Today’s economic headwinds have meant consumers are now more budget conscious than ever. With many waiting to splash out on sales seasons, retailers must be ready to manage the surges of data, as they seek to not only pique consumer interest but build loyalty with their customers.

To manage and maximise data, observability technology is critical. By ensuring IT teams have clear access to real-time data, from IT to operational IT (OT), retailers will have complete visibility of their data, helping to save time, cut costs, and ultimately make informed longevity decisions heading into FY24 to build better customer experiences.

Balancing customer experience with data management

Retailers continue to face a myriad of challenges, particularly in relation to customer experience and data management. Consumers increasingly expect and demand seamless digital journeys from retailers that customer experience has become make-or-break. Long checkout queues during peak or sales periods,, website crashes, or inefficient customer service, can all lead to a loss in return on investment (ROI) as customers walk away. 

Despite the strain on existing resources, retailers must ensure that they continue to deliver both flawless and personalised experiences both in-store and online. Today, regardless of the specific demographic retailers aim to attract, consumers are engaging in purchasing goods across various platforms such as websites, physical stores, mobile apps, and social media applications. 

In this multi-channel landscape, shoppers now expect to receive personalised experiences tailored to their individual preferences. According to a study conducted by Forrester, an overwhelming, yet only a mere 18% believe that companies have successfully achieved that level of satisfaction. 

Therefore, managing data undoubtedly becomes more complex, generating a significant increase in transactions, inventory movements, and customer interactions across various platforms. Retailers must have strong management systems in place to handle and stay on top of this influx of data, all while ensuring its accuracy, security, and accessibility. 

Leveraging AI for inventory management

So, what can be done to address these challenges while meeting consumer demands? Artificial Intelligence (AI) and observability can play a crucial role in inventory management for retailers. 

Implementing AI and observability technologies offers retailers a valuable solution to handle and process large amounts of inventory data, and forecast for their busy sales periods. By leveraging data, AI helps accurately predict demand, prevent stockouts, and optimise inventory levels to meet customer needs. AI also helps ensure that retailers effectively manage their inventory during high-demand seasons, maximising their ROI. 

With AI and observability, retailers can take advantage of centralised, dashboard-based forecasting, alerting, and reporting, to gain confident visibility into IT performance across sites around the globe. Helping manage their inventory levels effectively during and after peak periods.

Using data to drive decision making 

It’s important that retailers also understand that data is one of their greatest assets, and even more so today as the retail industry begins to adopt more complex technologies. Having access to these insights can also help retailers make informed decisions on where to spend money to enhance operations, from monitoring business performance to implementing effective strategies.  

Using data, retailers can assess whether stores in different locations are hitting their revenue targets—and take action when they are not. Retailers can use monitoring dashboards in their contact centre to show call queues, including call country of origin and language, and the number of customer support tickets open. This data helps further optimise staff efficiency, delivering increased team productivity and better customer care.

Leveraging data to drive decision making enables retailers to keep its business stakeholders more connected and better informed about the real-time performance of the organisation. Ultimately, data-driven decision-making empowers retailers to efficiently streamline operations, and deliver outstanding service amidst high-demand scenarios.

Richard Gerdis is vice president & general manager of Asia Pacific & Japan at LogicMonitor.