20 August 2008

Circuit City stores are empowering their sales associates with Tablet PCs running a custom Windows-based application to help them offer a more knowledgeable, consistent experience that builds consumer confidence and loyalty.

Called the Enhanced Digital Guide Experience (EDGE), Circuit City’s new mobile devices can speed the sales process by providing associates with immediate access to product recommendations, demos, usage questions, competitive pricing and more for thousands of items across hundreds of categories. EDGE is helping transform the retailer’s customer-service model in new-format stores known as ‘the city’ by enabling any available associate to sell or discuss any product with any guest using a boundless selling approach to consumer electronics.

“With EDGE, sales associates can engage the guest, ask questions and input feedback for product recommendations that match the guest’s preferences and budget,” said Brian Leach, vice president of new concepts for Circuit City. “Because EDGE puts a wealth of information at our associates’ fingertips, we can hire from a broader talent pool and prepare them for the sales floor more quickly.”

“With consumer electronics products being upgraded as often as every 90 days, retailers are pressured to stay on top of all the latest trends while at the same time ensuring competitive pricing, clean stores and well-stocked shelves,” said David Gruehn, U.S. retail industry director at Microsoft. “By using a Tablet PC running a Windows-based application such as EDGE to elevate sales associates’ knowledge and effectiveness, Circuit City is differentiating itself from other retailers and tackling a key issue that all retailers face: how to increase customer loyalty and sales with a frequently evolving workforce.”

“What started as a selling tool turned into something that has removed boundaries from our service model and changed the way that we run our business,” Leach said.

Circuit City teamed with Microsoft and its partners to design EDGE to extract product information, inventory data, in-store promotions, third-party reviews, and other information over the Internet and from multiple back-end business systems. Once the information is extracted, EDGE is then optimised with decision-support intelligence and a friendly user interface.

“Working with Microsoft was critical to getting us moving with this concept,” said Dave Romero, senior manager of new concepts for Circuit City. “We knew we had to create a more consistent approach to how we engaged guests in our stores, and Microsoft had the insight to show us where the industry was heading and provided knowledge and resources to move us in that direction.”

Microsoft technologies behind EDGE include Windows XP Professional Tablet Edition, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Server Express, Microsoft Visual Studio and the Microsoft .NET Framework.