Blackout periods are known within the retail industry as the busiest times of year. Stores welcome more customers, bring in seasonal employees and rely on their device fleet more than ever to help operations keep moving.
But more employees and business volume also mean more opportunities for something to go wrong.
A device stops responding. A battery fails mid shift. An app fails to load. A connectivity issue prevents a retail associate from helping a customer. Suddenly, an IT team that was already managing a steady stream of support tickets is handling even more.
When these problems occur, the result can be loss of revenue, frustrated employees, angry customers and even safety issues – and IT is often blamed. But do they have the ability to get ahead of potential issues or the tools to fix them quickly and remotely when they do happen.
A Quick Checklist to Prepare for Peak Retail Season
Step 1: Determine How Devices Will Be Used & Set Up
Start by looking at your seasonal staffing plans.
How many additional employees will each store have during the holiday season?
How many of those employees will need a mobile device to complete their daily tasks?
What apps do new employees need (e.g. training)?
Understanding these numbers early can help IT teams determine whether they have all devices properly configured before seasonal employees arrive. It also provides an opportunity to identify if older or unused devices need to be replaced, updated or prepared for deployment.
Want to learn how to customize configurations and then push them to multiple devices at once? Discover how you can do so on Windows devices and Android devices.
The goal is simple: seasonal employees should have the technology they need to be productive from day one.
Step 2: Analyze Device Health & Performance
The busiest months of the year are not the time to discover that a device has been showing signs of failure for months.
To avoid this, IT teams should assess device health and performance across their fleet before peak season begins. Discovering which devices have recurring performance, battery, connectivity or app issues helps IT address them before they fail mid-shift.
Don’t have a tool that allows you to monitor device performance in real time? Discover a top-tier option here.
Proactive device monitoring can also help IT teams identify trends across the fleet, instead of waiting for employees to individually submit tickets. Read this blog to better understand the benefits of real-time visibility.
Step 3: Assess Common Device Issues & Fixes
What device issues generate the most IT tickets?
Look at previous peak seasons and identify the problems that appeared most frequently.
Are employees regularly experiencing connectivity issues?
Are certain apps more likely to cause problems?
Are devices running out of storage or experiencing performance issues?
Once you know about the common issues, IT teams can document solutions and train support staff on how to resolve them. This helps reduce the time spent on troubleshooting repetitive problems and makes it easier for IT employees to respond when ticket volumes increase.
Step 4: Equip IT Teams with the Right Tools
Even with careful preparation, device issues will happen during peak season.
The question is: can your IT team quickly determine what’s wrong and resolve it without disrupting store operations?
Centralized device visibility and remote troubleshooting capabilities can give IT teams greater insight into device health, configurations, apps and performance. Instead of relying on an employee to describe the issue or sending IT staff onsite, teams can investigate and address many problems remotely.
For more information on Remote Support capabilities, check out this blog.
For more information on centralized device visibility, check out this blog.
Step 5: Prepare for Shared Device Use
Seasonal employees may not need access to every app or function available on a device. Role-based profiles are commonly used by retailers to provide employees with only the access they need.
But shared devices introduce another challenge.
An employee may forget to log out when their shift ends. If the next employee cannot access the device, IT would need to reset it, creating an unnecessary support ticket. It also means one shared device is out of commission until IT addresses the issue.
Did you know there is a feature that allows employees to end active sessions and easily start a new one? So, if an employee forgets to log out, the next employee can do it for them without IT support. Read more about it here.
Ensuring employees can address this issue without IT intervention helps keep shared devices available throughout the day.
Is Your Retail Business Ready for the Next Blackout Period?
Blackout periods will always put additional pressure on retail IT operations. More employees and customers mean there is also more at stake when technology doesn’t work.
The goal shouldn’t be to eliminate every device issue. Instead, aim for the ability to anticipate potential problems, identify them quickly and resolve them before they disrupt operations.
For IT and operations teams, that means preparing your device fleets before blackout periods and having the visibility and tools needed to support all stores when demand increases.
It’s time to ask: does your IT have the right tools to keep devices up and running when your business is at its busiest?
