Digital Transformation Initiatives for the Retail and Wholesale Sectors

From dedicated and privatised Internet connectivity to hosted voice solutions and customer relationship management platform, Tata Tele Business Services has devised an array of applications to digitalise business operations. The retail and wholesale segments can leverage the benefits of such efficiency-boosting tools without significant investments in infrastructure and hardware.

The humble retail segment that had existed only in the forms of local bazaars and neighbourhood shops for decades grew into large malls and supermarkets in the 21st century.

Gradually, these brick-and-mortar businesses developed their e-commerce platforms to give customers the convenience of shopping from home. The wholesale dealers with whom they had been interacting manually through paperwork also started digitalising their supply chains and adopted the online medium to accept orders and payments.

As digital technologies continue to provide new opportunities for growth across industries, the retail and wholesale segments can now leverage them to acquire new customers, engage better with existing customers, reduce the operational expenditure, and improve employee motivation. Digitalisation also gives them the ability to collect, process and analyse data that helps in optimising business models and strategies.

Tata Tele Business Services offers a range of easy-to-use solutions that help retail and wholesale enterprises to improve their sales and customer service for a measurable impact on the business bottom line.

A few of them include:

Smart Internet Lease Line

Reliable Internet service is an essential requirement for all retailers – whether it is an e-store receiving only online orders, a brick-and-mortar shop employing cloud-based POS applications for billing or a hybrid business model using both systems. Wholesale companies that largely use e-mails, conferencing platforms and custom software to receive and process orders also expect secure data connectivity for their business.

The TTBS Smart Internet is a plug & play tool that gives such enterprises all the benefits of an Internet Leased Line. It is a secure and scalable connectivity service that works on both desktop and mobile devices with any modern operating system. As a zero-CapEx hosted solution, it does not need a router for deployment and can be used from anywhere.

The business only pays a monthly bill comprising:

• a fixed amount as per the bandwidth and speed availed on the connection
• remote access license fee according to the number of users

They also get complete visibility of their network and a CXO-level dashboard that displays network performance.

By connecting to their online accounts, apps and other business-related online services through the Smart Internet, retailers and wholesalers get a speedy, cost-effective and privatised data connectivity that is not subject to the vagaries of vanilla Internet connection.

Smart VPN

Some retail and wholesale companies have employees working from multiple remote locations and need them to connect on a shared company network. They may need to work on special enterprise applications that should not be vulnerable to cyber risks.

For such working environments, TTBS has designed the Smart VPN that offers the benefits of MPLS connection – irrespective of the location, device or operating system a user may be working from.

Retail and wholesale companies’ employees also need to discuss information that should not be leaked to competitors. This could be related to stock levels, pricing of products, and special offers for customers. By giving them a virtual private network with high bandwidth and low network congestion, the Smart VPN serves as an effective tool for such communication. TTBS Smart VPN can also be integrated with solutions offered by major cloud service providers such as AWS, Google, Azure and IBM. Smart VPN can be effortlessly installed using a soft client and ensures full data safety by privatising an organisation’s network even if it is accessed through the basic Internet service provided by any vendor. It is scalable, cost-effective and comes with standard SLA of 99.5%.

Hosted IVR

Available with ready-to-use cloud-based infrastructure, the Hosted Interactive Voice Response(HIVR) by TTBS allows retail and wholesale enterprises to serve their customers more effectively via phones. The HIVR is particularly recommended for online marketplaces that often receive queries, updates and feedback on orders placed by their customers.

When buyers call the business number, the HIVR helps them choose from a menu of automated prompts to pinpoint their issue. It then directs them to the most appropriate resource for quick resolution of their query or registration of feedback.

To simplify the analysis of incoming calls, TTBS HIVR offers call history reports and unlimited call recording that can be stored for up to 45 days. With additional services such as DTMF and time-of-the-day routing, level 1 to 4 transfers and preferred agent feature, the system supports handling of high call volumes and leads to better customer experience. Its automated voice support helps in the first-time resolution of queries from callers who need a quick update on their accounts.

For organisations that value the time of their customers and want to give them a self-service portal along with on-call service, the HIVR is a brand-image boosting digital tool.

Toll-Free Numbers

Retail and wholesale companies using the IVR solution to optimise customer service should deploy the same on toll-free numbers (TFNs) that give a more professional image to their business. A TFN with 1800 prefix is easy to remember and allows customers to connect with an organisation without paying any charge for the call.

Backed by industry-first SLA, the TTBS TFNs come with flexible and affordable subscription plans from any post-paid fixed line or wireless service. Therefore, even if a business does not have a physical site to receive customers and uses only online platforms to sell its products, it can invest in the location-agnostic TFN.

It is easy to define and modify call-routing preferences on the toll-free number at any time through a user-friendly interactive web interface. Call analysis reports help to make continuous improvements in contact centre services. Moreover, with condition-based routing to other numbers, a company can ensure that no calls are missed, and customers are serviced 365 days a year.

Our TFNs are portable with countrywide coverage and can be taken as vanity numbers as per the nature or name of a business. The service is easy to install and is SLA-driven with redundancy build-up for seamless operations.

CRM Solutions

Like most other industries, retail and wholesale sectors need effective customer relationship management (CRM) to improve customer service, increase conversions & revenues and simplify their sales & marketing processes.

With the rise of data and fast-changing expectations of customers, CRM has become a complicated task. TTBS offers a hosted CRM tool offering organisations 360◦ views of their customer lifecycle to simplify the job.

This cloud-based platform helps retailers and wholesalers in monitoring the buyers’ journey between casual inquiries and repeat purchases. It has pre-sales, sales and post-sales modules to gauge consumer interests and support business growth. The end-to-end information derived from cloud CRM helps to build special packages such as discounts and cashback for frequent buyers.

By using the platform’s field force activity planning feature, a business can easily allocate and capture the daily activities of a team that may be involved in the delivery of products.

In creating customer-connect campaigns, this hosted CRM can be used to configure alerts for customer birthdays. It enables the organisation to send timely greetings and special offers, creating a pleasant customer experience.

Retail and wholesale companies may also use the CRM app to track their marketing initiatives and send payment reminders for streamlined revenue collection.

Like other hosted products by TTBS, the CRM, too, is a zero-CapEx, SLA-backed solution with value-for-money pricing and transparent billing.

Summing up

Digitalisation has touched upon the retail and wholesale sectors that had been using traditional practices and paper-based documentation processes for decades.

As they take initiatives to imbibe technology in their operations, TTBS is here to help them with its hosted tools customised for bringing more efficiency, automation, security and cost-effectiveness in business. To know more about our services, call the team on 1800-266-1515.