As U.S. retailers struggle to find qualified staff, more are planning to turn to retail automation to power their operations according to new research by Verint (Melville, N.Y.), which specializes in customer engagement. "Leveraging automation is absolutely critical to fill workforce gaps and create a connected customer engagement strategy of humans and bots," says Jenni Palocsik, Verint's marketing insights, experience and enablement leader.
To offset hiring challenges and improve operations, Verint recommends that retailers take steps including:
Automate contact center operations. By automating responses to common queries or deflecting conversations to FAQs or community forums, the pressure on human agents is reduced, leaving them free to handle more complex issues.
Employ intelligent hiring solutions for streamlined staff acquisition and assessment, including virtual interviewing and hiring processes.
Lean into private messaging and automation.
Use service bots and virtual assistants to help manage high-volume, low-effort queries.
