Customer Overview: Home improvement retailer serving approximately 17 million customer transactions a week across 1,700 stores throughout North America.

Industry: Retail

The Problem: In retail, customer experience hinges on network uptime and fast, efficient transaction processing. Even minor disruptions can lead to customer frustration and potential revenue loss. To reduce the risk of transaction issues, this home improvement retailer adopted cellular connectivity as a backup to their primary network circuits, deploying Cradlepoint devices at each store. However, the cellular solution introduced  challenges:

• Construction Impact on Cellular Performance: Each store’s large layout and construction materials, including concrete and metal, interfered with cellular signals, limiting effective communication between Cradlepoint devices and nearby cell towers.

• Location Impact on Cellular Performance: Store locations in high-traffic, urban areas brought intense cellular competition. This high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) from nearby devices and traffic often weakened backup connectivity.

• Internally Competing Signals: Wi-Fi and multiple radios for in-store communications generated internal interference, reducing the backup cellular connection’s effectiveness.

Our Solution: Partnering with the retailer, we applied a comprehensive network solution that leveraged our expertise in network design, deployment, and managed services to optimize their Cradlepoint-based cellular connectivity. Key elements of our solution included:

• Strategic Network Engineering to Address Performance and SiNR Issues: Our network engineers customized the design to address the unique requirements of each store environment. By analyzing store layouts and signal interference, they implemented strategies to minimize the impact of challenging signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SiNR) conditions, ensuring a reliable cellular backup network.

• Proactive Cellular Health Monitoring: Through our managed services, we enabled continuous reporting on cellular health and configured alerts for real-time notifications on degraded metrics. This proactive monitoring empowered the retailer’s IT team to address issues promptly and maintain operational continuity.

• Seamless Integration with the Service Desk: Integrating our platform with the retailer’s service desk allowed for automated, real-time alerts within their existing workflow, accelerating issue response times and streamlining support.

• Data Usage Reporting for Cost Management: We provided usage alerts and detailed reporting to enable proactive data management, preventing overages and controlling cellular plan costs across stores.

• Actionable Insights for Fast Remediation: Our solution equipped technicians with precise data to address and resolve connectivity challenges efficiently, making the cellular network a dependable resource when primary circuits were down.

 The Results: Within three weeks, our solution was deployed across all 1,700 stores, delivering impactful results:

• Reduced Mean Time to Repair (MTTR): Faster detection and resolution minimized downtime, enhancing the customer experience.

• Lower Average Site Downtime: Unified monitoring and rapid alerting helped avoid disruptions, keeping transactions seamless and customers satisfied.

• Elimination of Unnecessary Data Plan Costs: Our alerts allowed for better data usage management, reducing cellular expenses.

• Simplified Workflows and Unified Alerting: Integrating alerts into the retailer’s existing service desk streamlined support and established a single source of truth for cellular performance.

• Reliable Backup Network Performance: The integration of Cradlepoint devices and customized network design reinforced network resiliency, ensuring the cellular solution effectively supported operations during primary network outages.

We delivered a reliable, high-performing backup network by designing a solution tailored to the retailer's specific needs. Our expert network engineers addressed cellular performance issues through effective network design, while Cradlepoint devices ensured a stable, adaptable connectivity option. By combining proactive monitoring, seamless service desk integration, and data management, we empowered the retailer to deliver a robust customer experience at every store, strengthening their resilience and operational continuity.