Company News • 05.06.2015
Why tablets are the tipping point between retailer and customer control
How to maintain the bricks-and-mortar balance with in-store mobile technology
As consumers grow increasingly tech-savvy, they are becoming more comfortable using digital devices to manage their own in-store experiences. Furthermore, with a mobile phone constantly in their pockets, this experience might not necessarily rely on – or even involve - the retailer.
Understandably, this causes concern amongst bricks-and-mortar businesses, many worrying that they no longer have control of the customer journey. However, there are ways retailers can regain authority – with tablet technology proving the most effective.
Embracing mobile will not only improve customer understanding, it also equips staff with an invaluable tool to improve their offering. There’s nothing more frustrating for a customer than being faced with sales associates that have limited product knowledge; it can even be a cause for them to shop elsewhere.
However, no member of staff can know all there is to know about their retailer’s product offering, so it makes perfect sense to give them a helping hand. In this case, connecting the tablet to back-end information such as product catalogues containing detailed information, serves as a back-up for when employees need to answer trickier customer queries. It also makes sense to link the tablet to back-end data, so staff can have stock visibility and process orders for shoppers, there and then.
Even without sales associate assistance, retailers can still use technology to steer customers in the right direction. Placing self-serve tablets in the store enables customers to browse, in busy periods especially, within a controlled screen environment that keeps their eyes away from competitor deals!
However, these interactions only take shoppers to the point of wanting to purchase; the final hurdle is assisting them through the checkout process. Staff may have provided an excellent customer service with the tablet initially, but could lose them if faced with a lengthy queue at the point-of-sale, for example. Why not take control of the journey completely by allowing the customer to make that purchase as soon as they have the information they require?
Integrating tablet solutions with payments functionality is the last link in the chain from browsing to buying. And offering consumers the option to pay on the spot not only guarantees more transactions, but also increases customer loyalty – they will be far more likely to visit again after experiencing such a seamless service.
Source: Secure Retail
channels: mobile payment, tablet PC
