Discarded pine needles and left-over chocolates may still be lingering in our homes after the 2018 festivities, but for many in retail they already have their eye on the Christmas 2019 ball.
In fact, it’s not unusual for retailers to be thinking about their peak times as early as March and April, reviewing previous year(s) performance, projecting for the coming season and planning stock levels, logistics, financials and resource.
In November 2018 it was reported that Express Gifts were hiring 750 staff to cover the Christmas period, a record high for this retailer.
On average retailers will increase staffing by 20-25% to accommodate the impact that seasonal spikes have on multiplying day to day activities in stores, logistics, IT, finance and customer service centres. There’s no doubt that a lot of these resources are directed at additional warehouse pickers and delivery rounds, for example, to handle spikes in volume.
The same is true of customer contact / care resources – however, there are practical, effective ways that automation can handle customer contact activity through automation.
Have you considered how you can get more productivity from the same or more resources?
The questions we are asked are:
how can we reduce our recruitment costs by still maintaining the level of service required?
what proportion of those positions can be handled by applying RPA to the business processes?
For example;
Contact Centres – enquiries and outgoing communications relating to deliveries or claims can be automated, leaving employees to handle more complex queries
Marketing – use the push principle to clear down volumes of high quantity stock with automated promotional offers
Logistics – automate information on delivery options to accommodate and aid the ordering volume spikes i.e. Tuesdays following weekend purchases to ensure failed deliveries are at a minimum and don’t impact on the volumes the next day or are subject to compensation claims
Retailers and Couriers start your planning today to handle more with less (or at least the same) for 2019.
To find out more or to arrange a demonstration, contact Enterprise RPA on 0333 987 3938