Empowering frontline retail workers with AI tools
Frontline workers are the heart and the face of retail businesses, interacting with customers, seeing products in action, and embodying their brand daily. With new technologies, these workers now have access to the same data used by company decision-makers and marketers. This empowers them to engage customers more effectively, prioritize tasks during shifts, and implement organizational strategies.
Investing in frontline workers is one of the most impactful decisions a retailer can make. Innovative solutions connect workers to company data and insights, which helps them work smarter and represent their brands more effectively. With an empowered workforce, retail businesses can increase employee and customer satisfaction in exciting new ways.
Modernizing the frontline worker experience with AI technology
Today, 41% of frontline workers in nonmanagement positions report that they don’t have the technology they need to perform their jobs effectively. AI-powered technology can help retail staff—from the most senior manager to the newest employee on the floor—work faster and meet customer expectations better. The AI capabilities of tools and apps, like Store Operations Assist from Microsoft, help workers find instant answers to questions from conversational chatbots and capture critical insights from retail data.
Imagine the ability to turn every instance of customer engagement into an opportunity for next-level service. A simple request regarding product availability can be answered on the shop floor from a device that can also show the employee customer data. This data can help the staff member offer the customer additional services, such as connecting the customer with products they have previously shopped for online. In minutes, AI can answer employee questions and assist in providing customers with swift, personalized service.
“A team that is fully engaged and really proud of what they do is likely to engage with customers at a very high level, and the customer feels it,” says Ron Thurston, co-founder of OSSY and Host of the Retail in America podcast.
Boosting retail processes with improved communication and task automation
In a recent study, 61% of retail workers report that messages from leadership don’t reach them, while 31% believe that their voices aren’t being heard when dealing with workplace issues. Retail companies that provide employees with a secure space to engage with leaders while ensuring their input is received are seeing reduced turnover rates and increased employee satisfaction.
Retailer Marks and Spencer uses Microsoft Teams to seamlessly manage schedules and automate task assignments to specific stores, managers, or employees. This has improved its employee engagement and, in turn, customer satisfaction. It’s easy for the recipient of an assigned task to update their status within the app, while managing schedules and swapping shifts becomes a smoother process within the cloud.
Knowing when they’re working, what tasks they need to accomplish, and how soon those tasks must be completed can help employees elevate efficiency and maintain a sense of purpose throughout the workday. This transparency also improves communications between shift workers and their managers or corporate leaders.
Creating a smart workplace for retail teams
Connecting employees across a store through solutions like Microsoft Teams helps retail teams work smarter together. Retailers can streamline regional communications to help frontline workers focus on what’s most important while also distributing corporate communications to engage employees with strategic priorities. Microsoft Teams can even transform a smartphone into a walkie-talkie system, facilitating granular communication within each store and department.
A cloud-based solution makes it easy to provide employees with clean, relevant data while supporting appropriate security protocols. With such a solution, retail teams will have the correct foundation to help them maintain compliance, keep up with corporate communications, and meet customer expectations.
Helping frontline workers serve customers better with new tools
Frontline workers represent their brands to every customer, and they can do this more effectively when they are proud of that brand and the work they get to do each day. Giving frontline workers secure access to customer data, AI assistance, and instant internal communication can empower them to enjoy work more and serve customers better, improving the retail experience for everyone involved.
To learn more about how AI can transform the frontline worker experience, check out Microsoft Copilot. For more information on how Microsoft is empowering retail teams, explore Microsoft Cloud for Retail.
