By Sharla Sikes
VoIP devices are becoming more and more common among businesses, which increasingly includes the retail sector.
Cosmetics manufacturer Lush recently announced plans to utilize a VoIP system for communication between its stores, showing that VoIP is ever more attractive to businesses of all types.
Motorola has just released a new device aimed to make VoIP even more useful to retail businesses.
Motorola Enterprise Mobility’s new CA50 is a VoIP-enabled wireless barcode scanner. It joins the higher-priced MC50. The MC50 is designed for management use, while the CA50 will be used by store sales associates.
“It’s basically a lightweight, compact-sized voice-over-IP-enabled wireless scanner. It’s really designed for the everyday task worker … in a retail environment, but we’ve also looked at other verticals for the device as well,” said Tom Esposito, senior director of advanced data capture at Motorola Enterprise Mobility.
Motorola held discussions with retailers to determine ways the device could boost worker productivity and customer satisfaction. The mobile-phone-sized CA50 allows a sales associate greater access to product information by tying the item’s barcode into the store’s database. Sales associates can then view stock amounts and pricing as well as connect in-store associates, allowing them to research product information from others if a customer has a question.
“The device is quite small. It’s designed to be highly portable,” said Charles Laforge, senior product manager of advanced data capture at Motorola Enterprise Mobility. “That was one of the key requirements from the customers. They want something that will be always with them. It’s about providing a better level of customer service on the spot. It’s also about increasing operational efficiency,” Laforge said. Instead of a store adding more associates to improve customer service levels, the CA50 can be deployed to existing in-store associates, which puts more product information in their hands, which allows them to better serve customers.
The CA50 can tie in with the MC50 so managers can contact employees to give orders and assign tasks. Avaya worked with Motorola to develop the application allowing the CA50 to locate the right sales associate. The CA50 uses Avaya Communication Manager for an industry-specific communications application.
will it be free?