Retail

Video Conferencing Solutions For Retail Industry

Retailers need to continuously engage and keep up customers. Customer service is often a key differentiator, as is the ability to respond quickly to market trends. PeopleLink provides the solutions that enable real-time collaboration between stores, suppliers, warehouses, buyers, and sales teams, which ultimately leads to better customer service and supply chain management.

Connecting the Stores Worldwide

Timely communication is one way, where retailers can increase employee productivity, improve store operations and increase customer satisfaction. PeopleLink collaborative video conferencing solutions within and between retail branch locations can facilitate inventory checks, remote support, remote team meetings, last-minute specials and new incentive programs. Headquarters of a retail store can benefit, through better, faster access to sales reports, employee information, and remote expertise. PeopleLink solutions can be used for communicating within and between various retail locations. Information such as inventory levels can be shared between a store and a central warehouse. Remote experts can be brought in for specialty expertise or for technical support. Company wide meetings can be held where daily incentive programs and goals can be shared and discussed. Sales reports, benefits updates, organizational announcements and any other information can be shared between locations for more effective decision making.

Remote Administration

Higher profitability is often a result of better inventory management, as well as more accurate supply and demand forecasting. PeopleLinks real-time collaboration enables better forecasting, more timely inventory checks and balances, accurate tracking of shipping status and orders, and right procurement. The result? Faster response to market and customer demands.

Visual communication plays a major role in the overall effectiveness of communication by providing visual, non-verbal cues that aid in comprehension. The combination of the aforementioned voice solutions with video conferencing results in a complete communication and collaborative experience. Nodding heads, raised eyebrows, crossed arms and eye contact (or lack of) all help to gauge understanding, agreement and integrity. In fact,researchers have focused studies on the role of verbal and non-verbal communications. While some reports show that nearly 80 percent of communication is non-verbal, the most famous study on this subject comes from Dr. Albert Mehrabian. In his 7%-38%-55% rule, he concludes that only 7 percent of communication comes from spoken words, 38 percent from the tone of the voice and 55 percent from body language. The ability to clearly see these body language details is now possible with PeopleLink video Conferencing Solutions.

Customer Service Kios

A relatively new implementation of video conferencing, in the fields of retail industry, is the video conferencing-enabled customer service kiosk. This retail video concierge application provides guests with information through face-to-face, interactive communications with remote staff. For example, having a dedicated product specialists at every store, customers can have live video conversations with a remote expert about product information, design consulting or other services. Experts who speak multiple languages can also be reached to provide further personalized services. Given the recent cost-cutting measures seen in the retail industry, the concept of a single remote expert providing services to multiple locations makes financial sense. Instead of having a product expert in each tethered to a desk. Retailers see benefits such as improved operations, better coordination, real-time information access and increased customer service levels.

Supply Chain Management

Higher profitability is often a result of better inventory management, as well as more accurate supply and demand forecasting. PeopleLinks real-time collaboration enables better forecasting, more timely inventory checks and balances, accurate tracking of shipping status and orders, and right procurement. The result? Faster response to market and customer demands. Suppliers, Warehouses, buyers and sales teams can share inventory information, forecasts, shipping status or order status. Audio and video quality is especially important when dealing with international suppliers and customers. PeopleLinks Face-to-face communications solutions help to strengthen relationships with suppliers and vendors. Benefits include faster response to market and consumer demands, upstream and downstream supply management and better information availability which results in improved customer satisfaction.