Multi-location retailers are always looking for ways to increase revenues and reduce costs, and lately they’ve been retasking their video surveillance systems to help.

Video surveillance has always been about cost reduction in the way of reduced shrink and liability, but retailers are using video management in new ways to significantly reduce operational costs and even increase revenue.

We are not talking about some down-the-road ROI. We are talking about a variety of methods such as remote employee management which frees up cash previously going to payroll and a significant reduction in travel expenses for regional managers.

At 3xLogic our vision has always been about developing business management tools based on the fundamental "security" video platform, so we always get excited when we hear how these tools are being used. As a result we’ve been talking to customers to find out more and the results are interesting so I will share a few with you.

Centralized Management

Operators are defining a new position titled "Centralized Manager" whose job is to directly interact with 2-20 remote stores via a centralized work control station connected via the internet to all of the stores. The centralized manager is able to be virtually inside multiple stores and interact with the employees and processes through the use of video, two-way audio and a variety of other dashboard tools and instant reports. This enables a variety of benefits including:

• Reduced in-store labor costs
• Reduction in required regional management
• Significantly lower travel costs
• Increased customer experience
• Reduction in inefficient labor
• Reduction in waste and losses
• Better management of systems and processes

Exception Reporting

Many people think of exception reporting as identifying specific risky point-of-sale transactions, but the managers we’ve been talking to are using their systems to identify other types of exceptions that they say are having a direct impact on revenues and keeping processes running correctly. Using this new type of exception reporting, managers are delivering real-time notifications to other departments, not just the loss prevention guys.

From maintenance to operations and even marketing folks, this data is providing a measurable value to the organization because it allows them to take real-time corrective actions before it impacts the business.

Operators are even saying that leveraging the video system for these purposes is not only less-expensive to deploy and operate than discrete systems; it is less complicated than ad-hoc solutions as well.

One case in point is the monitoring of refrigeration and freezer systems. Video surveillance systems designed to accommodate this feature allow maintenance personnel to be immediately notified at the first hint of a problem. This not only prevents costly losses and interruptions to the business, but it is extremely cost effective when it eliminates the need for additional monitoring equipment and notification systems.

Here’s a short list of what we heard from operators, but in reality is only limited by an organizations specific needs and imagination.

• Store opening and closing
• Status of refrigeration system
• Number of people waiting in line or at the drive-thru
• Receipts falling below a specified threshold
• Low inventory or stock
• Emergency alerts or duress alarms

Labor Management

While labor management might fall under Centralized Management it is really its own category because today’s systems provide such a robust array of tools to assist businesses in managing their workforce.

The obvious of course is the ability to see what is going on in the store and to interact with the employees as needed, but it really goes much further than that. Two specific examples are Call Logging and Interactive Training.

Call Logging - Select systems today allow you to not only record audio at the site which captures the interaction between the employees and customers, but also allow you to capture telephone or head-set (think drive-thru) communications as well. While subject to location specific laws, with proper notification, audio can be an important tool to help you properly mitigate customer complaints and initiate corrective training for your employees.

In addition, some systems allow you to capture the inbound and outbound Caller ID as well as call duration. Using this feature, you are able to instantly find a particular customers call and you can even generate reports identifying telephone priviledge abuse by employees.

Interactive Training - Most everyone knows that on-the-job training is critical, yet the time a manager spends with a new employee is usually too short to address the various issues that may come their way. We’ve heard from operators that are using their video surveillance solutions to not only retroactively review situations that arose earlier, but they are also allowing employees to signal for remote assistance in real-time. This allows a skilled person to provide immediate assistance (or training) as a specific incident is occurring.

In Closing

Video surveillance as a digital networked solution is an industry in its infancy. New solutions and new ways to use these solutions are popping up everyday which help businesses run more effectively and efficiently.

If you are using video surveillance, you should really be asking yourself if you’re getting everything you should from your investment. One of the best ways of figuring out how to apply this new technology is to look at how your peers are using it.

To help, 3xLogic is producing a series of webinars which showcase some of the alternate ways retailers are using their existing video solutions to help in other areas of their business.

If you have your own examples of how you are leveraging your video surveillance system, we’d love to hear from you.