Labor Day is just behind us and fall is barely underway, so how can we be moving into discussions about Black Friday already? If retail had a mantra for the past year and a half, it would be “expect the unexpected.” That guidance still holds true for the upcoming holiday shopping season. To make the most of it and optimize the customer experience, retailers must prepare now and be ready to support early holiday shopping due to more unexpected conditions including supply chain disruptions, the surge of the delta variant and labor shortages. According to one study, half of shoppers plan to have completed their holiday shopping before Cyber Monday this year. That’s a queue to retailers that they need to be prepared. Here are some tips to help you get prepared.
- Automate where you can – In the face of labor shortages, technology is your best friend. From technologies like self-service package lockers like those from Telaid partner, Cleveron, to roving robots that automatically identify and alert personnel of shelf out-of-stocks, automation technologies can help bridge the gap when labor is scarce. Self-checkout kiosks and grab-and-go technology can reduce the burden on limited staff at checkout. Many of these technologies can be deployed quickly to support your holiday sales, so it’s important to get started now.
- Deploy digital/interactive signage – Digital signage offers an engaging and consistent way to communicate with customers. It also offers flexibility to change messaging across all locations instantly. In cases when special events or unexpected circumstances (seemingly the norm now) occur, interactive signage provides a channel to deliver compelling and critical messaging. It can also be used to deliver more personalized content and more in-depth information to individual customers at a time when employees may not have the bandwidth to do so themselves.
- Support services to free up your IT team – It's not just the front-of-the-house staff that is stretched during these times. Back-end IT staff is also scrambling to deliver projects on time and to react to changes, support new technologies and address problems and outages. You can relieve some of the burden on your IT team by turning to a trusted technology partner to offer technical support, handle everyday monitoring and maintenance and automatically address system outages. This support ensures that the IT team can stay on-point with priorities and focus on mission-critical activities during the busy holiday shopping season.
Give yourself an early gift with technologies that can ease the burden on your limited staff and streamline operational processes and customer service during the busy holiday season. Telaid can help you get started today to prepare for early shoppers. Contact us and we’ll be happy to help!
