Yes it's August but the holiday season is just months away which means it's time retailers made sure networks and technology needs are up to par for the busiest sales time of the year.

Aug. 26, 2022 | by Judy Mottl — Editor, RetailCustomerExperience.com & FoodTruckOperator.com

Yes, it's the dog days of August. Temps still high, days still muggy with back-to-school shopping in progress as some students are back in the classroom and others are prepping for the new school year.

For retailers it's a prime time to think ahead — specifically about the upcoming holiday sales season — to ensure the customer experience is robust and strong as hopefully so will be the sales.

As Retail Customer Experience contributor Eric Best wrote in a blog last month, there are countless, unpredictable variables at play for what this year's holiday shopping season will offer for retailers.

And, as in every year, as contributor Danielle Slavin advised, there is always a challenge to apply what retailers learned in 2021 to align with customers' changed habits and higher-than-ever expectations for holistic shopping experiences.

This year retailers have rolled out kiosks, set up pop-ups, re-architected store layouts, pulled out legacy systems and plugged in innovative CX tech such as AR, VR and AI solutions.

And the network is the backbone of all those CX efforts — from the mobile POS systems to digital signage aimed at catching shoppers' attention to ensuring communication to customers about order status, delivery and customer support in every channel possible.

Given all that network load, now is the time to test, upgrade, assess security and troubleshoot any integrated omnichannel and third-party solutions.

To gain insight on what the retailer's network checklist should include Retail Customer Experience reached out to Mike Tippets, VP, enterprise marketing at Hughes Network Systems, a managed network service provider.

Q. So it's summer but it's actually the starting point for retailers and the upcoming holiday season. What are the first few steps retailers should focus on to be prepared for a successful holiday season?

A. Getting ready for a successful holiday season requires preparation. That includes finalizing holiday designs and features early, carrying out essential network and security updates and integrating and troubleshooting omnichannel and third-party systems. It also includes testing and upgrading new and existing technologies, such as new handheld devices, digital signage displays and interactive kiosks.

Scaling your technology to meet the increased demand during the holiday season isn't easy. However, partnering with a managed services provider that knows what it takes to configure, deploy and maintain all this equipment can make all the difference in getting through a busy holiday season successfully.

Q. Are there any common missteps or bad moves retailers tend to make when getting ready for a holiday season?

A. Providing the best possible customer experience requires months of careful planning beforehand. From my experience, the biggest mistake a retailer can make when getting ready for the holiday season is waiting too long to start the process of rolling out new technology and getting temporary locations set up. Retailers need to confirm store features early and adjust the technology they are deploying in support of these new concepts.

Training seasonal employees in new technology and procedures can also be a substantial undertaking. On average, it takes a seasonal employee 30 days to become proficient in their new job role and responsibilities. By deploying employee-facing digital signage solutions, retailers can shorten the time it takes to train seasonal employees to seven days — saving the company $675 per employee. For a retailer hiring 10,000 seasonal employees, that stacks up to over $6 million in savings.

Giving your IT team enough time to make these changes and map out the hardware and software needed at each location can make all the difference in avoiding mistakes down the line. Often, retailers will turn to an MSP to handle the deployment and operation of these temporary technologies so that they can take the guessing game out of ramping up the holiday technology experience.

Q. The network obviously is playing a bigger role every day in retail — given the increasing number of consumers expecting fast mobile commerce on the phone, online and in the store even — as well as devices now in hands of employees. How often should a retailer investigate how its network is truly performing?

A. Customers expect an omnichannel shopping experience that offers them multiple ways to purchase and receive products — including buying a product online and picking it up in the store. Strong networks play a big part in ensuring that order processing and fulfillment operations can properly service an omnichannel retail experience.

As a result, retailers should assess the performance of their networks as often as possible. Servicing an expanded footprint of devices and guests requires continuous testing to ensure that the network is up to the task. Retailers need to verify that their networks have the capacity and optimization tools to handle bandwidth intensive apps and high transaction traffic. This can help ensure that the networks perform during peak shopping times and can deliver shortened transaction times at the register (and ultimately eliminate long lines).

Q. Network security is just as critical as network response and strength. What's a good strategy for retailers when it comes to assessing and ensuring reliable and strong security?

A. Every retailer knows just how costly a security breach can be, especially during the busiest shopping season of the year. Not only can a breach expose sensitive customer information and damage a retailer's brand, but it can also take their store offline when they can least afford it. For many retailers, the increase in store footprint through temporary kiosks stacked on top of the added devices on the network and data traffic creates an expanded attack surface they need to protect.

In order to avoid any disruption, retailers need to continually evaluate and update their network security protocols to secure third party devices like product scanners or security cameras connected to the system. Safe networks will safeguard POS transactions while extending secure internet access to guests and protecting traffic to and from the cloud.

Many retailers will need to bolster their IT teams in order to support these changes. While that can be difficult amidst the growing cybersecurity labor shortage, one solution is turning to a managed security services provider as they can beef up existing IT/security staff by providing tools and cybersecurity pros to enhance in-house IT capabilities and get you through the holiday season.

Judy Mottl is editor of Retail Customer Experience and Food Truck Operator. She has decades of experience as a reporter, writer and editor covering technology and business for top media including AOL, InformationWeek and InternetNews.

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