What is Associate Scalability in the Retail and Hospitality environment?
In a recent interview I was asked what the primary value proposition of OmniPlay is. (A new XOMNI feature in which an associate can share a product, wishlist or entire session from their device with an in-store kiosk, interactive digital sign or even customer mobile device) My response: “OmniPlay will significantly help store associates scale.” How?
Over the last several years we’ve seen investments shift from in-store and offline to online and then taken further with mobile. It’s been awhile since the store experience has received any significant investment. It’s about time for an investment and we are starting to see the associate device emerge. These devices along with quality applications will help Associates with product awareness and education. In effect, this alone can help with new Associate Scalability. However, by adding integration points with other systems and devices the associate device can enable powerful scenarios that scale the associate.
Consider the out-of-box functionality of OmniPlay. The associate can initiate an Assisted Selling experience by helping a customer find a product, accessory or service. Barcode, QR, RFID, object recognition or traditional browse and search are potential starting points enabled by the Associate device. Next, find related, suggested and comparison functionality can further refine product selection. Finally, via OmniPlay the associate can transfer the product, wishlist or entire session to another device so the customer can self-service or work with another associate or specialist to finalize the purchase decision. This enables the original associate to help another customer or perform operational duties. (i.e. Associate Scalability)
Now consider integrating additional technologies and services such as Loyalty, real-time communication (chat), beacon, mapping and wayfinding, etc into the experiences. I’m sure you can see compelling scenarios that not only enable Associate Scalability individually but within the entire store or entire Brand via dedicated support centers.
In the past, such experiences mentioned above would be a challenge. Today, the XOMNI Platform serves as an integration hub for all mentioned services. These services are exposed in a consistent and scalable way thus serving as an application development accelerator and data delivery mechanism with advanced Assisted Selling and Self Service Scenarios in mind.
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