Dive Brief:
- Wakefern Food Corp. and retail in-store communications company VoCoVo partnered to introduce new headsets for ShopRite’s staffers across 30 locations, according to a Tuesday announcement.
- VoCoVo’s Series 5 Pro Headsets are wireless and offer voice communication technology that enables employees to more easily communicate with each other and receive real-time updates.
- Wakefern first introduced VoCoVo technology to a handful of stores late last year and has continued to accelerate deployment, Chris McCrae, Wakefern’s retail innovation lead, said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
Wakerfern tapped VoCoVo to equip its stores with automated cross-store communication, which it did not previously have, said Joe Szala, VoCoVo’s senior vice president of sales. These capabilities allow workers to better stay in touch with each other as well as keep up with operational ongoings and assist customers.
The VoCoVo headsets Wakefern introduced enable person-to-person communication, which allows workers to talk “one-to-one, one-to-many [and] one-to-a-group,” Szala said. The devices also allow anyone with the headset to access speed dial as well as answer, transfer or put calls on hold rather than needing one person to operate all the store’s phone lines.
The headsets offer secure communication. They are also waterproof, dustproof, impact-resistant, can withstand extreme temperatures and have a 40-hour standby time per charge, according to the press release.
Setup of the headsets for the select ShopRite stores required six weeks of “pre-work,” Szala said, then installation, which takes a few hours in-store.
Post-installation, Wakefern and VoCoVo touch base weekly to ensure all systems are still working accordingly, Szala said.
There are two additional functions available on the headsets that Wakefern has not included in its 30-store rollout of the technology. One is built around “smart APIs,” which connect cameras to the headsets to offer automated alerts on operations like delivery arrivals, shelf out-of-stock or security issues. The second taps into AI functions and essentially acts like Siri, Szala said, adding that employees can ask it questions and receive automated, up-to-date answers.
Szala did not provide details on when or if Wakefern would introduce these two additional functionalities to their stores.
