Many of us have worked from home, at least periodically, for many years. However, this time there are added complexities: namely everyone else is home at the same time. While we love our kids, spouses and pets, we’re not used to sharing working and study spaces. Our sales & marketing team put together some tips to help you be your most productive during the shelter in place directives as we all do our part to help flatten the curve of the COVID-19 virus.
Don’t forget to end your workday. One of the great benefits of working from home is the 30-second commute. Take advantage of the extra time by scheduling some fun activities with your family. Play a game, create a lego challenge, watch old sitcoms, post a video of the dog's new trick, make dinner together, call your neighbors and family to check in.
We’d love to hear how you are coping with the extra time at home. Send your tips to us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you.
Kimarie Wolf, Director of Global Marketing
If your stores limit access to keys, the answer is, too long. Which also means that customers most likely buy fewer items and aren’t happy with the in-store experience.
Naturally, I’m not suggesting reducing retail security to improve customer experience and revenue. Quite the opposite, in fact. MTI’s mission is to help prevent internal and external theft and shrink.
However, I do believe securing inventory must go hand in hand with empowering employees to provide faster customer service. How? By allowing them to access those items quicker without making trade offs that sacrifice asset protection.
Let’s investigate the issue further.
Customers loathe waiting. Too many of us must wait by the retail cabinet until the staff hands us our desired product. This is an experience we as consumers remember and will associate that with a negative overall brand perception.
And most customers have little patience. 75% of retailers who took part in the Retail Industry Executive Survey reported losing customers due to waiting times. 70% admitted their customers would wait less than 5 minutes before abandoning the purchase.
The survey also found people leave stores due to confusing in-store experiences, having to look for a product for too long or waiting for a manager to open a retail cabinet and hand over the product.
Unfortunately, the above reasons affect more than just customers. From conversations with store managers, I know that many spend as much as 2 hours per day responding to calls for keys. A frustrating situation for both the manager, their employees and especially their customers.
But what to do? Embrace technology. Use it to empower employees with access to products while preventing theft and shrinkage even more.
Here’s how.
For consumer electronics retailers, long customer waiting times occur because of a single factor – Limited access to retail cabinet keys.
Employees cannot assist customers in real-time to hand them the product they want. Many consumers must wait for the manager to open the retail cabinet for them. Or hang around until the staff finally locates the keys and can assist them.
Such situations often happen due to a lack of any means to measure and track individual key usage to ensure security, accountability and prevent theft.
The solution is to use technologies like IoT to help retailers with a no-compromises approach to solving this problem.
When every staff member can access the goods, the store and its employees can provide immediate customer service. But its effect goes beyond having happy customers. Staff feels empowered, less frustrated and more appreciated, job satisfaction soars, and retention improves significantly.
RFID technology is a good example of how we can empower employees while maintaining the right controls to drive accountability. IoT technologies like RFID allow for the ease and speed customers expect and provide the accountability that asset protection requires. RFID keys are configurable, low-cost, and assignable to each employee. Think about the last time you checked into a hotel, how quickly they keyed a card for your room. Imagine that for your staff and customers, only more secure. The RFID technology allows the manager to track and configure keys for each employee. RFID allows for real-time monitoring and tracking so accountability is built into the workflow. Management has the visibility they need on their staff’s activity to reduce theft while employees are empowered, shortening customer wait times. New IoT technology solutions like MTI Connect enable retailers to stop making trade offs between customers and employees and start solving issues for both. Solving this problem doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game between employees and customers. Retailers that adopt smart retail solutions will have the opportunity to create amazing customer experiences in store and at the same time boost job satisfaction among employees. Find out more about smart retail.
Apple stores. Retail mobile phone stores. Consumer electronics stores. Retail stores showcasing expensive smart phones aren’t just hits, they’re now hit-and-run victims. Phones, stolen, faster than you can say “I’d like another macchiato grande please.” More reasons to order online instead.
Grab-and-runs. Smash-and-grabs. These brazen retail robberies play out like a movie script, but they’re all real.
USA. Europe. Australia. Multiple robberies in an area. Multiple hits on the same store. Just plain robbery? Or organized retail crime (ORC)? It’s your worst nightmare, because the threat is real.
Just how bad is it?
This is what a store theft may look like in today’s high value phone environment.
Here’s the gist of a typical break-in modus operandi… The store is cased, scoping out...
A team of three or more suspects enter the store. Their faces are obscured with hoodies or caps. They use a hammer to break a display, or wire cutters to cut a cable, or basic brute force to get what they want. Within 10-20 seconds, they’re running out the door, with two to five smartphones or tablets each, following their previously established get-away plan.
The stolen goods are delivered. The thieves are paid. They move on to their next hit.
The goods are fenced. Or they’re broken down into their components and sold on eBay to electronics chop shops that remake phones, tablets and other electronics and sell them through gray and black markets.
In Europe, these crimes are even more rampant, and more tightly organized. Teens are tapped from one country, flown in for a day of theft, paid and flown home that day.
Meanwhile, back at the store, customers and staff are traumatized. Police are called in. When the store is exceptionally well-prepared and lucky, usable video is quickly accessed and provided. Reporting the crime and filling out reports eats more precious time. Customers fall by the wayside, as staff is tapped, seriously rattled and demos are unavailable for use. Replacing the demos takes three business days. If the store merchandising was destroyed, another month to replace that $5,000 display table. The store’s best salesperson decides it’s time try a non-retail sales job. It’s a month before the store breaks-even from their losses. Another month to return to profitability. Another six months to approach former business levels. That’s if the store, now pegged as an easy hit, doesn’t get robbed again.
Perhaps you’ve heard stolen phone service is disabled. Or that demos can’t be re-used since Apple and Samsung added additional demo system security features. That phone makers and providers got this problem nailed.
Not so fast….
Thousand Oaks California Detective Ted Stern admits this crime is still on the upswing. “We get at least one grab-and-run cell phone robbery reported a month.“ Store staff and citizen intervention helps, but Stern can’t encourage it; that’s when thefts are more likely to turn violent. Until the unlikely event the market for stolen goods is eliminated, arrests and Convictions simply clear the territory for more savvy perpetrators.
Are you an inviting target? Protect your merchandise before the wrong element walks or runs through the door by deterring attempts before they start. Prepare your store and staff with these 4 tips for stopping phone theft, with savvier store layouts, special staff training, highlighting anti-theft protection and more robust security devices.
But as thieves become more brazen, it may just come down to the strength of your smart phone retail security solution. Will your store’s retail high security system support or thwart a smash-and-grab attempt?
Mark R. Doyle, President of leading security consultant firm, Jack L. Hayes International, Inc. advises “If you display phones customers can handle and try out, tethering or cabling is a must. Retailers should research and test to see what works best in their environment and how they display their phones.”
While the problem is on the rise, loss prevention experts can spell out specific steps you can take to protect your store, making would-robbers easier targets.
“It’s a psychology game,” concludes MTI VP of Products & Strategy, Travis Hooper. “Duration of time and providing audible alarms are the best deterrent. If it takes too long and draws attention, it’s not worth it. The would-be thieves will move on to an easier heist.”
MTI is a global leader in retail security services with over 40 years experience offering premium security, merchandising, and retail IoT solutions chosen by the world’s largest brands.
Contact MTI today to deter sophisticated phone thieves from targeting you and for an anti-theft consultation.
