Australia’s leading telecommunications company, Telstra, has recently collaborated with Microsoft to redesign its flagship stores in Melbourne and Sydney to improve the experience for both employees and customers.
By implementing both Windows 10 and the operating system’s Universal Windows App Platform, the company was able to develop a variety of new experiences on numerous devices and at different levels.
One example of how the new technology has been used to improve the customer experience is the new in-store NFC chip cards which customers can carry around the store, tap on panels next to devices they’re interested in, and have all the information on items they tap added to a virtual brochure which can be accessed later on after they leave the store.
“With this new customer experience and system improvements, our aim is to reduce the average wait times for customers to around three minutes. This will enable us to drive more sales, serve more customers and importantly, improve their in store experience with us. Windows 10 is a great platform for helping our people use small and large devices to be faster, more efficient and provide that seamless customer experience we’re aiming for,” said Andrew Smith, the director of retail operations at Telstra.
In 2015, more than half of Telstra’s service transactions were digital. According to Smith, “[This] has given us the opportunity to think big and redefine the role of our physical stores.”
A result of this change in strategy is the implementation of Microsoft Power BI, to analyze customer traffic and offer a better mix of products, and the planned rollout of over 5,000 new Surface devices to Telstra stores nationwide. “They can more efficiently allow payments to be processed from anywhere in the store without having to return to [a] dedicated point of sale area,” says Microsoft’s Jeremy Korst.
Telstra is one of Australia’s major internet service providers and has also been a big supporter of Windows phones. The company gained yet another connection to Microsoft this week when it hired former Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop, as the new Telstra group executive.
