Staff Schedule to Demand
footfall analysis reports
Creating a staff schedule that meets customer demand can be challenging for any business. It requires careful planning and consideration to ensure that customers receive the level of service they expect, while also keeping costs low and maximising employee productivity. In order to optimise your staff schedule for customer demand, it is essential to understand the various factors that come into play, including customer footfall and your employee's skills. Here's what you can do to make sure your staff's schedule is tailored to meet the demands of your customers.
Develop Creative Solutions for Unexpected Events
Unexpected events such as an influx of customers, customer demand changes, and unexpected absences can cause disruption. Therefore, it’s important to develop creative solutions to handle these situations. This can include templates with different team setups, as well as showcasing possible solutions to managers and staff members. This allows you to maintain customer demand while ensuring that your employees don’t feel overworked or undervalued.
Take Advantage of Automation
In addition to having a comprehensive staff schedule, many businesses are turning to automated solutions. Automation provides a streamlined approach to scheduling and can help you create the most efficient and effective staff schedule. It can also enable you to monitor employee attendance and manage specific requests for shift details or customer preferences. Automated scheduling software with footfall metrics is a cost-effective and efficient way to effectively manage your staff schedule.
Analyse Extensive Data
Another critical step in optimising your staff schedule is understanding your customer demand better. Collecting and analysing data from customer interactions, such as sales, enquiries, customer footfall, and complaints, can help you to better understand what times your staff need to be available. Make sure to collect data from various sources, such as customer surveys and market research. This will ensure that you have a complete overview of customer demand, allowing you to better plan your staff schedule.
Encourage Flexibility From Employees
The key to making a staff schedule work is to ensure that it is flexible. This includes encouraging employees to be flexible with their hours of availability, as well as providing employees with the opportunity to switch shifts with each other or take additional shifts as needed. This helps to maintain customer demand while providing employees with the flexibility they need.
Be Prepared for Emergencies
No matter how well your staff schedule is crafted, there may still be times when you need to call in staff for emergencies. These can include unexpected customer demand spikes, technical issues, or unanticipated absences. It’s important to be prepared for these emergencies, and it’s helpful to create a list of contact numbers for employees who can be called to come in for an emergency shift.
Manage Time Off Requests
Managing time off requests can be difficult, but it's necessary to maintain customer demand. Make sure to plan in advance for any planned absences and keep track of employee’s requested days off. This will help you plan accordingly for customer demand and ensure that you remain staffed during peak times.
Monitor Your Employees
Finally, be sure to monitor your employees’ working times and satisfaction. This will help you to ensure that everyone is working effectively and that customer demands are being met. Additionally, regularly monitor the customer reviews so that you are aware of the customer opinions and can make adjustments to your staff schedule and customer service as needed.
Conclusions
Optimising your staff schedule is an essential part of effectively managing customer demand. By planning and being prepared, you can ensure that your customers are getting the level of service they expect while ensuring that your staff is adequately supported. Be sure to take the time to accurately craft your staff schedule, take advantage of automation, and take the necessary steps to manage time off requests and emergency situations.
If you want to optimise your staff scheduling, you'll need the right tools at your disposal. StoreTech has just the solution you need. With our people counting solutions and in-store footfall analytics, you can accurately monitor customer demand in real time and make adjustments to your staff schedule accordingly. Contact us to learn more about our footfall analysis reports and how they can help you optimise your staff scheduling.
