Why deploying the Dynamics AX mPOS solution will allow retailers to really “change the game” when it comes to in-store systems.
1. Engaging with your customers form the minute they arrive
“Traditional” retail. You walk in a store, perhaps you are greeted with a very general “can I help you” greeting ….but the sales associate often has no idea who you are or why are there. If you do engage, then often you find that the Sales Associate is trying to sell you things you don’t want and politely ask to be left alone (e.g. when it becomes apparent that the Associate has no idea of your actual tastes or preferences). Many retailers don’t even greeti ou at the door. You roam the shop and mayb e fill your basket and your first interaction with a store employee is until you reach the checkout counter to pay for your purchases.
A retailer, needs to engage the customer, keep them interested and keep them buying. If you never make contact with the customer until they are checking out, it’s pretty much impossible to capture their interest at the checkout counter. In most cases, your customer is already tired and ready to leave, they aren’t interested in your help or sales suggestions . The customer may have even been standing in a long line and just wants to pay and go. The checkout time at the traditional cash wrap is one of the worst times to have a first identification/interaction with your customer.
Often the customer isn’t ever identified at the store. When they are identified, it typically is not until they provide their loyalty card or other identification. Again, this is way too late in the process for your Sales Associate to finally know the customer and interact at the checkout counter.
This is where mPOS can be a game changer. Deploy the mPOS on mobile devices such as tablets or smartphones, to empower your Sales Associates with the data they need to engage with the customer. Use the mPOS to look up the customer data by scanning the customer’s card, or searching for the customer at the time they greet them at the door or on the sales floor.
Extend the mPOS to use RFID tags in loyalty cards to identify customers and bring up their data in the mPOS. Unless this is a brand new customer, Provide your Sales Associates with a wealth of useful information at their fingertips to help direct the customer to the products that make the most sense.
Show information about the customer such: as their recent purchases (not just from your store, but from any of your sales channels), wish list items (from your ecommerce site or mobile application), and even data like their loyalty points balance (“did you know you have enough points to get $10 off your purchase today?”) are all things that can engage the customer. This Sales Associate actually knows who you are! and is helping you to get a better shopping experience. A fashion retailer, incorporating data on this screen like the customer’s size or color preferences, or even information about their family members and birth dates can all help your Sales Associate to increase basket size (“I noticed your husband’s birthday is in 2 weeks – can I show you some ties that we have on sale?”).
2. Help your Sales Associates to be as smart as your Customers
One of the things we often hear is that the customer knows more about the products than the Sales Associates do in the store. Customers have so much information at their fingertips that often-times the Sales Associate can’t really impress the customer with information that they don’t already know. By the time the customer arrives in your store, they have probably already researched online and may even continue the research process in-store with their smartphones. Sales Associates typically don’t have the same access to the content, or if they do it requires them to leave the customer’s side to go to a fixed computer or perhaps use their personal smartphones to try to keep up with the customer’s knowledge.
This brings me to the second reason as to why using the Dynamics AX mPOS is empowering for your Sales Associates…product data!!!! The mPOS allows users to “shop” not only your in-store inventory, but inventory sold in other locations or channels if desired. The rich content user-interface design allows both the Sales Associate and the customer (while standing next to the associate or by taking hold of the mobile device themselves) to see pictures of products, read marketing copy, review item attributes such as size and color options, or even review more detailed information such as care instructions or item dimensions or weight. Any of the AX product attributes can be extended to display on this product details screen.
Now your Sales Associate not only has the product information they need in a handy mobile device, but they can also lure the customer away from their own smartphone screens and share the mPOS screens with the customer. Now your Sales Associate is back “in charge” and can get engaged with the customer while providing the information the customer needs.
A really neat feature added to the mPOS allows a side by side comparison of multiple products. If your customer is undecided, presenting them with this view may just be what they need to help drive them to a final decision.
3. Mobility, Mobility, Mobility
The mPOS user interface is that it can be deployed on tablets or smartphones.So get your Sales Associates out on the floor and engaged armed with the information they need to work with the customers on the sales floor. In addition to making available all of this customer and product data, the mPOS is a full POS solution – so the associate cancomplete the sale and collect payment in the middle of the sales floor.
New retail server architecture concepts even allow you to take the store anywhere. Deploy mPOS can on a tablet or smartphone and leave the confines of your brick and mortar store while connecting to a retail server hosted at a data center or in the cloud. This makes things like an in-mallls pop up, or a parking lot tent sale or taking your store to a trade show or other event really very easy – without a lot of complex hardware/technology logistics. Added offline support is also available for many devices in those situations where your network connectivity to the retail server may be severed or spotty.
Many hardware options allow the mPOS to be used as a mobile device, but it can also be docked and used as a traditional POS device at the cash wrap counter .
4. Never lose the sale!
Dynamics AX mPOS is powered by the Dynamics AX ERP application, and AX can manage all of your channel inventory, this allows the Sales Associate to view inventory availability in other stores across the chain, or even in other channels (like DC inventory, etc…), there is really no reason to ever lose a sale due to out of stocks. The Sales Associate has the ability to find the inventory elsewhere, and can easily transition into setting up a sales transaction that will allow the customer to have the item shipped to them, or allow them to pick the item up in another location.
Dynamics AX provides the central hub for all sales transactions. A transaction can start in one channel and be completed in another without any complex integrations. Shopping for an item and hearing the Sales Associate say they don’t have any in stock and they don’t know when more will arrive…. means that many retailers do not have the ability to drill into their supply chain or their other inventory sources to “save the sale”. The functionality provided in the Dynamics AX mPOS makes this possible.
5. Multi-Functional Devices
mPOS also provide functionality for inventory management tasks and overall store management tasks.
With the proper security, this same application that is used for sales can also receive inventory or perform a stock count. A suite of reports is easily be accessed from the device to provide in-store management with store sales activity data and individual sales associate performance in real-time, at any point in the day.
Features like clock in and out and safe and bank drop capabilities also allow for additional in-store functionality to be performed from the mPOS.
The mPOS is extensible as well, toadd-in links to other systems or programs to make the mPOS your main “hub” for all in-store applications.
Unlike other mobile POS solutions that can only scan items and accept payment, and are not extensible for the retailer, the Dynamics AX mPOS can perform many additional functions.
