Chrome Enterprise in the Retail Industry : Use Cases

From moving back and forth between the back-office and the floor to giving accurate information to customers, there’s no shortage of typical retail use cases that require cloud-based tools. Chrome Enterprise is a great solution to make everything run smoothly for both your retail workers and customers. In this article, we will go over a few of them.

What is Chrome Enterprise?

First things first, what is Chrome Enterprise? It unlocks the business capabilities of Chrome OS, the Chrome Browser, and ChromeOS devices called Chromebooks or Chromeboxes. This system offers a host of cloud-based management capabilities, allowing your IT administrators to power your workforce with fast and secure tools. 

But your employees aren’t the only people who can benefit from Chrome Enterprise, your customers can as well. One of the several ways in which a Chromebook can be used for the retail industry is as a customer-facing self-service kiosk, for instance. 

In the rest of this post, you’ll discover how your retail business can benefit from Chrome Enterprise.

Chrome Enterprise for the Retail industry

As previously mentioned, there are several ways in which a retail organisation can benefit from Chrome Enterprise, both for their employees and customers. 

Harvard Business Review reports that companies that invest in employee experience are 4 times as profitable. Let’s dig deeper into how Chrome Enterprise can achieve that for you.

For retail employees

• Easy access to apps and information

A retail organisation can gain competitive advantage by providing its associates with the tools they need to deliver great customer experiences. 

Workers need access to accurate and reliable data in real-time to better assist customers on the floor. Since Chromebooks run on a cloud-based operating system, information such as product inventory and in-store availability are always up to date and accurate. 

Moreover, Chrome OS updates happen in the background at the rate of once every 6 weeks. Your workers won’t be interrupted in their daily work, it all happens without them even noticing it.

• A better way to work

One Chromebook device can be used by different end-users : applications, personal data, and system preferences are launched on the device they use just by logging in with their Google credentials. Most retail workers move back and forth between the store and the back office, which makes this feature very useful.

More importantly, you can skip the hassle such as shift scheduling, time sheets, training, announcements, and other daily and time consuming activities, simply by working on a shared back-office device.

• Devices that work from anywhere

Retail workers who are often on the go can benefit from it too. Being essentially cloud-based, apps and information can be accessed and updated either online or offline, giving your associates great flexibility. 

Moreover, Chromebooks come in a range of shapes and form, with 2-in-1 convertibles and tablets, making them easy to carry and to manipulate whether it’s from a truck on the road, or from a regional store during a visit, for instance.

For retail customers

We’ve gone over a few ways in which Chrome Enterprise can benefit your workers, but what about your customers?

• Self-service stations

Chrome OS devices like Chromebooks or Chromeboxes can be used as self-service stations to give your customers more autonomy. This is a great way to improve the retail shopping experience as well as to reduce the amount of interactions customers have with your retail associates. 

These stations can be used to allow your customers to fill out applications, learn about new offerings, or even browse inventory. On your side, it can lower costs, increase revenue, and enhance the experience for both your customers and employees.

• Knowledgeable service

Customers now expect the in-store shopping experience to deliver the same product assortment, rapid delivery, and product information that they receive online. With cloud-based devices and systems, everything synchronises constantly, which brings the most accurate information to your customers at any given time.

• Personalised experience

80% of shoppers say they are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalised experiences. You can push that to new heights with Chrome OS devices. 

Customers can enter their personal data and get access to their personal shopping history and preferences. On your side, all that customer data is stored and managed in a secure way through Chrome Enterprise’s best-in-class cyber security capabilities.

On top of everything we have just mentioned, Chrome OS devices are also easy to manage, from initial deployment all the way to deprovisioning when they reach the end of their lifecycle. 

Overall, it is a smart investment to make for a retail organisation as it lowers expenses, drives revenue, reduces acquisition and operational costs, and improves both customer and employee satisfaction. The points we have discussed in this article have hopefully piqued your interest.

As a Google Cloud Premier Partner, we help retail organisations such as Carrefour in their Cloud journey, including the deployment of Chrome Enterprise. Talk to us if this is your next step, our team of experts will gladly walk you through the process.