Increases customer engagement and internal communications with wireless and iPad roll out

Increases customer engagement and internal communications with wireless and iPad roll out

Women’s fashion retailer East has implemented mobile technologies to improve its customer service instore.

Managed communications provider Vodat International was responsible for installing a Meraki wireless local area network (LAN), working with its partner and value added distributor (VAD) Cloud Distribution.

The new, web-based Meraki Cloud Controller software provides the retailer with centralised Wi-Fi network management for East's 70 retail outlets in the UK, which in turn, supports the use of iPads for assisted sales alongside other mobile devices.

Improved service, communications

Richard Muir, East IT infrastructure administrator, described the Wi-Fi roll out results as "brilliant". "We’ve got powerful signal strength, well-made devices and an easy-to-use dashboard with a lot of functionality," he commented.

The Wi-Fi and iPad deployment is designed both to facilitate internal communication between stores, as well as to provide a means for sales assistants across its store estate to showcase clothing and fashion accessories not available in an individual store’s current inventory.

The 71 Meraki 802.11n access points and centralised Meraki cloud management capability enables the retailer to monitor and track the iPad usage across all its locations as a new means of serving customers.

Muir added: “We needed a secure, high performance solution. If we didn’t have Meraki installed we would need a controller at every store, which would be hard to manage and we would not have any centralised control from our headquarters. Now, using Meraki, we can control each access point from the cloud and we have network-wide visibility of device and bandwidth usage via a web-based dashboard.”

Managing security requirements

The providers said the East network is Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant and each access point includes built-in enterprise class features, like a stateful policy firewall, 802.1X/RADIUS support, network access control and wireless intrusion detection and prevention out of the box.

Muir was particularly pleased with the Meraki dashboard. “The dashboard is a great tool for monitoring our wireless devices as well as detecting rogue devices in the area,” he said. “We can also see interference and easily change channel configurations, which is useful to us for ensuring reliable performance.”

He also highlighted the added benefits of the new wireless network, which also supports laptops and iPhones for East's regional business managers, improving their productivity and availability while on the move.

Meanwhile, the instore iPads replace printed catalogues, saving sales assistants time in finding information, and increasing engagement with customers. “The iPads are a great communication tool. Sales assistants can communicate between stores and head office, access the company blog, and share new products with customers," Muir added. "The stores love having them.”