Image courtesy of pressoffice.carphonewarehouse.com/image_library

Carphone Warehouse, the phone retailer, is going digital with its new look stores. The digital format will be seen across 200 of its 771 stores within the next few months. The digital design is said to create a simplified and slick customer experience through technology.

Speaking at one of the revamped stores in London’s Brent Cross, Carphone Warehouse marketing director Julian Diment told Retail Week: “This has allowed us to bring the excitement and energy of smartphones to life through a lot more live devices and great technology.”

Interactive screens and tablet computers are the main technology focus; the screens will show live tariff data from head office and enable customers to access the latest customer reviews and handset information.

The tablets, by Sony, will be a particularly beneficial technology for staff who will use them to assist the sales process. Running on the tablet is sales tool Pin Point, which was introduced to help sales assistants ask the right questions in order to guide the customer through the tariff and find the phone that will be best suited to them.

Julian Diment went on to say: “We are really excited about Pin Point. It exists on tablets and every colleague has one. When a customer comes into the store the colleague can listen to the customer, understand their needs, and ask them key questions about how they are going to use their phone…to get under the skin of what the customer needs and make a recommendation. It’s all about personalised values”.

Pin Point recently won Carphone Warehouse the ‘Metapack Customer experience technology of the year’ at the Retail Week Technology Awards 2014; the sales tool has resulted in increased customer satisfaction since its launch in all Carphone Warehouse stores.

Later down the line, Carphone Warehouse is likely to start using the tablets to complete transactions, removing the current requirement for in store static till points and providing a opportunity to open smaller sized stores.

The retailer hired design agency Fitch to create the new store format; design director Nathan Watts said: “Carphone Warehouse has been working hard to ensure it gives its customers the interactive, but simple experience that they want. Design is so often an additive process, however, Brent Cross was all about stripping back and delivering a single-minded approach to content. The design is focused on giving the customer a slick and simplified experience, with technology and digital interaction at the heart of the whole offering.”

Source: Retail Week