British Red Cross has been shortlisted for the Retail Week Technology Award 2010 ‘Employee Communication or Training Solution of the Year’
The British Red Cross, one of the UK’s most successful charity shop retailers, has today been shortlisted for a Retail Week Technology Award 2010 in the ‘Employee Communication or Training Solution of the Year’ category.
The Red Cross has demonstrated that its new communication solution, delivered as part of a managed EPoS system from Cybertill, has radically improved the flow of information between its 323 charity shops and between the shops and Head Office. The Retail Week judges were impressed by the benefits that have accrued at a commercial level as well as in terms of staff and volunteer education, motivation and well-being.
On today’s high streets nationwide, charity shops actively compete with mainstream independent and multiple retailers for a share of the consumer’s wallet. This is not without its challenges, especially as charity retailers invariably operate on much tighter budgets than their peers.
The British Red Cross was aware that communication with their 600 retail employees and 6,000 shop volunteers was often slow and fragmented. This resulted in a lack of awareness, but also in limited dialogue and feedback from staff and volunteers on important issues, such as emergency appeals. The Red Cross realised that clear communication was critical in helping their charity shops grow, and to better support staff and volunteers.
The British Red Cross had a number of aims: to improve the speed of communication to all stores, to mobilise outlets more quickly in response to emergency appeals, to standardise store communication, to allow an instant line of dialogue between head office and stores, and to collect business data from each store to help management at head office distribute stock with greater efficiency. The chosen solution had to be easy to use and to train others on, as many shop volunteers work erratic hours and have varying levels of experience with computers.
To achieve these aims, the Red Cross turned not to conventional communication tools, but instead chose an EPoS system with a difference. Cybertill, the chosen supplier of the British Red Cross, offer a ‘managed service’ whereby the software is not installed locally on the hardware at point-of-sale. Instead, it is accessed via a broadband connection.
This allows Cybertill to be used as a communication tool as well as a gateway to the British Red Cross intranet. Whereas, previously, stores would operate in isolation, unable to access the charity’s website, communicate between shops or access information stored on the intranet, each staff member now has an email id and can receive and share information, ideas, alerts, messages and documents.
Cybertill’s ‘managed service’ delivery provides another key business benefit. Stores are no longer required to send in sales information each day as Head Office can access all sales data, live in real-time, from any location. Shop staff and volunteers can also see the results of their efforts in terms of up-to-date sales figures.
The British Red Cross can now share information relating to day-to-day matters, working practices, retail operations and appeals with all shop staff and volunteers. For example, when the Red Cross responded to the recent disaster in Haiti, information on the emergency appeal was communicated to all Red Cross shops within hours of launch. Previously this would have taken at least three weeks and, in that time, media coverage of the disaster would have subsided, along with awareness. Instant communication via Cybertill helped the Red Cross maximise fundraising for the Haiti earthquake appeal and £180,000 was raised on the first day.
