Delivering a Consistent, Seamless Retail Experience
After weathering years of continuous unexpected and complex changes in both their personal and work lives, consumers are truly in control of the shopping experience. Replete with purpose and digital confidence, they expect more connection across the board — shopping should always be convenient and intuitive, but also fast and efficient at times, while experiential and innovative at other times.
Understanding the shift in consumer behavior and adapting the retail experience are important first steps for retailers trying to improve their competitive advantage in a fast-paced, often unforgiving market. The retailers who adopt technology solutions that enable convenient, seamless experiences — both online and in-store — will see more potential for growth. Not offering these kinds of solutions likely means you’re missing out on a percentage of potential profits.
But once you have the technology solutions in place, how do you make sure the experience remains convenient and consistent to keep consumers coming back for more?
Boosting Your Retail Experience with a Technology Service Partner
In building an integrated technology solution for your business and customers, you likely utilize multiple products from a variety of different manufacturers. While this combination creates a finely tuned ecosystem of moving parts that delivers the best final experience for customers, many retailers believe it also means they have to manage and service all store technology individually through multiple partners.
But you can actually simplify your technology solution on the back end and reduce the operational burden by outsourcing the associated retail technology services to a flexible, expert service partner. Working with a single partner who has end-to-end service capabilities for multi-vendor environments means you can focus on your core business drivers while still providing a seamless retail experience for customers and employees alike.
In this three-part series, use these checkpoints to assess the qualifications and experience of potential retail technology service partners.
(In part one, learn more about evaluating potential retail technology services partners based on multi-vendor environments, optimized operations and being a single source service partner.)
Complete Lifecycle Management
As discussed in part one, the technology lifecycle for every device you use follows a similar pathway. In the retail environment, having each step of that process managed by a single service partner means reduced complexity and more consistency. Better yet, having a single partner who manages all those capabilities in-house rather than outsourcing reaps even more benefits for you, including streamlined management, savings opportunities and better quality control. All of this translates into a more seamless retail experience that you, your employees and your customers can depend on.
Increased Uptime
Minimizing technology disruptions are critical to business continuity, as they can negatively impact your customer experience, your employees’ satisfaction and your bottom line. While a retail technology partner understands this, they may not have the necessary solutions to adequately address downtime. For example, do they invest in intelligent technology that offers advanced analytics and insights into issue prevention? Find a partner who can help you curtail business disruption and offer an efficient, uninterrupted customer experience that sets your business apart from the competition.
Experience and Flexibility
As the saying goes, the only constant in life is change, and that’s especially true in the push for more digital and integrated retail experiences. Can your retail technology service partner keep up with evolving consumer demands? Can they align targeted solutions to your unique requirements and technology ecosystem?
Flexibility, experience and agility are essential qualities of any successful partner in today’s market, so having one who can design unique solutions and configure their services — and then adapt alongside you as things change — is key to strengthening your brand, providing a modern retail experience and keeping customers coming back to you.
How Does Your Retail Technology Service Provider Measure Up?
A retail technology service provider should enhance your customer experience. This means access to a full portfolio of service capabilities in-house, increasing technology uptime and remaining flexible — all of which contributes to the delivery of a seamless, consistent retail experience. If any of these components are missing, you may run the risk of greater business disruption and an inconsistent experience that leaves both customers and employees dissatisfied.
Mitigate that risk by looking for a flexible, experienced technology service partner who can custom-tailor services and adapt fluidly along your side, empowering you to regain the focus and resources you need to build the best customer experience possible.
Download the “Retail Technology Services Checkup” eBook for a look at all nine considerations when evaluating retail technology services partners.
In part three, learn more about evaluating potential retail technology services partners based on spend optimization, cost reduction and financial stability.
About the Author
Teri Glover joined Shyft Global Services in March 2021 via the outsourcing agreement with Fujitsu America, Inc. and serves as the Director of Global Client Success and Service Delivery Management. She holds over two decades of experience in services and is relentlessly dedicated to delivering the highest-quality customer experience possible, especially in the retail technology space.
