When evaluating any new technology, any sophisticated organization is going to ask what the return on investment looks like.

It’s a conversation we’re constantly having with retailers who are exploring SYNQ AI Radio.  Often, the best place to start is by looking at what changes in daily workflows.

Connecting more than communication

Frontline teams depend on two-way radios to stay connected, but the work they’re coordinating often requires information and systems that sit outside of the radio network. That disconnect adds extra steps – associates are forced to jump between devices, systems, and manual workarounds to complete tasks.

SYNQ AI Radio connects existing two-way radios to enterprise systems, AI tools, APIs, and other technologies used across the store. This allows associates to use natural language to access information, receive and manage tasks, respond to requests, communicate across devices, and push notifications or create tasks in connected systems. These interactions can also be captured digitally, turning previously uncaptured frontline activity into data retailers can analyze and learn from.

So, what does that look like in some of the workflows happening every day across the store?

Responding to customer requests faster

Customer assistance is a good place to start because how quickly and efficiently a request is handled affects the whole experience.

Take a traditional call button request: The notification for assistance is broadcast to the team over radios or a paging system, but without a way to claim it, there can be uncertainty around who is actually responding. One associate may assume someone else has it covered, multiple associates may respond to the same request, or, as new requests come in, an earlier one can simply get lost in the radio traffic.

There’s also no visibility into what happens next. No one knows whether someone responded. And no one knows how long the customer waited, or what happened as a result.

The impact is particularly easy to see with locked merchandise, where customers are entirely dependent on an associate to access the product. Shoppers wait an average of 7.7 minutes for locked products to be unlocked. And when shoppers must wait that long, the impact can extend beyond response time to the sale itself.

With AI Radio, the request is managed and tracked from the initial notification through completion. Notifications are routed to teams based on button location, associates claim by voice, and unanswered requests can automatically escalate to another team or manager. These touchpoints are also captured digitally, giving retailers a record of how the request was handled and greater visibility into response times, unanswered requests, escalations, and completion.

Making information easier to access

Having the information and having it readily available are not the same thing.

Consider a customer asking whether an item is in stock. Even when the information already exists, getting to it may require the associate to use another device, open an application, or ask a team member. In fact, 45% of associates say they spend too much time trying to find answers to customer questions. When finding an answer regularly pulls associates away from the task at hand, that time adds up.

With AI Radio, associates can ask for information by voice over two-way radios. The request can connect to store APIs, AI tools, or approved knowledge sources to retrieve information such as inventory availability, product details, or store procedures.

Here, the value is in the time and steps removed from each search. Instead of switching devices or involving another team member, associates can access the information through the device they're already using.

Connecting digital workflows to the sales floor

Retailers rely on enterprise platforms to manage tasks, alerts, and other operational workflows. But that work still needs to reach the associate responsible for carrying it out.

For teams that rely on two-way radios, that connection requires a manual handoff. A manager may see a task or alert in one system, relay it over the two-way radio, wait for an update, and then return to the original system.  

AI Radio connects the two directly. Tasks and alerts can be routed from connected systems to associates over their two-way radios. Associates can acknowledge and interact with them by voice, with those updates flowing back into the original workflow. The connection also works the other way, allowing associates to use voice to create tasks or send notifications to connected systems.

That means less time spent manually passing information between systems and the sales floor, while creating a digital record of work that would otherwise get lost over two-way radios.

Small savings become significant at scale

A few minutes saved on a single interaction may not sound like much. But customer requests, information queries, and operational tasks aren't one-off events. They happen repeatedly throughout the day across associates, departments, and locations.

That’s where the ROI starts to add up. Consider a store handling 100 assistance requests a day. If a connected workflow saved an average of three minutes of associate time per request, that would add up to five hours a day, or more than 1,800 hours over the course of a year. At an average labor cost of $20 per hour, that’s roughly $36,500 saved in labor time annually from just ONE WORKFLOW AT ONE LOCATION.*

Finding the return in everyday work

The value of AI Radio becomes much more tangible when you look at the work it supports every day.

When less time is spent searching for information, coordinating responses, or manually passing work between systems, associates have more time for the work that needs their attention. And because more of that activity is captured, retailers have a better view of how those workflows are carried out day to day.

Ready to explore what that could look like in your stores? Contact us to learn more about SYNQ AI Radio.

*Illustrative example based on 100 assistance requests per day, three minutes saved per request, a $20 hourly labor cost, and 365 operating days per year. Actual results will vary by retailer and workflow.