How Retail Stores Can Leverage Smart Checklists

By Lin Chang April 7, 2021 Blog, Retail
store manager using laptop

You don’t need us to tell you that the retail industry entered 2021 in a state of upheaval. One of the main effects of the pandemic was to cram the equivalent of several years of change into only a few months. Your business’ primary goal right now is likely just to survive into 2022.

However, your customers have different goals – not just from each other, but from the priorities they had a year ago. For instance, some really miss a rich, personalized in-store experience; others don’t care if they never set foot in a store again as long as the online purchasing experience is convenient. The one thing all your customers have in common is they expect that their experience with your brand be consistently positive and productive, no matter the location.

That means your business must continue to focus on innovation that enables agility across your brand and in every store. One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to bring this agility into your operations is through digital “smart” checklists. The right mobile checklist app can streamline time-consuming, detail-oriented tasks like documenting public health compliance while also eliminating human error and establishing accountability throughout your organization.

Your Checklists Get Smart

Digital checklist solutions are becoming best practice because they replace all your on-paper, manual documentation processes – and eliminate all the inefficiency that goes along with a paper-based system. The retail checklist app stores all your procedures such as loss prevention, merchandising standards, and in-store cleaning; the same, current version of every form and best practice is available at all times to every employee with a phone. Documenting in-store conditions is as easy as a few swipes and taps; compliance is quickly established by adding photos and videos to the official record.

Each entry automatically adds the employee, the time, and the geolocation, and each entry is uploaded to the app’s online dashboard in real time. Your management team can easily see what’s going on in any store, no matter where they are. In fact, they can find any data set they need, whether aggregated or segmented by location or topic. You always have the information you need to take immediate action on any areas of concern – or to uncover best practices and transplant them into other locations. Your chain of retail stores starts to uniformly display the top-quality customer experience that builds repeat business.

Getting Smart About Accountability

Building this brand consistency requires holding each store accountable for upholding all operational guidelines. Smart checklists help create this accountability by:

  • Ensuring policies are being followed, all the time, in every location.
  • Providing for immediate remedial action as needed, including assigning responsibilities to individual employees.
  • Storing photos and videos that document each store’s story.
  • Allowing audits to happen in multiple locations at once, even remote audits, with all results available in real time.
  • Cutting down on human error within the administrative process.
  • Opening an analytical window into each store.
  • Providing real-time access to the enterprise-wide analytics you need to manage all your operations.https://content.meazureup.com/retail-store-checklist

When your store protocols are available digitally across your network, you can create or update any form just once, and it rolls out to all devices in real time. You can also develop your own standardized quality assessment and action plan templates; when action is needed, you can quickly and easily assign the plan, set up automated reminders, and track results in real time.

Leverage MeazureUp Across Your Stores

As the saying goes, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. A digital retail assessment app like MeazureUp can help employees in all your stores take the right action on time, every time, so they all deliver a consistently great customer experience. Then you have time to focus on improving this experience in ways that will ensure your business survives, even thrives. For more information on how to leverage MeazureUp across your chain, contact us today.