Explore the Eight Biggest Challenges of Retail and How to Solve Them
Retail is a complex business; it needs support from technology that improves the customer and associate experience. With the development of ThinkTime, retailers now have a platform they can rely on to overcome their biggest challenges. Here’s a list of the challenges and how you can overcome them, featured in our new whitepaper.
Challenges in Retail:
- Lack of consistent execution at all levels
Consistency across every location is difficult and often faces pitfalls due to poor communication. This means information gets distorted, and the execution of consistency fails. But with ThinkTime, businesses can realize clear communication streams from corporate to associates.
- Lack of real-time visibility on status of work
Problems accessing real-time data can impact operations. You need a software solution that delivers data that is timely, trackable, and meaningful.
- Stores are overloaded with work they can’t complete from corporate
When workers are overwhelmed, their productivity can actually drop; however, more retailers need to do more with fewer bodies, so leaders need to be able to visualize the impact of schedule work weekly, balance the load through better workflows, and make prudent decisions that keep employees engaged.
- Communications and tasks aren’t personalized
To better engage employees, communication should be personalized. With ThinkTime, associates have a tool that allows them to see what’s important to them based on their location, role, and profile.
- No validation that work is done correctly
Checks and balances keep your business running smoothly, so you need a tool that allows managers to require validation of tasks by employees and enables them to do so with photos. Then they can be accepted or rejected to ensure quality work.
- Task requests to the field are unsupported
Your associates must have access to information to meet the needs and expectations of customers. Offering them access to a knowledge base, support groups, and task integration can be key to remediating this problem.
- Store tasks are scheduled weeks in advance, not in real-time
Real-time tasks pop up every day and need to be integrated into your schedules. Having a software platform that allows for this will assure optimal performance.
- Lack of mobile communications and over-dependence on email
Email communication can be easily lost in the mix, but by allowing workers to use mobile devices, they can access information faster and deliver the best results.
Learn more about each challenge and how ThinkTime has the solutions for them by reading the complete whitepaper located here.
