“We believe that this will increase the customer experience for customers visiting Stadium. As a customer, you feel noticed and safe waiting for your turn. Simply put, you experience less stress, and time goes by faster.”
Swedish Retailer Stadium Enhances the Customer and Staff Experience with Innovative Solutions
Sweden’s largest sports retailer Stadium is driven by its vision to activate the world. And with around 190 stores, 3500 employees and three online stores across Sweden, Finland and Norway, the sporting goods giant is well on its way. Stadium offers everything you need for an active lifestyle offering customers modern, functional sports and sportswear at the best price. Besides its Stadium stores, they also have special concept stores such as Stadium Ski and Stadium Outlet.
High customer flows and large retail spaces
Defined by its core values, energy, team spirit, passion, innovation, and simplicity, Stadium always strives to stay innovative with retail concepts that create the perfect in-store experience for customers and staff. Dealing with high customer flows and large retail spaces at three particular stores. Stadium was looking for a solution that made customers feel more confident and enhanced the way they provide in-store services with reduced wait times and an improved work environment for their staff.
Enhancing the in-store experience with innovative solutions
To streamline the customer journey and enhance the in-store experience, Björn Nilsson, Head of Customer Experience at Stadium, wanted to implement an innovative solution that could seamlessly manage both physical and digital queues while gathering valuable data insights to improve their services at three locations. Björn was already familiar with Qmatic and approached Qmatic's partner, Renovotec, to discuss the optimal solution for their requirements and decided on Qmatic's cloud-based platform.
All-in-one solution for greater customer and staff experiences
The cloud-based platform provides Stadium with access to a broad set of features, from queue management and virtual queuing solutions to digital signage and reports. This enables Stadium to easily set up a solution that makes it easy for customers to get in line quickly for assistance or to pick up packages using a self-service kiosk or smartphone. The solution also offers reports that allow store managers to access data on average wait times, the number of visitors, and other branch performance metrics that enable them to get a better overview of the customer flows and help determine the optimal staffing levels according to their business needs.
One of the stores that were chosen to implement Qmatic is also one of Stadium’s largest stores in Sweden, Stadium Sisjön. A 4,000 square meter flagship store divided into two floors with a wide selection of sports equipment and products where the customers can try new products and get advice from Stadium’s specialists.
“The major challenge that we’ve had in the past is that we have a large space to cover in our shoe department. Before we had the queuing system from Qmatic, it wasn’t clear to the customer how you would get assistance from us. When we had many customers visiting the shoe department, many times it would be the customer that shouted loudest or that quickly grabbed the staff’s attention that got help first, and the ones that were quieter and calmer didn’t get that much help,” said Pia Hansen, Store Manager at Stadium Sisjön.
Seamless shopping experience with Self-service Kiosks and Virtual Queuing
With the rollout of the new solution, customers are now able to get in line for package pickup or to get assistance from the retail staff using the self-service kiosk. Customers can also choose to get in line virtually by scanning a QR code using the camera app on their smartphones and receiving a digital ticket, which allows them to roam around freely inside the store until notified via SMS. “We believe that this will increase the customer experience for customers visiting Stadium. As a customer, you feel noticed and safe waiting for your turn. Simply put, you experience less stress, and time goes by faster,” said Björn.
Improved work environment and effective staff planning
The Qmatic solution has not only ensured a better customer experience for people visiting the store, but it has also provided many positive aspects for the staff and their work environment. “The advantage for me as a store manager in having a new system at the shoe department is that I experience our staff as more relaxed. You don’t get as stressed, and it benefits their work environment,” said Pia, “We also find it much easier to work with the positioning. We have a display on the other side of the store, where we can see how many are waiting in line. This gives us the opportunity to distribute our resources so that someone who's in that position can go over and help in the shoe department."
The use of data and reports has also made the staff planning much more effective for Pia. “With the data I receive from Qmatic every day, I can see how long wait times the customers have had and how many customers have visited us distributed across the day. Which helps me plan and staff in an optimal way in our store and in our shoe department.”
A successful partnership between Qmatic and Stadium
The Qmatic solution is now used at three Stadium stores, Stadium Sisjön, Stadium Erikslund, and Stadium Ski in Åre, where the partnership between Qmatic and Stadium has been a success. “My experience during these one-and-a-half years that we have been collaborating has been very positive. We’ve gotten great support and solutions to the problems that we have had. We’ve also been able to bounce some ideas on the development of the digital solutions, which has been incredibly positive for us,” said Pia.
”The partnership has been very smooth. Professional help, easy system to implement, and above all, it enhances the customer experience in our stores," concluded Björn.
Optimize your customer flow today.
Overview
Stadium is Sweden’s largest sporting goods retailer with over 190 stores and three online stores across Sweden, Finland and Norway. Stadium has a wide selection of products for an active lifestyle offering customers modern, functional sports and sportswear at the best price. Besides its Stadium stores, Stadium also has special concept stores such as Stadium Ski and Stadium Outlet.
Challenges
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Heavy footfall of customers
- Large retail space
- Difficult for customers to get attention from staff during peak hours
Solutions
Results
- Different queues for package pickup and staff assistance
- Seamless shopping experience with both self-service kiosks and virtual queuing capabilities
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Improved in-store environment
- Enhanced work environment with reduced stress levels for staff
- Better staff planning with data and reports
- Enhanced customer flow and customer experience
