The pandemic ushered in a new digital era for the UK retail sector and accelerated investment in customer experience technology to meet rapidly changing consumer needs.

With consumer priorities changing amid rocketing inflation and a cost-of-living crisis, physical stores are acting more like showrooms to engage in using the latest digital technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), rather than places to solely purchase products.

The pandemic accelerated online activity, with more consumers engaging in shopping experiences via digital means. With greater demands from consumers seeking discounts, and fast and frictionless personalised shopping experiences across multiple channels, comes the need for retailers to stay ahead of the technological curve.

To maintain growth in a competitive market, retailers need to embrace collaborative technologies that can integrate seamlessly into hybrid working environments for staff, and empower customers to stay connected using any device from any location.

Our recently published ‘Buying into the future of retail’ (PDF) whitepaper explores how smart technology choices can transform operations, customer experiences and sustainability within store.

As one of the UK’s leading telecoms companies with vast network infrastructure, we’re highly regarded as a safe pair of hands when it comes to providing connectivity services and delivering integrated digital solutions, at scale, for retailers of all sizes.

Our pioneering cloud-based services help bring retail teams and customers closer together. We offer a comprehensive suite of collaborative digital solutions, all delivered with ongoing customer support.

We have access to over 200 plug-ins that can be instantly activated, for example booking, chatbots, scheduling and analytics systems.

• A digital solution that automates and streamlines the booking process within a contact centre environment. 

• This solution leverages automation tools and software to handle booking-related tasks, reducing the need for manual intervention and improving operational efficiency.

• A cloud-based solution known for its Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) offering, enabling businesses to communicate and collaborate efficiently across various channels and devices.

• Features include voice calls, video meetings, team messaging and integrations with other business tools. 

We sell four of the top five leading magic quadrant solutions and have a professional services ecosystem that wraps around all these solutions. We also provide ongoing support services for employees to tap into.

Whether retail employees are meeting at home, in-store, or on the go, our Microsoft Teams product lets you collaborate and share content from any location. Deep integrations with Microsoft’s first-class productivity applications allow retailers to work better together, from a powerful, easy-to-use UC digital tool.

We reduce the complexity of delivering and managing Microsoft Teams by combining our voice and network services, such as VoIP, to provide retailers global reach with an experienced partner. 

A poorly delivered collaboration transformation can create more problems than it solves. That’s why we’ve built an end-to-end managed service for Microsoft Teams. To enable retail businesses to achieve their transformation goals, we support them with developing, delivering, adopting and managing the solution.

• We monitor call quality and utilisation to ensure end-users have an excellent experience.

• Our vast experience, specialist staff and reliable network make the transition and adoption of cloud-based services seamless.

• Moving to cloud-based services removes costs associated with legacy infrastructure, while creating a simpler environment for retailers to manage.

• Our solution gives retail employees the tools and support needed to reliably work and collaborate from anywhere, which is becoming increasingly important in hybrid working environments. 

We’ve deployed and managed Microsoft collaboration tools for more than a decade and supported over half a million users globally.

When retailers purchase products from us, our adoption service team will get in touch to help their employees with the rollout of technology and periodically check in after deployment, to make sure they are getting full value.

Many existing retail contact centres use tech and software that are outdated and incompatible with the way businesses and consumers communicate today. This holds them back from meeting increasing customer demands.

Our cloud contact centre offers an innovative alternative to the traditional on-premises model. It combines all the tools and applications of a conventional contact centre and hosts them in the cloud. Our solution can be hosted on either a public or private cloud to suit your organisation’s needs.

• Creates innovation, flexibility and agility within your business, empowering call centre agents to work from anywhere.

• Being a faster, more reliable platform can lead to fewer call drop-outs and faster issue resolution. This leads to increased agent efficiency and lower costs as fewer agents are required to handle all of your traffic.

• A virtual infrastructure also removes many of the costs and complexities of managing a retailer’s own data centres, as it helps eliminate fixed investment in real estate, hardware and other physical assets.

• Easier to integrate with other applications to help tailor the solution to your specific requirements.

• By transforming the customer journey to improve the experience of customers and agents, retailers can improve productivity, with lower agent handling times, improved performance monitoring and collaboration for faster, more efficient results.

We offer a range of cloud contact centre solution products tailored to meet the specific needs of any retailer and include Cloud Contact Cisco, Webex cloud contact centre solutions, Optimise Cloud Contact, Genesys Cloud contact centre and Cloud Contact Next Generation.

We’ve built a strong track record as a trusted digital transformation partner for retail contact centres. With over 20 years’ experience transforming contact centres, we can offer a safe, secure and reliable pair of hands along the journey.

Our cloud contact centre solutions all integrate seamlessly with all our other cutting-edge solutions. We’ll also manage and deliver all other integrations to provide a complete contact centre package.

We’ll provide 24/7 monitoring and support, so that retailers can focus on running their business and serving their customers.

As the third largest investor in research and development over the past 10 years, and with a portfolio of over 4,700 patents, our commitment to innovation is so long-standing it’s become embedded in our DNA.

Our collaborative and innovative digital technologies empower retail stores to enhance communication, cut costs, streamline operations and leverage data-driven insights. By embracing these solutions, retailers are well-placed to deliver better customer experiences and improve overall store performance in today's rapidly evolving retail landscape.

As the UK’s leader in delivering digital infrastructure, we offer the complete solution for businesses looking to stay ahead of the curve and can help deliver seamless, secure and sustainable services for retail customers.