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The three biggest IT retail tech headaches for mobile and how to alleviate them

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Image: Jack Sparrow via Pexels

14 April 2022

In association with SOTI

Mobile tech is everywhere. The scanners, tablets, printers, kiosks, RFID readers, etc. that companies use are supposed to make things faster, easier and more profitable. Often they do, but they can also create headaches for IT and support teams.

Currently 67% of the global population has a mobile device and 52% of Internet traffic is on mobile phones. According to SOTI’s VP of product strategy, Shash Anand, there has been a ‘mobile revolution’. More than two thirds of the global population (67%) has a mobile device, and 52% of online traffic is through smartphones.

“By investing in mobile technology, brands and retailers can not only diagnose problems quickly and adapt to the evolving retail ecosystem, but ensure they remain on top of consumer needs, support employees out in the field and remain profitable,” said Anand.

The challenges

However mobile new tech brings with it new challenges. In particular:

Time

The time it takes to complete a transaction might have become shorter in recent years, but the development of new apps can take a long time. According to SOTI research, more than 60% of retailers have a backlog of apps they want to develop, some customer-facing and some for internal use.

Ideas can take months or even years to come to fruition. Even if your idea reaches the development stage, the talent vacuum means there might not be a developer available to work on it. This excludes testing and releasing on multiple platforms and getting it out to customers via Apple and Google stores. Even companies with strong mobile device management can suffer from deployment delay. Not to mention support if something goes wrong.

How to fix it

Drag-and-drop development tools can reduce the workload of developers and get apps released faster. SOTI Snap can have apps for multiple operating devices ready for deployment in minutes, with no previous experience.

For mobile device management, SOTI MobiControl pushes out updates over Wi-Fi in local area networks, limiting the load on servers.

For trouble shooting, SOTI XSight allows for mobile device access so customer support staff can gather the information they need in real time by recording audio, video, and even taking screenshots to be passed along the help desk with integrated ticketing. It also allows users to diagnose devices as if they were in their own hands. Developers can draw on the remote device screen to illustrate solutions to the end user and empower them to correct issues themselves.

The tech is great until it stops working

Shiny new toys are great to play with, but what happens when your new system becomes more of a hinderance to progress than an enabler. The classic example is mobile printers where companies may have devices from more than one vendor with their own firmware. IT departments have to know every device being used. In some cases retailers have found security upgrades can take weeks, however, 80% of problems with printers sent to IT departments can be resolved with little more expertise needed than performing a restart or replacing a battery.

How to fix it

SOTI Connect gives devices visibility on a unified system managed through a ‘single pane of glass’. Once devices are enrolled, the IT department can manage the automatic updates of firmware, close security holes, and troubleshoot mobile printers remotely. For batteries, SOTI Connect tracks the number of charge cycles and performance, identifying when it’s time to issue a replacement.

Too many IT tickets

New systems mean a broader customer base and, as a result, more problems for customer service agents to deal with. Tickets pile up, customers get frustrated, and its gets harder and harder to keep pace. SOTI found that 5% of mobile devices are lost and stolen and erratic signal problem can affect performance.

How to fix it

SOTI XSight uses operational intelligence to show which apps are installed and their version, which apps are running, and which have never been used. SOTI XSight tracks where a device is, and also keeps a history of where it has been for the past 12 months. Users can even lock down certain apps if necessary. A heat map shows off the quality of signal affecting the performance of apps and competition between carriers to show which performs best in certain areas.

Identifying the biggest pain points challenging your retail operations is only part of the equation. SOTI helps to solve some of the biggest mobility challenges for businesses across the globe.

Discover how the SOTI ONE Platform can help set your retail operations up for success in the report: From Clicks to Ships: Navigating the Global Supply Chain Crisis 2022.


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