TRG’s solutions led to lasting support for their retail stores and distribution centers.
CUSTOMER SINCE: 2009
DESCRIPTION: Regional Grocery and Drugstore Chain
INITIAL INQUIRY: Hardware Repair
SERVICES:
PRODUCTS:
The Problem
We’re pleased to have been working with this Ohio-based grocery and drugstore for more than a decade. Our partnership originally began in 2009 when the company needed repair support for handheld devices, parts replacement and other services. We supported them with these initiatives for several years until, in 2016, the company began evaluating ways to improve their distribution center hardware program.
Historically, the company had worked with one of our competitors to support this technology, which included handhelds and thermal label printers. Unfortunately, because the competitor wasn’t local, our customer experienced a number of logistical problems and headaches.
The Solution
To ensure they had the support they needed, we discussed moving this work to our team. Because we’re headquartered in Northeast Ohio, the decision to make the switch was easy — as was the transition. This new part of our relationship began with procuring and deploying refurbished hardware, including mobile handhelds — one for the back of their retail stores and one for their warehouses — as well as printers.
We also began providing depot repair services and managed logistics for this equipment. For units that were out-of-warranty or covered under our in-warranty repair authorizations, we performed the repair ourselves. If the item was in-warranty or we were not authorized, we managed the logistics to and from the OEM. We also provided spares pool management – maintaining and managing a pool of ready-to-ship devices from our state-of-the-art facilities.
Eventually, we began exploring new opportunities to make their retail environment and overall hardware program more robust. One of these is helping to support upgrades in customer-facing equipment - specifically price-checker kiosks. Since 2017, we’ve been working with them to implement this technology throughout their stores - ultimately installing about 350 units. We are also assisting them with updating the operating system on each kiosk.
We’ve also worked with them to replace some of their older retail store and distribution center hardware. Most recently, we replaced nearly 100 handheld devices in their distribution center, as well as their payment terminals. Prior to working with our team on this segment of their hardware program, the company had been experiencing problems with response times from the manufacturer.
We were able to get the retailer the answers they needed for these devices right away and also assisted with managing the entirety of the program. We took care of procurement, key injection (an important service that gives each device a unique identifier for tracking and asset management), device staging/kitting/deployment, and all repair services. We assisted with the device selection process as well, helping our customer demo and test hardware throughout their facilities.
Last but not least, we’ve assisted with the company’s unified endpoint management (UEM) platform. Whereas most UEM solutions provide internal device tracking and management capabilities, we worked with the retailer to create a public-facing interface for checking product prices and gift card balances.
The Result
Throughout our decade of working together, our team has been able to successfully maintain service levels and quality regardless of the number of new devices or services added to the relationship. We provide ongoing support to their team members in a variety of departments, including IT, operations, distribution, and more with diverse solutions for whatever challenges or goals they bring to us.
We’re grateful to this regional grocery and drugstore company for their trust and partnership and look forward to working with them for years to come. If your organization has been looking to build out a more robust hardware program, contact us today to learn more about how we can help.
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About TRG
TRG is a global, privately owned managed services provider that manages the full lifecycle of every enterprise endpoint. Our mission is to lead the future of enterprise technology by driving bold endpoint solutions with a success-or-else approach.