Digital signage solutions are being exploited by most business owners today to give them an edge over their competitors. There are many different benefits digital signage will have on your business, which can help you become more successful within your industry. Digital Signage is made up of a variety of technologies used to replace traditional print and other media in the retail environment in a visually dynamic form..

The importance of creating customer experiences in the retail environment is well-documented and has been proven to influence consumer decision-making at the point of sale, as well as helping to enforce branding and enriching the overall shopping experience. Today, more and more retailers are beginning to recognise and reap the benefits of using digital displays and bespoke in-store music as part of their branding and customer shopping experience. It allows shoppers to visually interact with the brand’s products or promotions whilst still in the store environment, where actual purchasing decisions can be made.

Here are 4 ways in which digital signage can be used in-store for effective retail marketing:

1. In-Store Digital Advertising

Advertiser driven digital signage networks allows advertisers to buy airtime in order to inform customers about their products and services and in turn drive more sales at the point of decision. The placement, size of commercial screen, type of content and other circumstances in store can vary quite a bit, but the most successful networks are always treated as any other in-store medium. That is to say, digital signage is like any other form of point-of-purchase advertising that can be bought by marketers and used to the reach customers on the sales floor.

2. In-Store Digital Signage and Music

Retailers can utilise effective retail digital signage to promote their products, brands and services to their customers and also attract potential customers with strategically placed screens in storefront windows. In-store music has also added to the customers’ shopping experience and when these powerful channels are integrated, a retailer can efficiently deliver their marketing message visually and audibly to the customer right at point of purchase. The X2O Media Platform, now available in South Africa, enables users to communicate key messages in real time to target consumers via a range of digital devices– all from one solution.

3. Employee Training and Skills Management

Digital Signage has been successfully used to display employee training videos, health & safety and other corporate messages before and after trading hours. Employee training can be further enhanced to include Training on Demand (TOD), which allows training videos to be played at times set by the individual store management and it allows for the videos to be paused, rewound, forwarded and stopped. TOD is a revolutionary bolt-on product that allows enables effective training of staff whilst having a huge cost savings for any distributed company.

4. Touch Screen Kiosks

Self-service touch screen kiosks have been around for a long time, but as newer applications are being adopted by retailers, there has been a new resurgence of the technology. The new cutting-edge technology includes additional functionality, such as: self-service credit applications in-store, interactive product information and guided selling, wayfinding systems, product locators and price checking units, loyalty programmes and customer satisfaction.

The effect of the visually appealing display gives retailers the opportunity to improve their customers’ shopping experience, make each employee more productive, reduce the load on customer service staff and, if possible, offer a supplementary form of income

 

With the presence of various technological solutions, businesses now have more prospects to reach out to the customers. Cloud telephony has been the most powerful tool of this century. Most of the businesses are using this technology to organize its in-house processes and customer experience simultaneously. This further enhances the connectivity between a buyer and a seller by breaking down the location barriers.

As a consumer, we have not yet realized how cloud telephony is being used in our daily life. From using GPS navigation to exchanging data internally in the company or even scheduling meeting online. Gradually, cloud telephony is penetrating into the general public life as well.

Easy to use cloud telephony technology has replaced the traditional PBX or EPABX and has shifted the telephone system over cloud. It is going to see steep growth in Indian market in the coming years. Cloud telephony will be the next big thing to invest in and will emerge as the most demanded SAAS platform.

Given below are the key trends to look out in 2018 in cloud telephony sector.

1)    Language-based Technology

India has a diversified culture. Each region has its own native language. Communication is one medium which bridges the gap between different culture and brings people closer to each other. With the enhancement in technology, now, it is possible to have a multilingual communication system. Indian language based recognition speech technology has evolved over the years. Due to this, Indian businesses are exposed to customised telephony experience which has been fruitful for their growth. Technology has further enhanced the text to speech, speech to text for Indian languages in recent years. Leading cloud services providers like Google, Amazon and Microsoft have launched speech recognition technologies for Indian languages on their cloud platforms. Cloud Telephony will provide better language support, features and functionalities in the coming years.

2)    Future holds in hands of Voice Bots 

There has been a paradigm shift in technology. We have seen people using transistors, then landline phones, mobile phones and now everything is on cloud. Both the individual users and the businesses have witnessed this change. With the increasing penetration of mobile phones, voice bots have already come into existence at consumer level. With such advancements, voice bots will become a reality for businesses but would be limited to high volume operational processes. Talking bots will save a lot of man hours for businesses and hence reduce the cost drastically.

3)    Analytics is the key 

Digital marketing has increased the horizon of marketing for all businesses. With the onset of voice bots, automated chats and voice analytics which includes keyword analysis, emotion analysis will also drive attention of all business segments. Voice analytics usage would be limited to enterprises and mid-enterprise market due to increased demand of consumers. Voice Analytics will also help businesses streamline the audit process.

4)    Important SaaS tool

Cloud telephony is scalable in nature. They are easy to integrate with other SaaS tools. The costs and efforts associated with the upgrades are lower than the traditional model that usually forces the user to buy an upgrade package and install it, or pay for specialized services to get the environment upgraded. Therefore, cloud telephony will be the most significant and efficient SaaS tool for any business in India.

5)    Sector Agonist 

Cloud telephony is one platform that serves all businesses irrespective of their nature, to have seamless inbound and outbound communication process. In today’s scenario, E-commerce sectors, banking and telecoms’ customer care is driven with the help of IVRs which is a byproduct of cloud telephony. Institutional and governance sector is using toll numbers to reach millions of audience hassle free. Therefore, cloud telephony is serving as a sector agonist tool, thereby driving rapid business growth.

Advancement and adaptation of technology among people have raised the bar of businesses in India.Cloud telephony serves as a central platform to all businesses. The awareness and growth of cloud telephony has increased significantly in the recent times. Its demand is not only restricted to enterprise sector now, but has evolved around small and medium businesses as well.

 

Source:http://bwdisrupt.businessworld.in/article/Top-5-Cloud-Telephony-Trends-to-Rule-in-2018/28-10-2017-129773/