Connecting Sites & Stores

Increasingly, potential subscribers walk into your stores with a good idea of the phones and service plans they want to purchase. The Internet explosion has resulted in more knowledgeable consumers and a new role for retail stores.

Instead of straight sales outlets, stores are evolving into functional interactive environments where customers can do everything from play with the latest phones to pay their bills. Instead of competing with e-commerce and the Internet, you can use these resources to present a more inviting store for existing and potential subscribers.

Following the Internet lead, retail-store design is becoming more visually appealing, interactive and lifestyle-oriented, said Craig Herro, San Francisco/Bay Area Cellular One corporate affairs manager.

Customers are using the Internet to shop among wireless carriers and get information about phones and service plans. When they enter a store, they want to touch the products and ask questions, Herro said.

"It's changed from more of a museum-type setting where you just look, but don't touch, to a much more hands-on environment and, hopefully, more fun," said Herro.

Today, consumers access the Internet to get information about your products, services, pricing, policies, store procedures and competitors -- all before they set foot in your store. This real-time convenience gives your retail stores more responsibility to care for and educate subscribers.

MAKING THE CONNECTIONAccording to Ben Kahrnoff, GTE Wireless assistant vice president of distribution, the large growth in the on-line retail environment means you must be committed to educating the customer in what has become a complex business.

"We want to make sure we're readily accessible to take the customer through the buying process, and retail is an outstanding way of doing that -- not only company-owned retail, but also through our vast network of indirect agents," he said. "We're still seeing most of that occur in a face-to-face nature, mostly through our retail channels."

The Internet provides customers with only the basic information. Retail stores have a responsibility to answer questions and demonstrate products. Accordingly, Herro said time spent surfing the Internet doesn't mean less time spent in stores.

"You'll have your customers that want to go in, activate and get out, but the majority of them want to look around, see what's available to them and what their options are," he said.

When people go into stores, Herro added, they have an idea of what they're leaning toward, but they want to take the time to make sure that the options they're considering are the right ones for them. That's why Cellular One's San Francisco/Bay Area stores emphasize product demonstrations, that customers can't get at home on their computer screens.

"(Customers) want to go to a store that has the latest technology and has demonstrations on how it works," he said. "And they want to be able to actually put their hands on the equipment and use it to see how it works and listen to how it sounds."

Many retail stores have become more than just sales centers.

"In addition to your regular retail-sales stores, they're also a customer-convenience center for our current customers," Herro said. "(Customers) can go in and look at the new phones and different technologies, and while they're there, they can use desks with phone banks where they can have direct access to customer care to ask about bills or pay their bills."

The Internet also can enhance retail stores and kiosks. For instance, web stores can provide assistance for lightly staffed locations. Customers could even go on-line at an Internet station in a store to shop or get information while waiting for assistance.

But carriers must make it easier for consumers to use the Internet to do tasks traditionally associated with retail salespeople or CSRs.

"We must make the web simple and understandable to really be a distribution channel that consumers really want to use," said Brian Sholly, GTE Wireless assistant vice president of marketing communications.

A good web store also can give you a competitive advantage, because the easier you make it for customers to do business with you, the less likely it is that they'll churn. And according to Rich Harmatiuk, GERS Retail Systems vice president of product strategy, there will be more competition for on-line wireless customers.

"Any retailer that's looking to continue to compete needs to address that web presence with a web store because they will start to lose market share (if they don't)," he said.

MAKING SALES EASIERA big challenge at the point of sale is satisfying today's customers.

"Our challenge has been to deliver and execute flawlessly on providing the customer with what they're looking for," GTE's Kahrnoff said.

A good retail strategy going forward, he said, is to ensure all of your retail stores reflect the same standards and customer needs, whether they're company-owned, indirect or on-line sales channels.

Herro said carriers need to make the entire retail experience easier for the customer, whether the stores are on-line or on Main Street.

A customer's retail store experience no longer ends when he leaves your store. The Internet will have a lot of influence on how stores will look and function in the future, and that will make the sales process easier for customers. But if you delegate specific functions to a web store, your retail stores and salespeople can focus on high value-added activities such as walking customers through the sales process.

Sholly envisions using the Internet to allow consumers to take care of their day-to-day wireless needs such as reviewing their bills, and buying accessories or new batteries.

"Those are things that over time we may see evolve significantly (in terms of volume) more to a web-type of an application," he said. "And that allows us to focus our retail channels on the things that really add a lot of value to the consumer."

If you offer more value than your competitors, today's savvy subscribers won't care if you do it in a store or on a site.

Competition and the sheer velocity of the retail environment have made it more important for your sales channels to be connected. Don't be surprised if the future brings a totally paperless, real-time retail environment for wireless carriers.

"Everyone is looking for instant everything -- instant merchandise, instant transactions, instant updates, instant availability to information," said Rich Harmatiuk, GERS Retail Systems vice president of product strategy. "One of the ways that (carriers) are looking to make a competitive advantage is to be able to have access to extremely timely information and, as a result, respond faster than their competitor."

Because of the competitive retail environment, instant retailing and real-time processing are definite advantages. Carriers need real-time access to what's going on at each one of their remote sites. The stores want to know when new merchandise will be available, what the latest warranties and service polices are, and they want that information instantly.

According to Harmatiuk, retail stores are getting connected through virtual private networks, which are private networks that sit on the Internet backbone.

"It's really processing over the Internet only it's on private channels -- that is definitely a hot thing that's happening right now," he said. "That's what's allowing these stores to all be connected real-time, but in a very inexpensive way."

Once all of your stores are connected at the point of sale, you can get all the data you need, on-line and in real time, and all of your stores can access that data via the Internet.