Collaborating as One Team with a Fully Connected Frontline
Frontline teams can achieve more when they are enabled to be a Fully Connected Frontline, and collaborate as OneTeam. However, as a leading handheld device technology competitor recently admitted, “less than one-third” of frontline team members have access to a communication device. More often than not, this is due to the exorbitant costs associated with buying each team member a $600-$1,000 device that also typically requires premium collaboration applications to be effective. Yet, if collaboration depends on the ability to reach everyone and not just a select few, then leaving two-thirds of the frontline disconnected is not an option.
Unlike other frontline communication offerings that merely sell expensive handhelds and walkie-talkies, for an affordable subscription fee, Theatro provides every team member with a powerful voice-enabled mobile device to enable collaboration for the whole team. In addition, team members also gain immediate access to a suite of purpose-built applications designed to help them quickly find information, request assistance, and deliver game-changing customer experiences all while working “Heads Up & Hands-Free.”
Without risking significant upfront capital to purchase expensive handhelds, this case study demonstrates how one retail chain leveraged Theatro to fully connect their frontline and enable them to collaborate as OneTeam to achieve business success.
The Challenge: Optimizing Labor and Service
A large pharmaceutical store chain, with approximately 9,000 domestic stores and $2.5 billion in profits last year, wanted to evaluate Theatro’s Mobile Communication Platform to better understand the potential business impact and ROI of a fully connected workforce. This retailer operates fast-paced stores with goals of optimizing labor, completing critical tasks, and providing excellent customer service.
According to store leaders, their challenges primarily boiled down to costs and connectivity, “Improving service [in busy store areas] is critical to help improve and maintain our KPI scores, but it is challenging with current labor budgets. This becomes even harder, especially since I can’t see all my team at all times to put in place to provide customer service.” It was critical to store success that managers and coworkers could connect with each other from anywhere in the store to maintain satisfactory customer service and to execute important daily store operations. Thus, the pharmacy chain moved forward with a pilot to test and evaluate Theatro’s capabilities and assess the potential business impact of an As-A-Service pricing model.
The Solution: The Power of a Strategic Pilot and a Fully Connected Frontline
Theatro’s engagement brought deep cross-discipline expertise in retail, strategy, program leadership, and pilot measurement—the mix of capabilities essential to unlocking the full potential of Theatro’s Mobile Communication Platform. Theatro’s team of retail experts began by assessing the retailer’s current strategy and its store operations’ chain-wide capabilities. Working with stakeholders across the organization, Theatro also led a series of cross-functional lean workshops to develop, evaluate and prioritize more than 50 potential initiatives to improve their stores’ performance.
With those initiatives in mind, Theatro’s team led the development of the pilot strategy, project plan, measurement strategy, and data collection plan, building consensus and earning executive support. Additionally, Theatro facilitated data capture improvements to collect the data points essential to a meaningful evaluation. Finally, Theatro facilitated the pilot implementation and built the business case model based on the retailer’s strategic priorities. With a plan for pilot success, testing Theatro’s solutions on-site allowed the pharmacy chain to evaluate ROI.
The Results: The $100 Million Insight
Through the pilot, Theatro identified, tested, and proved opportunities for over $100 million in annualized business benefit to the retailer. The team also noted performance improvements across key metrics, such as loyalty program sign-up rates, sales of specific products, and improved customer satisfaction. In addition, Theatro also provided a change management approach and implementation plan for a chain-wide rollout to deliver on Theatro’s potential.
By providing Theatro Communicators to every employee, the retailer found that team members were able to become more productive, more informed, and provide elevated customer service that was previously impossible with a disconnected workforce. Therefore, while business objectives will be subjective to each organization, this case study proves how Theatro’s strategic pilot solution can help a diverse array of companies looking to leverage Theatro’s innovative technology.
Where Theatro Produces Results:
Theatro’s As-A-Service solution gives every hourly employee immediate access to a communication device, critical enterprise information, and a host of voice-powered applications designed to help them do their jobs well. With a fully connected workforce, organizations can unlock their frontline’s full potential by empowering them to collaborate and work together as OneTeam. Theatro’s Mobile Communication Platform also helps organizations realize the following benefits:
Theatro drove a 7% lift in loyalty registration for a leading home goods retailers, an incremental gain of $87M annually.
91% of associates agree that Theatro helps them serve customers better with instant access to the people and information they need to do their jobs well.
Improve associate response times by 77%, which can reduce customer wait times by over 85%.
Theatro drove a 7% lift in loyalty registration for a leading home goods retailer, an Incremental gain of $87M annually.
Connect with Theatro!
Theatro’s Mobile Communication Platform enables digital transformation all the way to the frontline by connecting every frontline employee to the enterprise. By closing communication gaps and enabling frontline team members to collaborate and work efficiently as OneTeam, stores can consistently deliver game-changing customer service experiences that compel customers to return again and again.
If you’re ready to arm your frontline team with the technology they need to be successful and provide best-in-class service, contact us today at info@theatro.com or schedule a demo to experience the difference!
