By Stephen Wakeling,
Phobio
The
ubiquity of Amazon and recent announcement of the Toys ‘R’ Us closure offers a
sobering glimpse of how the retail industry is radically shifting and
transforming. Staying ahead of market trends and customer behavior is critical
for any business to survive and thrive. However, retailers are facing new
disruptive realities from three major influences: omnichannel experience, the growing
Millennial workforce and innovative technology.
The Omnichannel Shift
Online retailers are changing how traditional brick-and-mortar
retailers are going to market. The all-stars — Amazon, Google, and Apple — designed
and established new customer expectations in retail. Over the last decade,
these brands have been developing online experiences to create a competitive
advantage over retail store locations.
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Customers
today don’t just want a flexible omnichannel experience, they demand it. It’s
no longer viable to buy and complete transactions exclusively online or in-store.
The flexibility to be able to start and end in any channel is a must. For
example, customers want the convenience of buying a mobile device online and then
being able to pick it up at a local store. They also want the flexibility to buy
in-store but transfer the data stored on their old device at home and perhaps complete
the trade-in online. Technology enables these omnichannel experiences and
differentiates innovative retailers with the status quo.
Experiencing The Millennial
Shift
Currently, 25% of the workforce is made up of Millennials.
According to a ManpowerGroup study, this large swath is expected
to comprise 35% of the global workforce by 2020. Millennials will not
only change retail strategies and operations; they will heavily influence
corporate culture and the technology and tools needed to conduct business.
In their comfort zone of smartphones, text messages,
snaps, and tweets, Millennials seemingly eschew phone calls and email.
Retailers must pay attention and evolve their approach to accommodate the
changing times. The new way to navigate the workplace is through mobile
devices, messaging apps and chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
These enabling technologies allow employers to remain connected to the
workforce and customers, and most importantly stay in front of market
dynamics.
Better Employee
Engagement = Better Customer Experiences
Giving employees
a shared communication platform between business headquarters and retail
locations provides instant access to success. Suggestions and collaboration are
instantly initiated and fostered for a sense of shared identity and
team building.
Synchronizing the
physical and digital worlds provides customers with seamless omnichannel
experiences that online pure players simply cannot match. According to a study
conducted by Harvard Business Review, 73% of
consumers use multiple channels during shopping journeys, which gives retailers
an advantage. Further, customers typically spend 4% more in retail when using
multiple channels, which justifies why omnichannel strategies not only are important
to brands but to retail locations.
AI-Powered Chatbots
According to a study
from Tata Consultancy Services, 84% of the
companies surveyed see the use of AI as “essential” to competitiveness, while
50% view the technology as “transformative.”
Over the past 10
years, organizations have aggressively integrated point-of-sale systems and
other platforms with the Internet, delivering omnichannel
shopping experiences. Linking applications and systems has created robust
knowledge bases that, when harnessed with AI and machine learning, can drive
operational efficiencies, scalability and growth. Through chatbots, retailers
can deliver instantaneous access to information in real time, powered by
conversational language.
Chatbots are emerging in all
areas of business, especially retail. Gartner reports that just over 50% of enterprises
will spend more per annum on bots and chatbot creation than traditional mobile
app development by 2021.
The possibilities
of chatbots are endless. They can be integrated with human resources systems, customer
relation management applications, employee scheduling solutions and more to
fetch information. Machine learning empowers
chatbots to expand their knowledge base as more questions are answered. They
can be configured to provide information related to personal schedules, policies and promotions.
Omnichannel
shopping experiences, keeping pace with the needs of Millennials in the
workforce (and as consumers), and integrating technology will enable
next-generation retailers to flourish. Those that don’t will be chronicled as
the next Toys ‘R’ Us.
Stephen Wakeling
is a wireless industry entrepreneur with a 10-year track record of developing
disruptive, technology-powered services. He is the co-founder and CEO of Phobio, a software
development company that builds optimized software services to support wireless
carriers and retailers. Phobio provides
outstanding service and support to global retailers and technology companies,
such as Apple, Verizon and Samsung.
