Solution
Irisys’ Intelligent Queue Management solution was selected to help ensure associate hours were optimized and strategically allocated to provide customers a quick, efficient checkout, without additional labor investment.
Early trial results from a four-store pilot established an operational goal of 1+1 service delivery 85% of the time, would make a significant customer difference and align with industry best practice; 1+1 means 1 person is in transaction and no more than 1 person is waiting to be served.
Team members during the preliminary pilot included the Store Directors, District Managers, Labor Management, Information Systems and Training personnel, along with sponsorship from the Operations Director and Vice President.
Weekly calls were held to review the stores’ progress. By the end of the pilot period, the stores:
- Reduced wait time by 21%
- Improved customer service by 44% (% of customers that received a 1+1 service)
- Increased customer satisfaction with “speed of checkout”
- Reduced reliance on cashier relief from perimeter departments.
All of these improvements were made without increasing labor dollars. Based on these results, the decision was made to deploy the solution across most of the store estate as a first phase. As part of full implementation, a web-based enterprise tool - in addition to daily reporting - rolled up store metrics to regions, divisions and corporate to include:
- Average checkout line length
- Average customer wait time
- Hours over-staffed and under-staffed
- Predicted vs. actual hours by time of day
- Compliance to the service objective by time of day