It’s a busy day at a retail store. Since doors opened, customers have been streaming in, keeping five retail associates and their handheld devices busy checking inventory, finalizing purchases and tracking mobile orders. Suddenly, one device stops responding.
The associate excuses themselves from the customers they’re helping to find a manager, who calls IT to report the issue. A couple hours later, the device is back online.
On its own, this incident seems insignificant. The store still had four functioning devices. However, 20% of the possible productivity was eliminated for several hours. Now, imagine tens or hundreds of devices across distributed stores experiencing the same issue. The impact doesn’t seem so insignificant now.
Mobile devices help associates, managers and seasonal workers do their job more efficiently. However, device downtime commonly gets in the way, impacting the success of retail stores. The problem isn’t only the individual device issues, but the operational cost of downtime.
The Hidden Cost of Troubleshooting
On the surface, every device issue is a technical problem. But it’s important to understand the ripple effect they can have:
Lost Productivity: Employees lose productive time while waiting for a device to work again.
Misallocated Managerial Support: Store managers spend time coordinating technical support instead of supporting their teams or customers.
Overloaded IT Teams: Receiving constant or repetitive IT tickets can overload the ticketing system and slow down troubleshooting times.
Impact on Customers: When devices support customer-facing activities, even a short period of downtime can lead to abandoned purchases and tainted customer experiences.
While the visible problem is device downtime, it’s important to find the underlying cause. Oftentimes, frequent device issues are caused by how the devices are being managed overall. While almost all organizations have invested in a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution, not all solutions are made alike.
What Happens When IT Doesn't Have Visibility?
Can your IT department quickly determine which devices are affected and why?
Without the right visibility, troubleshooting relies on the back-and-forth communication between the device user and IT representatives. An employee describes what they’re experiencing. IT tries to determine what might be causing it. More information is requested. Another troubleshooting fix is attempted. If it doesn’t work, the employee and IT rep go back to the drawing board.
One way to quickly identify device issues is centralized visibility. Imagine you can see what is causing a device to malfunction or stop responding. Troubleshooting the problem would be so much faster.
The right MDM solution provides IT teams with fleet-wide visibility into device health, configurations, apps and other information needed to diagnose issues. Instead of relying solely on employees to describe the problem, IT can unlock greater insight into what is happening across their fleet.
Learn more about the benefits of fleet-wide visibility in this blog.
Does Every Problem Require Hands-On Support?
What happens if IT needs to get their hands on the device to fix an issue? Without the right remote troubleshooting support, IT must travel onsite, or the device must be shipped to IT.
For a retailer with one or two locations, this process may be manageable. But for an organization with devices across distributed locations, regions or shifts, it’s not realistic.
Having remote troubleshooting capabilities allows IT teams to investigate and resolve device issues as if the device is in their hands. No need to visit the store or pull the device off the retail floor. Instead, device downtime and the time spent coordinating technical support decrease drastically.
Discover the possibilities of remote troubleshooting in this blog.
Are Recurring Problems Becoming "Normal"?
If the same app, configuration, connectivity or performance issues keep appearing, troubleshooting each incident individually isn’t solving the underlying problem.
The right MDM can help retailers standardize device configurations, enforce policies, automate updates and identify patterns across your fleet. They can also record troubleshooting sessions, so IT can track what device issues are happening repeatedly.
These capabilities help IT teams move beyond fixing the same issues and start addressing the conditions that contribute to them.
The question is simple: are you resolving individual issues or finding the root cause that creates them?
Looking Beyond the Next IT Ticket: How to Elevate Your Retail Operations
Device troubleshooting shouldn’t be viewed solely as an IT support task. For retailers, fleet management issues can impact employee productivity, store operations and customer experiences.
If device problems are taking too much time, it’s worth looking beyond the next support ticket. Better visibility, automation and centralized management can help organizations shift from reactive troubleshooting toward a more proactive approach.
It’s time to ask: is your MDM solution providing you with the capability to be more proactive?
