Hiring happens on a mind-boggling scale at this time of year. Retailers will add up to 780,000 seasonal workers to handle the crush of holiday consumers. Many will have little experience, limited product knowledge, and no familiarity with store operations. How will they get answers? Through a two-way radio. Radios are being used in an increasing number of retail settings because they provide the one-to-many communications that result in quick responses to queries. One person sends the same message to the entire staff in a process that is vastly superior to one-to-one, phone-based communications. The more questions an employee has, the more he or she is helped by the answers. Retail employee groups as a whole become more efficient from these communications, and business owners find new efficiencies. Those savings inevitably benefit customers. Radio communications benefit retailers and consumers in a variety of ways:
  • Faster inventory checking: Being able to ask "What's in the back?" keeps the customer in your store because their questions can be answered now.
  • Instantaneous feedback: There is no waiting for someone to pick up the phone, and call recipients can respond quicker with a radio they carry with them all day. This is vital for restocking shelves, helping parents find lost children, and dealing with accidents like spills, slips, and falls.
  • Instant checkout: Staffers with radios and tablet computers can complete orders and get people back to their shopping much faster.
  • Loss prevention: Radios foil shoplifters and help managers keep an eye on workers who might be tempted to help themselves to the inventory.
In Retail Applications, Ease of Use is Mandatory Holiday temporaries, whether they are college students or grandmothers picking up some extra shopping money, need radio equipment that is easy to learn and simple to use. The Motorola CLP1010 radio is a popular choice because it has the feature retailers demand:
  • Lightweight, unobtrusive, and comfortable to carry
  • Voice-driven menus to deploy the radio's features
  • An earpiece that allows more discreet communications
  • Simple, no-frills design: power/battery button, push-to-talk button, volume control, accessory connector, menu button and "smart-status" glow
  • Lithium-Ion battery for up to nine hours of talk on a single charge
  • Range of up to 200,000 square feet and up to 15 floors indoors
  • Repeater compatibility to improve range
Other Points to Consider Include Rentals Many retail organizations save money by renting equipment. Why have a bunch of perfectly good radios and headsets collecting dust for 10 months out of the year? If you rent radios, you can enjoy the latest technology and send the radios back to your dealer after New Year's. Digital two-way radios offer far more options. Would you like to be able to send text messages and encrypt your conversations to keep them private? Digital radios can make that happen. And because digital voice data is converted to packets that can be delivered over wired networks, a single two-way radio can connect with anybody on the Internet if you create the right kind of network.