Retail technology can deliver unmatched in-store service and customer experience when leveraged optimally.
Ensuring system uptime is indispensable to the success of retail operations. A reboot to restoresolution can maximize system availability by making the devices virtually indestructible.
The proliferation of online shopping impelled many to prophesize the demise of conventional brick and mortar retail stores. E-commerce certainly is growing at a record-breaking speed, but revenue from physical stores are not showing signs of abating with 90% retail sales still happening fromthis sector.
While the debate still continues, one thing is certain – physical retail stores aren’t becoming extinct anytime soon. Instead, they are likely to move into an interactive playroom set up where shoppers will get to experience the fruits of constantly expanding technologies with services and features unseen before.
Staying in line with this trend, established brands are already leveraging the new-age technologies to transform their operating models and customer experience. For instance, high-end systems operating in storefronts today come with advanced point of sale (POS) terminals which make for an effective management and tracking of the supply chain and inventory. In addition, such systems also help a retailer deploy targeted CRM/loyalty programs backed by real-time customer data.
Retail technology, when leveraged optimally, can deliver unmatched in-store service and customer experience. The only downside of this highly interconnected store management framework, however, is that it comes with a risk of system downtime in the event of a sudden configuration drift. And they do happen – in most cases, without any prior warning.
Delving Deeper into the Challenges
Almost a decade back, it might have been comparatively easier for a retailer to manage sales through retail management systems having simple workflow applications. But today, things are different. While digitization has taken connectivity to a whole new level – in the form of smart payments, real-time inventory management, and augmenting immersive marketing – it also brought in a set of IT challenges.
The dense ecosystem of multiple retail endpoints must be managed effectively to ensure maximum availability. Retail devices directly affect the shopping experience of customers. With a large number of visitors accessing the retail devices for various requirements, they may accidentally end up changing system settings or download/install unwanted programs which can affect the health and integrity of the retail systems.
Such system issues may have severe implications in the long run. Now, to add to that, credit card processing systems, printers, scanners, digital signage, and demo computers – every malfunctioning system adds to customer dissatisfaction and revenue loss due to the missed sales opportunities. The indirect loss is even higher. For instance, a faulty payment processing system can lead to slower payment checkout lines, which in turn, severely impacts the overall customer satisfaction index. Research reveals that one-third of customers will voluntarily bail out of a checkout queue when they are forced to wait for more than five minutes.
Countering System Downtime with Reboot to Restore Technology
To overcome unwanted system outages, brick and mortar retail stores should consider shielding their entire IT ecosystem from both external and internal threats. A robust System Restore solution, which can promptly undo user-inflicted or malware-triggered changes, is the ideal tool for twenty-first-century retailers. In this regard, the Reboot to Restore technology has been the go-to solution for multi-user computing environments like retail stores. It works by saving the safest configuration, also referred to as the ‘pristine state’, of the system once installed. Every time the device malfunctions or slows down, all it needs is a reboot and the baseline configuration is restored.
A reboot to restore software eliminates all unwanted changes made to the systems due to malware attacks and unauthorized programs, as these malicious elements never get to permanently modify the preserved system configuration. In other words, the reboot to restore technology is both preventive and corrective as a solution. It prevents harmful elements from changing system configuration and on the other hand, it resolves system issues by restoring the admin-desired configuration.
A robust reboot to restore software has the potential to transform retail operations by curbing unnecessary IT costs arising from system outages. The following are some of the core application areas where such solutions can do wonders:
- Demo Systems – A reboot to restore software keeps the in-store demo computers in their pristine configuration state all the time by reversing the system changes caused by the users.
- POS Computers – The technology keeps the POS computers safe from external threats by preventing malware from affecting the preferred configuration, thereby augmenting PCI compliance.
- Surface Books and Tablets – Surface books and Windows Tablets are critical end-point devices that are common in a retail network ecosystem today. The reboot to restore technology allows store employees to resolve device issues that might occur due to constant usage with just a simple reboot. This enhances employee productivity and optimizes both offsite and onsite operations.
- Multi-Location Systems – Cloud version of a Reboot to Restore software can be centrally managed through the admin’s workstation, even if deployed across multiple store locations. This is what makes it an ideal draw for store chains.
Considering how geographically dispersed retail operations have become today, it is crucial for store operators to maintain network and system integrity across retail devices. Retailers with physical stores across multiple locations should focus on facilitating system uniformity and integrity over the entire network. This where reboot to restore software solutions can help retailers achieve such goals.
