How Employee Service Desk Is Changing For The Retail Industry

As the world is witnessing an unprecedented catastrophe in the name of a global pandemic, businesses across the globe have suffered a setback. 

Of all sectors, the retail industry is in massive trouble. Statistics show a negative growth of 5.7% in global retail businesses in 2020. As a pandemic struck the world, several retail businesses started closing their doors and shutting down their operations. 

This is primarily because of a strong dip in demand for almost all major retail products and people not heading out of their houses for making purchases. When we talk about the retail industry's poor condition, we will focus more on the traditional brick-and-mortar retail businesses that have been affected the most in recent times. 

However, the retail industry has been facing issues much before the COVID situation crept in. Despite having healthy competition and providing quality services to the customers, the retail market is no longer growing at the rate it used to a few years ago. 

So, what is the solution? 

Just as automation has solved many problems in several industries, it has also benefitted the retail industry. It is a common misconception that the ITSM approach and services can only be used for IT purposes. The employee service desk in the retail industry works just as effectively as it does for the IT industry. 

This is when ITSM turns into ESM (Enterprise Service Management). Automated and AI-based ESM tools help retail businesses streamline their processes and increase their productivity to come out of this dark phase. 

Let us understand why retail businesses need ESM tools like an employee service desk. 

Why Do Retail Businesses Need ESM Tools?

1. Reduced Number of Employees: As the retail industry is not doing so well, several businesses have had to lay off employees to cut down their costs and survive in the market. Naturally, a reduced number of employees will lower productivity, which a retail business can definitely not afford. This is why the need for ESM tools is high in this industry. It would be best to have automated tools to make up for the productivity gap (left by the laid-off employees).
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3. Need For Increased Productivity: Now that retail businesses are losing employees, the overall productivity needs to rise, at least to the extent that the void is covered. This gap can be covered by automated and effective employee support. A smart employee help desk will train retail employees to do their job better and compensate for the dip in productivity caused by their peers leaving.
4. If the employees find all their answers on a centralized platform (intranet or self-help portal), they will dedicate more time to completing their work daily.
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6. Training Employees: At this point, not all retail businesses can afford to train their employees in performing specific tasks related to their jobs. A virtual help desk fulfills this requirement by providing all relevant training resources at their fingertips.
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8. Need For Digital Adaption: Especially in the case of brick-and-mortar retail businesses, it is important for the employees to start getting familiar with digital platforms. The use of e-commerce, ERP platforms, social media, and several other avenues is arguably a few ways for the retail industry to stay relevant in the years to come.
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10. AI-driven Employee Help Desk: Employee help desks driven with process automation and artificial intelligence have the power to change the retail industry for the better. The use of such software platforms puts all the required help and training resources in the pockets of retail employees (quite literally). Several online and offline ventures have started switching to automated employee service desks.
11. MS Teams has integrated with an AI employee service desk and ESM tool called Rezolve.ai. It helps users obtain quick and personalized assistance whenever they hit a roadblock and are looking for specific answers.
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13. Quick and Reliable Assistance: If the retail employees are looking for answers regarding any aspect of their job, the employee help desk will scan through the knowledge base and provide them with the most suited answers via automated knowledge management. This way, the employees will no longer need to wait for their queries to get resolved.
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15. Mobile Customization: AI-driven employee help desks like Rezolve.ai can be easily customized to be used in mobile phones and tablets. Retail employees rarely use desktops or laptops while they are on the job, and this feature makes employee support fairly flexible and convenient for the staff.
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17. Holistic Training: As a retail business owner, if you want your employees to get trained in activities like onboarding/offboarding employees, managing inventory, providing customer services, etc., an automated employee service desk will contain all the required information for them to get trained. Moreover, the content provided by the help desk would be engaging in nature with the use of charts, images, infographics, and videos. This helps you in saving money while ensuring that your employees get the required training.
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19. Serving Non-corporate Employees: As mentioned earlier, AI-driven employee help desks are not just ITSM tools built for IT professionals. They can be readily used for effective enterprise service management by catering to all non-corporate employees with little to no technical knowledge about development and programming.
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The Final Word 

The retail industry is going through a tough time and needs to be revived as we enter the new year with much hope. Automation and artificial intelligence in employee help desks allow retail employees to become more self-reliant, obtain the necessary training, and get all their queries answered at once. 

Adopting collaborative platforms like Rezolve.ai, which is integrated with MS Teams, offers conversational support to bring back the glory of retail business gradually. Get in touch with us if you wish you experience how Rezlove.ai works.