the blurring of the boundaries of so called specialised retailing and the increasing levels of customer sophistication, the ability to differentiate your brand has never been so difficult.  Many retailers will only see growth this year by opening new stores and increasing their geographical coverage.

Each retailer is approaching the challenge in a different way, depending on where they’ve made investments in their sales channels and back office systems and what technologies they have to hand to facilitate this. One key target for all retailers is the ability to influence the customer sale through better informed customer facing staff. In-store this means employing and training up experts to better articulate product values, benefits and desirability to help close the deal. This is particularly relevant to the consumer electronics sector where specialised knowledge is increasingly paramount. However, in a store based environment how can you ensure such valued experts are on hand to help a customer?

This is where UC proves to be an instant hit. Imagine a shop assistant being able to instantly conference a group of product experts from a mobile phone, be they in store, at another store or another remote site, to help an uninformed or confused customer. The ability to exploit the maximum but ultimately limited expert resource in a conference facility at the touch of a button on a mobile device is a reality today in some UC solutions. All you need to do is create some predefined conference groups in a simple web interface. You may have six experts in a conference group, and when you make that instant call only reach three, but you will only need one to help with any inquiry.

Knowledge access is paramount and this is nowhere more prevalent than in the customer call centre environment. In a multi-channel retail environment where a call centre provides significant revenue generation or a customer care role, the quality of agent interaction is critical. However, the financial management of such customer interaction can be a nightmare as no retail business can afford the luxury of unlimited experts. So, how can you reduce the cost of serving a customer while maintaining a consistent quality of service across channels and keep the customer loyal?

The first step would be to reduce the pressure on your agents by taking away routine inquiries by implementing high quality speech enabled automation solutions. Some retailers have already taken this a step further and placed entire stock availability, reserve and payment systems into the hands of voice self service systems, and in doing so have created a significant revenue channel without loss of customer service.

Of course, touch tone or speech automation systems cannot replace an agent where the human interface is essential. But talking to a poorly informed agent can have a dramatic impact on customer loyalty. But imagine how that agent could be empowered if they could see the availability of other better informed agents or experts on their screen at any time and be able to call on a workgroup of skilled colleagues instantly at the click of a mouse to help solve a complex problem with a valued customer. This is where the value of presence, taken from the sphere of unified communications, enters the contact centre value chain. Not only does it give advanced access to skill centres instantly but it means that you can employ agents from remote locations and manage them and their skill sets as if they were actually in the contact centre itself. This provides your retail operations with a flexible bank of home or part time agents, or other experts and provides them with a better life work balance. This virtual contact centre environment means you’re better able to manage the peaks in customer demand associated with major promotional campaigns, unplanned events and peak trading periods. 

These are just a few examples of where UC is driving instant information access into retail environments that help staff increase sales and build a consistent customer experience across channels.