An example weekly traffic report generated by ReView Counter.

We’re pleased to announce the official launch of a new addition to our ReView Retail Insights Suite. With ReView Counter, ReTel now lets our retail and CPG manufacturer clients benefit from the most advanced people counting system available today.

Whereas other people counters and traffic counting systems only track incoming/outgoing door or choke point traffic (or simply any and all door traffic in all directions), ReView Counter adds additional detail and granularity that helps close the loop on customer data for retailers.

In addition to standard customer counts for both incoming and outgoing customers, ReView Counter adds the following unique capabilities:

• Demographics of counted customers, including gender and age range
• Filtering of employee entrance/exits from customer entrance/exits for greater accuracy

Best of all, ReView Counter can use either off-the-shelf IP cameras or existing surveillance systems pointed at doors and choke points.

For more information on ReView Counter, please contact us today.

July 2011 same store sales were up 4.8% in the US.

It’s been a while since we added a new post to the ReTel blog, and for good reason. Regardless of what is happening with the world economy, the retail and CPG manufacturing sectors have been healthy and growing. For ReTel, that has meant that our core customer base has been keeping us very busy indeed in 2011.

This is interesting to note, because 2010 was frankly disappointing for many retailers and CPG manufacturers, as well as the vendors who serve retailers and CPG manufacturers. So what has been different so far about 2011? What has lead to record profits for some of the world’s leading manufacturers (like Apple, for instance) and seriously profitable quarters for many retailers (like Saks and Neiman Marcus)?

First and foremost, we’d conjecture that consumers are past the stages of fatigue with the current economic situation and have now adjusted to the new economic reality. Therefore, they are less wary of spending, and are continually loosening purse strings more and more, as evidenced by a 4.8% increase in same store sales in the US for July 2011. Secondly, a more subtle force at work is a strong release of pent up demand to purchase goods by the wealthier segments of society. While many mainstream manufacturers such as P&G and Unilever have posted great quarters recently, it is manufacturers and retailers of goods purchased by those with discretionary income that seem to be performing particularly well. Will this trickle down into other segments of the purchasing public more than it already has? The continued health of the economy ultimately depends on it.

So, while the economy and job market continues to fluctuate wildly, much of the retail and consumer goods manufacturer world seem to be doing just fine.

A sample merchandising effectiveness report from the ReView suite.

You’ve seen it before. The initially impressive looking analytics dashboard that presents a plethora of charts, graphs and figures that summarize days or even months worth of data into one digestible view. But dig a little deeper with the people who are supposed to use these dashboards on a day to day basis, and you’ll start to hear complaints:

• It’s too difficult to turn this data into answers.
• I feel overwhelmed by how complicated this really is.
• I only use 10% of the information on this dashboard.
• I can’t be bothered to log in to a totally separate system to get this data.
• What am I really supposed to do with this information?

At ReTel, we spent an awful lot of time with customers before we developed our analytics dashboard. That’s why…we didn’t develop an analytics dashboard. Here’s what our customers told us:

• I don’t want data…I want answers.
• I want this information to be in a system I already use every day.
• I don’t want to boil the ocean…I just want to see the most important metrics that drive my business.
• I want to be able to interpret this information at-a-glance, and be able to drill down only if I want to.

So what did we do? We consolidated data for our reports to what is most impactful for our clients’ businesses. We optimized our reporting engine to deliver reports to our clients’ email, which they already use daily. We spent long hours on user experience and design to make our reports as simple and readable as possible. We built conclusions into the reports so that our clients don’t just get data…they also get answers.

Take a look at our reports. Then take a look at those other impressive dashboards. We think you’ll agree: we’ve designed something you’ll be excited to use everyday to optimize your business.

Behind the scenes, we’ve worked extensively with Envysion’s product management and technology teams to create as seamless an integration as possible, and the results are spectacular. We commend our counterparts at Envysion for creating a platform that makes it easy and painless to integrate, and thereby add exponential value to surveillance.

Initially, we’ll be offering our advanced ConstantAudit operations auditing service. With ConstantAudit, we’ll deliver interactive, data-based analytic reports on a variety of operational performance indicators, including speed of service and store cleanliness.

ReTel’s analytic reporting services are immediately available through Insight Marketplace to Envysion customers. To learn more about how to trial or purchase, please contact us now or contact our partners at Envysion.

About ReTel Technologies
ReTel Technologies’ hybrid video auditing solutions transform raw surveillance video into interactive, at-a-glance reports that let retailers, convenience stores and restaurants rapidly increase profitability, customer satisfaction and employee performance. ReTel’s solutions deliver key data on operations, merchandising, and loss prevention, with direct links to events for instant access to only the video that matters. ReTel’s solutions are deployed across the globe, with customers ranging from small franchisees to Fortune 50 retailers. For more information, visit www.reteltechnologies.com or call 877-777-0407.

About Envysion
Envysion puts the power of video into the hands of a multi-unit operator’s entire organization, reaching across departments to 1000s of users, to provide unique business insight that delivers 10-15% profitability improvement. The company created the Managed Video as a Service (MVaaS) model, which brings the Software as a Service (SaaS) approach to video. Envysion enables multi-unit operators to leverage remote live and recorded video and provides insight to improve performance in every location, every day. Envysion’s services leverage its scalable, easy to manage, MVaaS platform to eliminate strain on customers’ IT department and network. Today, Envysion’s solutions are driving bottom line profitability improvements with leading restaurant, retail, hospitality and convenience store operators throughout North America. For more information, visit www.envysion.com or call 877.258.9441.

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Envysion Press Contact:
Hayley Coxon
Envysion, Inc.
303.590.2374

On behalf of ourselves and our partner TecPro Solutions, we’d like to congratulate Jeff Creel of McPherson Oil, who recently won a new Apple iPad during this year’s NACS show.

ReTel and TecPro had a very strong showing at this year’s NACS convenience store show, where we presented the industry’s most advanced surveillance solutions to help chains and owner/operators enhance their loss prevention, operations and marketing activities. ReTel and TecPro’s show special is still available for a limited time. To learn about this special package, download our show special flyer here.

XBR Exception #1: Theft that occurs outside the POS. Smarter dishonest employees have come to recognize that certain transaction keys – voids, cancellations and refunds, for instance – are now used by XBR to identify events that should be flagged and reviewed for shrink. Therefore, if they can perform transactions entirely outside of the POS, there is no opportunity for an event to be flagged in the POS. Examples of this include sweethearting (giving product away for free to friends and family), leaving the cash drawer open between transactions, and selling hard-to-inventory items (such as drinks) without using the POS.

XBR Exception #2: Too many false positives. Much like that car alarm down the block, or the boy who cried wolf, too many false positives in any XBR system renders it useless as the personnel assigned to monitor the system either lose the capability to effectively find actual events, or simply lose interest in using the system altogether. While thresholds and triggers can be adjusted to account for false positives, this often comes at the expense of reducing the system’s capability to find actual events – a classic Catch 22 situation. This problem can be exacerbated significantly if multiple locations are using XBR simultaneously, thereby flooding the loss prevention or asset protection department with volumes of events that are too numerous to review.

While these problems are serious, they aren’t impossible to solve. ReTel’s new CashAudit service is designed specifically to both discover shrink events that occur outside of the POS, and also work directly with XBR systems to act as a second filter on captured events to deliver only those that need added LP review to internal auditors. The result? XBR as it should be, and true deterrents to employee theft no matter how many locations need to be monitored. To learn more about CashAudit, please click here.

Beyond the constant challenge of hiring new employees to replace those that have left, this turnover leads to other issues that managers and owner/operators must face. In this post, we’ll focus on employees’ understanding of management expectations as they pertain to quality of customer service and loss prevention.

When a new employee is hired, one of the first things that employee does is go through training. In that training period, management sets expectations of job performance that the employee is expected to meet. Once that employee completes training, there can typically be a period of good performance, followed by a slow decline into poor service, dishonesty and overall diminished performance that does not meet management expectations. Given that, at any given time, any number of employees are moving further down the path towards their six-month anniversary/exit, it can therefore be assumed that a range of attitudes towards job performance will exist within any retail or restaurant staff. This leads to a problem: social proof takes over quickly, as new employees see the bar set by their more senior co-workers. A vicious cycle begins, and soon, the time that it takes for an employee to go from a new, higher performer to an older, lower performer contracts significantly.

At this point, many managers start to look for mechanisms by which they can reinstate a culture of higher performance. This can include positive incentives, such as bonuses, or negative incentives, such as the dreaded public execution, where a particularly low performing employee (even one whose tenure is longer than 6 months) is fired for repeat infractions or more grievous events such as cash theft. Often times, these rare and sporadic mechanisms will have a near-term effect on performance, with all employees generally increasing their level of performance to either help attain a bonus collectively, or minimize the chance of being the next “public execution” individually. Soon after this near-term performance bump, however, employee behavior starts to trend back towards the mean and the status quo is reinstated.

What, then, can the smart manager do to maintain consistently high performance without resorting to erratic tactics that only lead to short-term gains? As the axiom goes, you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Therefore, the answer is providing employees with constant awareness that they are under constant measurement – and that they will be treated appropriately for their performance (and that includes beneficial treatment for better performance).

In the past, constant measurement like this was tedious, costly, impossible, or all of these. With the advent of tools like ReTel’s ConstantAudit, however, ongoing measurement can be performed easily and at a low cost to help management keep track of critical information such as employee theft events, speed of service and consumer experience. These tools can also be used by management to provide ongoing feedback to employees to both provide awareness that measurement exists, as well as share best practices and provide benchmarks that employees can strive to meet or exceed to earn bonuses and accolades.

And, most importantly, by setting an ongoing culture of accountability in every store, the old culture of getting away with “just good enough” work rapidly disappears. New employees will be entering an environment where their peers perform at a higher level for longer periods of time, reversing the vicious cycle of diminishing performance and consistently allowing for further optimization. It takes time to achieve, but once the tipping point is reached, the results are well worth the effort.

At a glance, the most significant changes to the new reporting system are as follows:

• Fully customizable HTML format for delivery by email, embedded in 3rd party DVR and VMS viewers, and sharing in any web browser
• Flexible structure allows for rapid customization to tailor information and reports to specific client needs
• Integrated style sheets for re-skinning to match corporate brand and style guidelines
• Full interactivity for added context via video clips linked to report data
• Intuitive and clear design language for simple, at-a-glance reports that make it easy to manage and optimize business performance

In addition to our updated reporting engine, we have also recently updated our online video viewer with a new design and clearer, more intuitive controls.

To learn more about how ReTel can turn your raw surveillance into powerful information you can use to optimize your business, contact us now.

When Dave started his first New York stores, he faced the typical set of challenges that retail and restaurant franchisees often struggle with. In particular, he inherited a set of hourly employees whose aim was to get as much out of the business as they could, do the least amount of work possible, and leave shortly thereafter to find a new job. In short, none of these employees approached the business from the perspective of the owner. Customer service was not important. Food quality was not important. And, most importantly, the long term financial health of the business was not important. And why was that? There was no reason for these employees to think otherwise, as their incentives – an hourly wage – were not aligned with the performance of the business.

Dave changed all of this. He created a culture of motivation and reward, with the express purpose of taking the best and brightest workers at the minimum wage level, and grooming them to be actual owners themselves. His employees have the authority to ensure customer satisfaction as they see fit (even if it means giving an order to a customer for free); they share in the successes of their store; they understand the long term impact of their performance on the business (Dave’s stores enjoy an incredible 0% attrition rate for frontline employees. Yes, 0%); and, most importantly, every employee from worst to best is aware of their performance and how they can improve it. As a result, Dave does not employee staff, but rather…owners.

Now, Dave’s situation may not be easily replicated in every franchise chain. But the model he has created has been proven in over 20 years of exceptional performance, and can be implemented in gradual stages by any owner/operator. What can you do to start following Dave’s lead? For one, you can begin by understanding how your employees perform in key areas that impact your stores’ customer satisfaction and financial health: customer service, cash and product theft, speed of service, and efficiency. Share this information with your staff, and let them know how they benefit from improved performance. And, most importantly, help them to succeed and see that their current position can be a stepping stone to future success.

To learn more about how ReTel can help you achieve this first step, take a look at our ConstantAudit service today.

To learn more about Dave Melton and his management philosophy, visit his website here.