Elevate Retail Experiences Through EUC Automation

January 9, 2024

With information and choices abound, consumer shopping behavior has undergone a transformative shift. Retailers face intense competition and high expectations as today’s shoppers demand an exceptional experience that is seamless, personalized, and without hassles.

Even within the realm of traditional brick-and-mortar establishments, the reliability of point-of-sale (POS) systems takes center stage. The consequences of any downtime can be substantial, potentially leading to customers abandoning their intended purchases or, worse, avoiding your store for good.

End-user devices play a pivotal role in the retail industry due to their direct impact on various aspects of operations and customer interactions. Whether it is point-of-sale (POS) systems, tablets, smart displays, or inventory tracking tools, these devices are critical in delivering a positive overall customer experience. Moreover, access to end-user devices is essential for transaction processing, ensuring secure and swift payment and reducing time during checkout.

Furthermore, in the era of omnichannel retailing, these devices enable seamless integration between online and in-store operations, providing customers with consistent and interconnected experiences.

For retailers to stay competitive, adapt to industry trends, and ultimately thrive in the dynamic retail landscape, they need a strategic approach to managing the technology powering their end-user devices.

Faster Rollouts, Fewer Outages, and Consistent End-User Experiences

Retail is undergoing significant transformations driven by customer expectations and emerging technologies. The rise of e-commerce and the demand for omnichannel experiences pose challenges that necessitate innovative solutions. In fact, according to research by Global Data, eight out of 10 retailers have shifted to an “omnichannel” model, aiming to unite online and offline shopping.

In this dynamic environment, the EUC team becomes the anchor for orchestrating digital initiatives to meet the ever-growing demands. From ensuring the functionality of point-of-sale systems to smooth online shopping experiences, the EUC team plays a direct role in shaping customer interactions.  

One-way EUC teams in the retail space can ensure their end-users always have access to business-critical tools is by automating their change validation process.

How Automating EUC Change Validation Helps Shape a Frictionless Customer Experience

Faster Updates and Releases:

Automation allows for the quick and efficient deployment of updates and releases. Retailers can roll out new features, security patches, and improvements more rapidly, ensuring that customers always have access to the latest and most secure technology.

Reduced Downtime:

EUC teams can identify potential issues before they impact end users and customers. This reduces the likelihood of unexpected downtime caused by software glitches or incompatibilities. Retailers can maintain their online and in-store systems with minimal disruptions, providing customers with a reliable and consistent experience.

Consistency Across Channels:

Retailers often operate through multiple channels, including online stores, mobile apps, and physical locations. Automated EUC change validation ensures consistency across these channels. Regardless of the platform customers choose, they can expect a seamless and uniform experience, which is crucial for building brand trust.

Enhanced Security:

Automated validation can quickly identify and address security vulnerabilities. This is particularly important in the retail sector, where customer data is sensitive. A secure computing environment instills confidence in customers, assuring them that their personal and financial information is well-protected.

Personalization and Customization:

Automation enables retailers to implement personalization and customization features more effectively. Changes can be validated to ensure they do not negatively impact user-specific settings or preferences. This allows for a tailored customer experience, enhancing satisfaction and loyalty.

Efficient Problem Resolution:

In case issues do arise, automated monitoring and validation systems can quickly pinpoint the root causes. This facilitates faster and more efficient problem resolution, minimizing the impact on the customer experience.

Maximizing Impact: Top 10 U.S. Retailer Leverages Automated EUC Change Validation

This leading retailer operates online and at over 1,000 brick-and-mortar locations across the U.S. and Canada. More than 100,000 workers need technical expertise and human touch to support their customers.

After experiencing unexpected, adverse impacts after several planned changes were rolled into production, this retailer wanted to tackle improving their EUC change management. The IT leadership provided a set of guiding principles, including providing excellent end-user experiences, automating as much as possible, and operating at industry speed.

The Retailer chose Login Enterprise to help them move from manual testing to an automated change validation approach that evaluated the “full stack” and user experience for consistent, reliable, and faster change rollouts.

“To date, we’ve seen huge dividends from this integrated approach, with Login Enterprise representing the workhorse of this system. We can finally keep up with the never-ending cycle of changes, moving quickly to get them validated and into production. We can do that—confident that we haven’t broken anything, and if we do, we’ll know before any user ever sees it”, said their VP of End User Computing.

With Login Enterprise, the team established and built an automated pipeline to validate individual and grouped changes, reduced validation to rollout cycle times from weeks to days, eliminated the manual testing overhead to free up valuable resources, and was able to improve security with faster patch rollouts.

Meet and Exceed Customer Expectations in an Ever-Changing Market

In modern retail, efficiently managing end-user devices is paramount for providing customers with a seamless and satisfying experience. Integrating automation into the EUC change validation process emerges as a strategic solution, offering retailers the agility to stay competitive. This approach facilitates faster updates and releases, minimizes downtime, ensures consistency across channels, enhances security, enables personalization, and streamlines problem resolution.

Want to learn more about how other organizations across industries are leveraging the power of Login Enterprise? Check out our case studies here!