MIAMI, Fla. (Blue MauMau) - According to a new research report, retailers this year are concentrating on improving customer services while keeping down payroll costs. 56% of respondents ranked improving customer service as their top priority during this soft economic time. Sponsored by such big name technology companies as Teradata, SAP and others, a survey of 126 retail executives concludes that retailers are turning in particular to technology tools to improve customer store experience.

At the bottom of the list of challenges that retailers were concerned about was the economy.

Jay Alexander, Operations Liaison for KFC's master franchise, Harman Management Corporation, says that there has been particular focus this year to stand out in customer satisfaction. Mr. Alexander states that this year, "Harman's focus was on elevating basic customer services. We have defined the levels of service so that we can focus on each level as we train and measure progress."

Paula Rosenblum, Managing Partner at RSR Research, thinks franchise owner-operators should be particularly mindful of using technology to improve the customer experience while keeping down creeping payroll costs. "Small franchise owner-operators tend to let their business be a sweat shop for themselves. Using technologies can help them reclaim life and be more customer-centric so that customers aren't so penny pinching."

Through technologies, business owners can improve employee performance and they can better enable customers. Of those two options, 90% of retail executives who took the survey said that they would use technological tools to improve employee performance abilities. That is up considerably from 67% in a similar study conducted just last year.

With over 340 franchised and company-owned restaurants, Harman's is such a company. Besides very advanced KFC operating technologies, Harman's uses their own evaluation tool to benchmark where the restaurants and employees can improve. Mr. Alexander states, "We are using technology to help us evaluate [store and employee] performance. We have a video shopper that anonymously visits the store and records the experience."

Indeed, new technologies are allowing owners to stay connected to operations, to monitor key performance indicators and to receive task alerts while being almost anywhere. It can speed up the customer's order time as well as enabling the customer to have more participation in their choices. And that's just for starters.

Rosenblum suggests that retail outlets should make sure they invest in at least the basics: a modern POS; wireless technology to allow store owners and managers to roam and to adopt flexible financing of their new technology so that money can be used more for working capital.

"Retailers have to find ways to improve the in-store experience if they want to stay competitive," says Rosenblum. "The challenge is to do that in ways that don't increase costs."