{"id":1673123,"date":"2014-02-07T09:58:20","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T17:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/?p=1673123"},"modified":"2014-02-20T09:04:41","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T17:04:41","slug":"retail-technology-should-empower-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/2014\/02\/07\/retail-technology-should-empower-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Retail technology should empower employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Merchants are implementing innovative retail&nbsp;technology, such as mobile <a href=\"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/Solutions\" target=\"_self\" class=\"dnautolink\">point of sale<\/a> systems, to improve their marketing strategies and enhance the customer experience. Both online and in stores, technological solutions can help retailers offer personalized services, provide consumers with information and make shopping a more efficient process.<\/p>\n<p>An important component of successfully integrating retail systems&nbsp;is employee training. In a recent Wall Street Journal blog post, Michael Hickens&nbsp;described a shopping trip during which <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/cio\/2014\/01\/28\/a-day-at-sears-reveals-pitfalls-of-retail-tech-implementation\/\" target=\"_blank\">poorly implemented technology<\/a> detracted from his experience. The store associate used a tablet <a href=\"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/Solutions\" target=\"_self\" class=\"dnautolink\">POS<\/a> system to take Hickens&#039; information and complete the sale. While Hickens noted some opportunities the tablet could have provided &#8211; such as personalized suggestions for items that would go well with his purchase &#8211; the employee struggled with the basics on the tablet, taking time and causing frustration.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I think it&#039;s important particularly when you&#039;re talking about higher-end, commission-driven environment, that sales associates don&#039;t become a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.luxurydaily.com\/is-in-store-technology-increasing-or-subduing-the-relevance-of-retail-employees\/\" target=\"_blank\">point of resistance<\/a> in adopting the technology,&quot; Steven Dennis, president of SageBerry Consulting LLC, told Luxury Daily. &quot;When it&#039;s obvious it saves them time, closes more sales, efficiently solidifies relationships with clients and it happens to save money for company, then it&#039;s a win-win.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Simple, integrated POS solutions can help create a smoother transition, and retailers should make sure their employees are prepared to use the new resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Merchants are implementing innovative retail technology, such as mobile point of sale systems, to improve their marketing strategies and enhance the customer experience. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/2014\/02\/07\/retail-technology-should-empower-employees\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1673124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1673123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-retail-merchandising-and-marketing","category-point-of-sale-software-systems"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1673123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1673124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1673123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1673123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1673123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}