Your retail business is doing great, recording impressive numbers in sales, profit, and, most importantly, stability. You think it’s time to expand your business to new horizons so you can grow your brand presence offline and bring in new customers.
This is a fantastic idea and shows you have a vision for your business. However, it comes with some new challenges. It is important to ask if your business can run successfully without you. Expanding your business means you will not fully manage it yourself and need a strong team.
You’ll need to have a management team that can provide leadership and oversees the business’s daily activities. When you have a business running in multiple locations, it can be challenging to stay connected. You need to factor in inter-management communication across the different branches and how the frontline and backroom staff will communicate seamlessly to maximize productivity.
Here’s how to stay connected while expanding your retail business.
Virtual Phones
Retail businesses need a phone service that guarantees quality connections for effective communication. Retail stores have to call each other often to check on products and get updates. Virtual phone service is one of the most effective ways for a retail business to stay in touch across different locations. It offers enterprise-level communication via the internet at an affordable rate.
Rather than an expensive on-premise communication system, consider using a virtual phone service or a VoIP that uses the internet. It allows you to communicate with clients even while you’re away from your store. This way, you and your employees can work from anywhere and incur fewer travel costs. So, even when staff isn’t remotely available at the store, they can connect to the system and access resources.
A virtual phone service also allows you to use a phone number across multiple devices. So, if a staff member is unavailable, another employee in a different location can attend to the client hitch-free, automatically improving customer experience and the team’s productivity.
Regular Updates
When running a chain of businesses, it is essential to have regular check-ins of some sort. These check-ins will help you know the state of affairs and how well the business is doing. It could be monthly meetings, weekly reviews, or an unscheduled visit. This will help you spot red flags, carry out informed decisions, and build trust among employees.
Propose a monthly or bi-monthly meeting with the store staff to review products and gather feedback. It is a great way to gauge customer experience and relationship with your brand. Also, managers across different locations should have a system to communicate in real-time to improve uniformity in service delivery.
Advanced POS
The POS system is an essential part of running a successful retail store as it helps simplify operations. As the retail business world evolves, POS solutions have replaced cash registers. The POS system helps to automate repetitive tasks and eliminates human error. Ensure that the system you choose is advanced enough to fit your retail needs and is highly customizable.
With an advanced POS system, you will sync all the data across your stores and generate a sales report. You can use it to track and execute a sales analysis and understand how the different stores are faring. It helps you gather your product inventory and financial reports. You can make informed decisions such as customer loyalty programs, discount offerings, or fine-tune your marketing campaign.
Updated Inventory
Retailing requires meticulous planning. You have to pay attention to details and keep an updated inventory count of your products. A POS system can offer accurate information from the inventory to a centralized system. This way, you can see who has what and who needs restocking.
You don’t have to worry about mismatched data once you use a centralized system for your stores. An updated inventory helps you access data in real-time and avoid over-stocking. It also helps you visualize better and control orders.
Technology to the Rescue
Communication is key to successfully expanding your business. Communication tools will help you bypass challenges growing your business, such as conflict and tension caused by miscommunication. Technology is a must-have to build a productive team.
