Case Study: Specsavers

Profile

Specsavers Optical Group is a British multinational optical retail chain, which operates more than 700 stores through a network of franchisee partners. They have deployed Qudini by Verint Retail Choreography solutions across their entire UK estate, including Qudini by Verint’s Queue Management System and Appointment Scheduling Software. The Specsavers Plymouth store (the subject of our case study video) is one of the business’ top performing stores.

Sector: Retail

Challenge

Specsavers stores offer a wide range of different services (including optometrist services, eyewear retail and audiology). Specsavers’ high-street stores are also increasingly working in conjunction with local NHS departments, acting as the first port of call for patients with eye care needs.

As a result, customer journeys within Specsavers’ stores can be complex, with customers needing to transition across different advisors for their pre-tests, eye tests, dispensing needs and more. To support such complex journeys, seamless and transparent staff processes are required.

Previously, the Specsavers stores used manual clipboards and pens to build a waitlist of customers waiting for their different services. However, this method proved chaotic as it did not enable cross-department transitioning of customers and failed to meet the required levels of visibility and communication. Staff members lost time and customers were stranded at different stages of the optical retail customer journey.

Within the Specsavers Plymouth store, where hundreds of customers are seen each day across two floors for different retail and clinical services, the problem was particularly impacting, leading to lost sales and suboptimal staff retention due to the increased stress of managing customers.

Solution

Specsavers decided to deploy Qudini by Verint’s Waitlist App and Appointment App across its stores within the UK and Australia. They chose Qudini by Verint as a flexible and service-oriented software provider with a highly scalable and flexible tool that could support their international store needs.

The Qudini by Verint software enables Specsavers store teams to seamlessly identify why customers are entering their store, ensuring they have the right journey and speak to the best advisors for their needs. This enables stores like Specsavers Plymouth to drive conversion, improve loyalty and better support their customers.

Specsavers Queue Management

With the Specsavers eyesight test walk-in customer journey, a meeter-greeter stands at the front of the store. They greet every customer entering the store, find out their needs and add them to the virtual queue.

Once added to the Queue App, the meeter-greeter tells the customer which part of the store to go to and shares an accurate wait time estimate.

While they wait, customers are free to relax in the waiting area or browse Specsavers’ eyewear displays.

Using their desktop and tablet devices, colleagues across each department track waitlist customers and can easily call their next customer.

Once they complete their service, the store team can transfer the customer to the next queue for the following part of their journey. For example, an eye test customer would be added from the pre-test queue to the eye test queue and thereafter to the eyewear dispense queue.

A colleague in the next department sees the customer on the waitlist and begins to serve them when their turn arises.

If a customer needs urgent eye care, the meeter-greeter increases their queuing priority. An optometrist then uses their Smart Queue Management desktop interface to call forward the customer, speeding up service.

Specsavers Order Pickup

When a customer visits the store to collect their glasses, the meeter-greeter can add them into a collections queue. A staff member then prepares the customer’s glasses and calls them forward for collection when ready.

Specsavers Shop Floor Management

Specsavers Shop Floor Software allows store managers to better manage customer, colleagues and shop floor activities on tablet and desktop. Qudini by Verint’s system gives them greater visibility on team activities, helping to ensure customers are placed with the right colleague at the right time.

Results

• Increased word of mouth

  Since improving the customer experience, Specsavers have seen a dramatic increase in referrals.

• Increased loyalty

  The improved customer experience and stronger relationships with the store team make customers more likely to return to Specsavers stores and provide positive feedback to friends and family.

• Improved sales

  The walk-out rate has dropped significantly, while average transaction value has increased. The enhanced customer experience ensures customers stay for services, have more positive colleague interactions and have more time to choose eyewear, thus driving a greater number of customers to purchase eyewear at the end of their journey.

• Improved productivity

  Colleague efficiency has improved and some stores have additional hours per week to put to better use. Thanks to better visibility of store activities, improved communications across departments and less on-the-job stress, store teams have become far more productive.

• Right people, right place, right time

  Qudini by Verint enables Specsavers’ store management teams to access data that allows them to better forecast their staff activities, while also providing a tool to better manage their staff and shop floor activities on the fly. As such, they can ensure the right people are allocated to the right places at the right time and are always serving the right customer.

• Increased employee retention

  Improved staff processes and communication coupled with a calmer store environment improves the morale of Specsavers’ store teams, encouraging them to stay within the Specsavers’ family and perform at their best.

• Improved commercial decisions

  The Qudini by Verint Business Intelligence Systems provides Specsavers’ head office with game-changing insights that help them make smarter decisions on stocking, marketing and resource planning.