Questioning The Conventional Wisdom Of Smartphones And Tablets

By Chris Todd, Chief Executive Officer at Theatro

We have all been there before….too many times we walk into a retail store and begin searching for an associate only to find one who doesn’t have the information we are looking for or is unable to find it. When this happens, our frustration with the retailer builds almost immediately. Consumers armed with the latest and greatest technology will always have the upper hand on associates with their instant access to the information they need to make the buying decision. It seems time and again, the store associate is in a constant battle of playing catch-up in trying to provide a great customer experience.   

No, this is not another blog touting the importance of putting tablets or smart phones in the hands of store associates, but rather to question the notion that hand held devices are the right way to even the playing field with consumers. Today’s conventional wisdom advocates tablets and smartphones as an essential tool to enhance the customer buying experience. As some retailers begin to move in this direction and others continue to examine their overall customer engagement strategies, I would like to challenge the conventional wisdom by asking the question: “If all store employees had a smart phone or tablet, how would this impact the customer buying experience?”    

Great customer service requires being available, listening attentively, plus having the necessary useful information at your fingertips for customer questions. To make this possible, every person on the retail floor should be educated and connected to each other in order to encourage team selling.

While tablets bring many opportunities to improve customer engagement, they also need to be weighed against in-store challenges they create. Based on my discussions with retailers, I would summarize the opportunities and challenges as follows:

In-store opportunities:

1. Instant access to the same information consumers have
2. Immediate access to store systems for inventory look-up, shipping, etc.  
3. Access to store training material and procedures  

In-store challenges:

1. Limited eye-to-eye contact results in diminished customer experience
2. Hands occupied holding the tablet or smart phone limits associates ability to do tasks for customers 
3. Cost and Control of devices and applications (theft, breakage, upgrades, etc.)

Finding the balance will be key, but putting a computer in the hands of store employees is not the easy answer to providing a better shopping experience.  Don’t get me wrong, smartphones and tablets will be useful tools for certain roles within a retail operation, especially management or mobile POS, but they are not optimized for the majority of employees and could potentially challenge the associate to shopper engagement model. 

So what is the answer? 

I believe in the idea that a retail associate should be “head-up and hands free” when engaging with shoppers. Good eye-to-eye contact coupled with readily available useful information is what we all want when engaging an associate while shopping vs. the associate constantly looking down at the tablet. Fortunately, there are new solutions emerging that will enhance the tablet/screen approach. Retailers should keep a watchful eye on the emerging market trend around enterprise wearables. These new solutions provide a heads-up and hands free operation with complete mobility and ample computing power for compelling new productivity apps.

Equipped with a wearable computer, retail store associates can be connected to the chain’s enterprise information systems with the convenience of voice activated applications and connected to each other for effective team selling. Ultimately, the greatest benefit of the enterprise wearable is they have the potential to be designed for the store employee’s day-to-day job vs. re-purposing a consumer device. 

Watch the emerging enterprise wearable space as they provide a great solution and retailers should consider them as part of the overall in-store customer engagement strategies.  

Chris Todd is the President & CEO of Theatro, a two-year old Dallas-based start-up that has developed a voice-enabled enterprise wearable coupled with a software suite of productivity applications for the brick and mortar retailer. Theatro has been working with a national retailer to complete this solution. As the senior member of Theatro’s founding team, Todd is responsible for managing the company’s overall strategy, direction and growth plans.