Q&A: Rachel Tonner, Head of Marketing, Cybertill
Head of Marketing at Customer Engagement Conference 2019 sponsor Cybertill, Rachel is a retail specialist with a passion for technology, consumer behaviour and customer experience.
What does your company do? / What is your USP?
Cybertill was founded by current CEO Ian Tomlinson and is a multi-channel EPoS and retail management software company. We started out in 2001 and Cybertill was actually one of the first cloud-based EPoS systems, the first to connect retail stores together and online ecommerce websites, all in real-time.
Every business is different, so our retail platforms provide a solid foundation for our customers upon which to build. The core of the Cybertill offering is a ‘one platform’ approach to different elements of retail, and the key USP is that all data is available to people, systems and reports in real-time. That’s up-to-the-second. That immediacy of information is essential to designing a profitable operation and a good omnichannel customer experience.
What’s special about the platform and your approach?
Cybertill’s software platforms RetailStore and CharityStore makes multi-channel retail achievable to retailers of all sizes, from independents, to SME and Enterprise, along with charity retailers and visitor attractions. We’ve helped thousands of retailers globally increase profits, automate processes, and importantly, give their customers great shopping experiences across all shopping channels.
How does a product/service implementation actually look like and how do you measure success?
We aim to be development partners to our customers, augmenting their internal teams to build software that works for them. We operate a cooperative software – if enough customers want it, we build it. We also do extensive user research and repurpose software for other verticals.
We have a structured approach to rolling out software to businesses. Once you become a customer, you are introduced to our Project team who will manage the installation and configuration of software and hardware, work with our Product Managers to manage integration work required. Cybertill understands that implementing any new system across your retail operation can be a strenuous task, which is why we aim to make it as stress free as possible. We have a dedicated Project Management team that look after any infrastructure upgrades, arrange training, integrate software, test and much more, they’re there to ensure everything goes as it should.
We want to make sure we can get our customers up and running as soon as possible and for us success is managed by customer satisfaction at the end of the day. That’s why we encourage open feedback through regular customer surveys, user groups and Trustpilot, as well as track day to day interactions with our in-house Service Desk.
How are retailers using your systems to gain competitive advantage and what does best practice look like?
In our latest YouGov research, we found that above all the shiny tech, consumers just want to know whether an item is in stock in a particular store, and they want to be able to do that themselves, or have the option to use self-service tech. It’s surprising how few retailers are actually offering that service, but I imagine it has something to do with trust in their inventory data. Our customers trust our data so much that one of them, Active Angling in Stirling, even have a page dedicated to how it works, and they have a 5* rating on Trustpilot. That’s saying something!
What advantage does it add?
Retailers using our software can manage the entire customer journey from within one platform. That includes EPoS, CRM, loyalty schemes, merchandise replenishment, supplier management, drop shipping and much more. Enterprise retailers with existing or legacy systems and integrate into the parts of the system they need.
What challenges and opportunities do you see in UK retail for 2019?
It’s a difficult time for the high street, consumer spending is down and many retailers that had once been wildly successful are closing down shops and going into administration. I believe this year will be the year for the mid-size retailer and Independents, even the year of the charity shop. We will help deliver that ‘omnichannel for all’ ethos to our customers, helping them stay competitive and delight their customers with great shopping experiences.
See our CEO, Ian Tomlinson, and David Longmore of Barnardo’s are talking at the Customer Experience Conference 2019 and learn how Barnardo’s generated 25% higher profits and are using Cybertill to futureproof their retail technology. Read the Barnardo’s case study >
What is on the horizon for you as a company?
We have recently updated our company strategy and are meeting with retailers to continuously update that inline with their priorities and challenges. We have a great group of people and software that brings joy to a lot of shop owners and retail executives alike. We’re really excited about what’s on the horizon, but we can’t tell you just yet.
Any final thoughts?
Yes! My team at Cybertill curates a monthly newsletter (see example) featuring insights that we think retailers, charity retailers, and visitor attractions will find valuable. Subscribe here.
