We know that it’s physically impossible to be everywhere all at once – although many store owners wish that was a power they could possess. For the average retail store manager, performing store audits and gauging employee performance – and ultimately, figuring out exactly what a store’s “retail execution” potential is – is a daily task, and one that never truly reaches an end. Seasons come and pass, promos begin and end, employees shuffle in and out of the store, and new merchandise replaces the old. New customers mix in with loyal ones – and some who have been coming for years disappear.
That’s the way of a store, and it’s up to management to always keep an eye open and on the proverbial ball. But today, that’s getting increasingly difficult. Competition is steep – and that means that, to survive, stores have to constantly be selling. But the drawback to having good business is that it’s harder to tell what’s going on – which is where, in the rapid growth of technology, retail execution solutions have been developed to aid stores in managing their resources and tracking their inventory. With the Christmas season coming up, this is even more important than ever, as this year’s total holiday season sales are looking to be 17 percent higher than last year’s as per Statista.
How a Retail Execution Software can Improve Retail Execution Management
Here are a few ways you can leverage them for your own business.
Digitize Your Auditing: Data travels slow traditionally – that’s the way of bureaucracy. But with technology and a proper retail execution software by a firm like 360 Field Reporting, those worries are eliminated.
Speed Up Your Analysis: Not only can you catalogue data locally – you can instantaneously combine the data of several branches and get a regional or national overview of customer behavior, opinion, and performance indicators for certain products.
Get Your Scheduling Under Control: Once you’ve figured out the best way to digitally implement an expedited field data collection process, it’s time to make sure you’re doing it at the right place – and the right time. Through proper scheduling, you can further eliminate delays and synchronize your data analysis.
Make In-Store Surveys Simpler: One big part of identifying how successful a store is and what it can do to improve is to simply get right down to business and ask the people themselves. However, organizing proper surveys and getting enough of a cross-section of the total customer base is notoriously difficult to do, and even more difficult to truly benefit from. But that only signals a challenge, not an impossibility. Through digital means, you can make your in-store surveys a lot simpler through touchscreen polling at the cashiers during a purchase. The most important rule, however, is to keep it very short. Because as per Forbes, customers really don’t like surveys or polls, unless they only take a few seconds.
Double-Check Your Auditing Team: The real key to a properly executed retail team is training, as per Tough Nickel. You need to train your people, and make sure they are resourceful, helpful, and actually happy about working at your store – then you need to invest in their capabilities as retailers.
In the end, your biggest issue won’t be the actual retail execution management, or analysis – it’ll be finding the right software retailer to partner up with to expedite all your field data-related processes. Running a successful store will never be easier – but by informing yourself and arming your business with the right digital arsenal, you can get miles ahead of the competition.