The retail sector is well known for innovations in point-of-sale and in-store technologies as well as for sophisticated merchandising and marketing. The sector is less well known for excellence in customer service, and have sometimes struggled in the past to provide appropriate and effective over-the-phone services for customers. Significant growth of online shopping has generated increasing levels of support and service call volumes, much of it outside the traditional ‘business hours’ of retailers: consumers expect to be able to do their online shopping when it suits them, and be able to contact an organisation for assistance during  weekends and evenings, Australia wide. Furthermore, National retailers can employ many thousands of staff and have thousands of PCs and POS devices to support, which can generate significant volumes of internal calls to IT Service Desks and Help Desks, with associated cost and service challenges.

Salmat’s Speech and IVR applications can assist Retailers to provide extended hours of service through self-help and self-service capabilities, which offer 24 x 7 availability and reduce the load on call centre agents, allowing service levels to be improved and service costs contained. Solutions that can be delivered include 24 x 7 access to the following :  

• Automated Store Locator, to allow callers to find out store locations and opening hours, especially useful around Public Holidays
• SMS options to allow customers to request and receive store information by SMS
• Banner messages and announcements relating to product recalls, product launches, shipment delays and special events
• Order status, expected delivery date and time, change delivery window, cancellations
• Account payment and account information such as balance, amount due, due date, recent transactions and password reset
• Password reset for internal staff to supplement the IT Help Desk, including secure identification of individuals using voice biometrics

Find out more about how Salmat can help improve customer interactions for your retail organisation.