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Portable power and specialist batteries retailer Battery World is looking to the cloud to improve customer service software and gain actionable insights about its B2C and B2B franchise operations. The Australian company has chosen NetSuite (News - Alert), a provider of cloud-based financials, ERP and omnichannel commerce software, to aid in its migration.

The cloud initiative has NetSuite replacing more than 80 on-premises COSTAR point-of-sale (POS) devices, manual spreadsheets and an in-house intranet with its NetSuite OneWorld cloud platform solution. The migration will enable Battery World to use a single portal to run its POS, CRM, marketing, financial consolidation, franchise inventory management and real-time analytics and reporting functions for its more than 80 stores. The company will also use the NetSuite SuiteCommerce solution to power ecommerce transactions from the cloud platform.

The migration will transform customer service for Battery World, since the company was previously unable to share data among stores because of disparate software systems. For instance, if a customer purchased a product from one store and returned it to another, manual communication between stores was required to meet customer service and warranty coverage and expectations. And gleaning any sort of actionable insights or intelligence from disparate software systems was a labor-intensive process, fraught with errors.

"The expectations of today's customers are significantly different to those of 10 years ago," said Rowan Hodge, general manager at Battery World. "A seamless, customer centric retail experience is now a prerequisite to create and maintain brand loyalty.”

In terms of customer service, NetSuite’s OneWorld platform provides a single view of retail customers at the POS, ensuring they have a personalized and successful shopping experience. Customer data is available at any store at any time, and the system also facilitates quick checkouts and integrated payment processing. Real-time analytics and business intelligence also let Battery World monitor and analyze store performance to make more informed business decisions and drive value.

CRM is a critical component of the new system, and customer insights will help Battery World better shape its marketing initiatives and offer specials like POS daily offers, loyalty cards and rolling billboards. The POS system also improves staff productivity since an intuitive touch-screen interface is extremely easy to use.