Improve customer dwelling time, company profit, and employee comfort by deploying a modern EMS for your store locations
As consumers, we know how competitive the retail market can be. With so many options, deciding where to spend our hard-earned money can take time. To gain our loyalty, stores today must be willing to go above and beyond. They must offer us something special that sets them apart from their competitors.
Attracting customers (and thereby winning market share) is, for the retailer, a key consideration in business planning and a pivotal contributor to ultimate commercial success. Price is one obvious point of differentiation in this quest; the quality of service provided is another. Increasingly in physical locations there is a third important metric. Customer comfort, which influences dwelling time (the amount of time the customer spends in the store), plays an even greater part in influencing the choice of where we shop.
This leads to an obvious conclusion: focusing on delivering customer comfort is likely to be rewarded in the retailer’s bottom line. The successful, modern business provides not so much a shop as a “shopping experience,” and it does this by creating an environment in which the buyer is happy to remain.
Defining the customer experience
How is this desirable environment created? Essentially, through investment in managing the familiar facets of any building so they perform to optimal levels: store design, lighting, temperature control, comfortable seating, clean and well-maintained spaces, and the availability of technology (for instance, mobile apps for store navigation and in-shop assistance) all play a part. Each of these aspects of the retail property enhances the customer experience and has been shown to deliver measurable outcomes, including:
- Increased sales
- Improved customer loyalty
- Better brand perception
- Additional visits through word-of-mouth and local reputation
- Reduced cart abandonment
- Less-stressed customers
- Improved employee productivity
The reality is that uncomfortable employees are unlikely to deliver high-quality customer service and comfortable customers are more likely to relax and buy.
Unlocking customer satisfaction in retail
A crucial part of delivering an appealing retail experience today requires deploying a modern Energy Management System (EMS) across store locations to enhance the sort of key performance indicators we’ve outlined above.
Equipped with advanced technologies such as AI, IoT, and machine learning an EMS can create optimal in-store environments that encourage longer customer visits, contribute to higher sales, and improve comfort. Simultaneously, such systems enable efficient energy use leading to considerable cost savings and sustainability benefits. Thus, a modern EMS can drive comprehensive wins for customers, employees, and the retailer’s bottom line. There are several clear ways that this happens:
- Profit margins in retail are tight, and energy costs represent a significant expense. A modern EMS will help retailers optimize consumption by enabling more efficient energy usage. This helps to assure that not only is a comfortable environment for customers maintained, but in a manner that positively impacts profitability.
- In an operating environment where sustainability and environmental responsibility are front of mind, today’s customers increasingly value steps taken towards lower carbon footprints. By minimizing energy waste and enabling renewable energy sources to be used where practical, an EMS can align with the retailer’s social responsibility goals and attract a growing number of environmentally conscious customers.
- Many retailers (dependent on region) will face energy efficiency and environmental regulations they must comply with. An EMS, by tracking and reporting usage, emissions, and any other relevant data helps meet such requirements (and avoid fines and reputational damage for non-compliance).
- Retail traffic is subject to peaks and flows, with energy usage needing to be adjusted accordingly. An EMS can help manage and reduce peak demand by scheduling specific energy-intensive tasks during off-peak hours and implementing programmed demand-response strategies that help to reduce expensive peak-demand charges while maintaining the necessary levels of customer comfort.
- Cost-effective maintenance is always challenging for the retailer who needs to assure that a facility is appealing and consistently so, with minimal disruptions, An EMS can help optimize energy consumption and provide maintenance alerts for the systems and equipment necessary to maintaining the facility’s operations and comfort levels, thereby preventing downtime, failure, and the necessity for costly repairs after the fact. The store always puts its best foot forward for customers.
- We noted earlier that heating, lighting, and cooling all played important roles in customer satisfaction in retail environments. Retailers typically have a very detailed specification in how each of these areas should perform to create the best environment for their customers. The EMS will make certain these all perform as intended to create the most appealing shopping environment possible.
There are, of course, other advantages. The EMS can empower more advanced, data-driven decisions by enabling retail users to leverage the information collected by the system to make better-informed decisions about energy consumption patterns and possible improvements in both efficiency and customer comfort in the future.
It can also enable a higher degree of remote monitoring and control that enables retailers to adjust energy setting in real-time according to immediate needs over various locations, all necessary adjustments handled remotely.
Ultimately, taking the sum of the advantages above, a modern Energy Management System provides the retailer with a competitive advantage not only by helping retail facilities be as comfortable as possible (and therefore more likely to extend customer dwelling time) but also by demonstrating a serious commitment to environmental issues that many of today’s customers are increasingly aware of. The investment in such systems is a long-term win for any retail business.
About NexRev
At NexRev, we’ve been unlocking the power of facility and energy management data with over a million connected devices across North America. Our team of experts is focused on helping you deliver more with your budgets, infrastructure, and assets to create sustainable savings in operations and energy, reducing your risk and increasing operational confidence.
To begin a discussion on how we can help you reduce energy waste, please email us at