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Ensuring Omnichannel Excellence During Disruptive Times

ZebraReflexis

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Many have sounded the alarm about what they see as the impending death of retail. Countless news articles have been written about the “retail apocalypse,” about how brick-and-mortar stores are slowly being phased out of existence. But it’s clear that this isn’t the case. Retail sales continue to climb year over year, and many retailers are opening stores, investing in people and experiences. Retail isn’t dying as an industry, but shifting to accommodate the changing needs of the consumer.

That shift, however, is an enormous test for retailers. In recent times, the rise of ecommerce has been one of the defining challenges within the retail industry, with the majority of retailers implementing digital transformation and innovation plans in response.

Every year, we see ecommerce sales take a larger percentage of overall retail sales. While it was only 6.4% in 2010, it has climbed steadily over the years, reaching 14.3% in 2018 and 15.8% in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated this trend, turning a significant challenge into a full-blown crisis. Ecommerce sales skyrocketed in 2020 up to 21.3%, a massive 44% jump year over year. This reflects a broader trend among retail customers: they’re looking for the simplest, most convenient, and now the safest way to shop at stores, and will change how they shop to achieve that.

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However, managing the complexity of these processes remains a challenge. Implementing an expansive omnichannel strategy means reallocating labor to handle new in-store tasks, managing an increase in communications, and reprioritizing task distribution to integrate omnichannel projects into store associates’ workload. And after the dramatic shifts we saw in 2020, it’s clear that sometimes these initiatives need to be scaled up quickly, with failure meaning a massive drop in sales.

Without adapting your store execution and labor operations to accommodate new omnichannel services, you risk creating inefficiencies that can lower sales, increase employee frustration and turnover, and leave customers disappointed with slow and cumbersome omnichannel services.

This means that those digital transformation plans are going to be even more crucial in the future. Since the vast majority of customers are still very interested in going to stores, blending in-person shopping with digital or online shopping methods is key to winning over customers that are thinking of moving towards predominately ecommerce retailers.

Many retailers already have plans to improve offerings that blend the physical with the digital: 61% of retailers say that buy online pick up in store (BOPIS) and buy online return in store are critical to their omnichannel strategies. And these strategies also benefit sales: omnichannel customers spend 4% more on every shopping occasion in-store, with 85% reporting they make additional purchases in-store while picking up their online orders.

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To help you ensure omnichannel excellence in disruptive times, we’ve compiled four strategies that will simplify work for stores and streamline critical store operations processes:

Improve Visibility into Execution of Omnichannel Tasks3Enable Better Training Opportunities for Store Associates4

Optimize Labor Forecasting to Account for Omnichannel Processes2

Create More Efficient Fulfillment Processes1

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Strategy #1

When retail customers place BOPIS orders or show up for curbside pickup, there’s an expectation that pickup will be simple, their orders will be correct, and they won’t have to wait to receive their purchase. To meet this expectation, communication has to flow quickly and effectively from various systems to store managers and associates.

Achieving this can be remarkably difficult. How do your store associates know an order needs to be collected and brought to the fulfillment desk? How do your store associates know when orders require additional assistance, such as retrieving a large television or stereo system from the back room? And are your associates trained to know how to properly store different items before fulfillment, such as ice cream or yogurt? Hiccups during this process inevitably lead to incorrect orders and an increased wait time for customers, making it less likely they become repeat business.

Create More Efficient Fulfillment Processes

Real-time task management solutions are key to streamlining communication and ensuring quick and effective execution of fulfillment processes. With a real-time task management solution, associates can receive alerts and notifications that inform them when an order comes in and when they need to fulfill it. Any tasks related to fulfillment processes can be funneled to the correct store associate in real time, with a set priority level so they know how urgent the order is. And store managers are immediately notified when orders are brought to the fulfillment area and given to customers, giving them the opportunity to check associate performance and follow up if any tasks are done incorrectly.

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Strategy #2

Omnichannel services such as curbside pickup, BOPIS, and ship from store require time and resources to optimally function. Store associates need to fit this additional work into their already-busy routine of daily tasks. Without accounting for the time these new tasks take to complete, the additional work could mean compromising on other critical activities, leaving shelves empty and customers unattended.

Labor scheduling plays a significant role in managing this increasing workload, but it’s very difficult to accurately account for workload using manual scheduling processes. While store managers may have some knowledge about the frequency of online orders, curbside pickup requests, or in-store returns, they typically don’t have the resources to precisely forecast the related workload. As a result, manual schedules are usually inaccurate, leaving orders unfulfilled and creating lengthy wait times for customers.

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Automating labor scheduling with an intelligent workforce management solution can help align your schedules with in-store workload by removing guesswork and the potential for human error. These solutions can analyze historical sales, traffic, and scheduling data, then use artificial intelligence and machine learning to inform store managers how many associates should be scheduled in order to manage all in-store and omnichannel work.

These solutions can also drill down and recommend specific store associates to schedule during certain shifts, ensuring that there are always store associates available with the proper skill set to fulfill orders, manage in-store returns of online orders, and complete other work related to omnichannel services.

Optimize Labor Scheduling to Account for Omnichannel Processes

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to store managers to let them know that BOPIS orders are fulfilled and ship-from-store orders have been collected. They can also send images and other information to verify task completion, giving the store manager the ability to quickly assess whether the task has been done correctly. This gives store managers the ability to both know the status of omnichannel initiatives as well as ensure consistent and high-quality service at all times.

Implementing an AI-powered analytics solution also provides essential insights into your omnichannel performance. Should any opportunities for improvement be identified (e.g. a picker with a high rate of customer complaints, a specific product that customers keep returning, etc.), the solution alerts the appropriate stakeholder:

• What is happening?• Why did it happen?• How much is it costing the business?• What to do about it?• Who should do it?

This level of real-time detail empowers you to optimize omnichannel services quickly and accurately – an absolute must for achieving true omnichannel excellence.

Strategy #3

Achieving success with your omnichannel initiatives requires more than simply providing customers with excellent service.

Store managers need to know how quickly BOPIS orders are fulfilled, how often customers are successfully sold additional products after retrieving an online order, and other key performance metrics. Visibility is key to omnichannel success; without a real-time, 360-degree view into how omnichannel initiatives are performing, it’s impossible to see where you’re succeeding and where to make improvements when you fall short.

A closed feedback loop for tasks helps ensure a clear line of sight into completion levels at the store. With real-time task management on mobile devices, store associates can immediately mark when they complete omnichannel tasks, instantly sending a notification

Improve Visibility into the Execution of Omnichannel Tasks

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Strategy #4

New omnichannel processes mean a different day-to-day reality for store associates. Whether it’s increased curbside pickup demand, an influx of online returns in the store, or processing more ship-from-store orders, their daily tasks must shift to accommodate the changing ways that customers shop.

However, as with any job-related change, there’s an increasing chance that this shift of tasks will bring mistakes. Maybe store associates are unsure how to process online returns, or they don’t remember how or where to store different curbside pickup items. While mistakes are understandable as store associates adapt to new processes, they still have a detrimental impact on the customer experience, which can lead to decreased customer satisfaction and lower sales.

Enable Better Training Opportunities for Store Associates

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AI-powered analytics uncovers a variety of areas where improvement is needed, sending the relevant managers corrective actions to carry out so they can quickly rectify critical issues. Consider the scenario of an improperly processed return. A prescriptive analytics solution would immediately identify that the involved associate did not process the return in compliance with the retailer’s policies. It would then send the appropriate stakeholder an alert containing the full details of the mistake, including who was involved, how much the mistake cost the retailer and, most importantly, what action to take in response.

For example, if the return appears to be fraudulent, the alert would go to the retailer’s asset protection team, directing them to launch an investigation. If it appears to be an honest mistake (perhaps the violated rule was only made official the previous day), the alert would go to the associate’s manager with instructions to retrain the associate on the return policy. Instead of guessing what needs to be done next, problem stakeholders can simply act on the provided, data-guided instructions, knowing that they are the most effective way to resolve the problem. This ensures that the non-compliance doesn’t repeat itself.

To learn more about how Zebra software solutions can help you achieve success, send us an email at Reflexis.info@zebra.com and we’ll connect you with one of our solution experts.

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