Importance Application Support In Retail Domain

What is Application Support? 

Application support in a word can be defined as a SERVICE, which involves providing abetment to the users of IT services. Regular maintenance and IT support are required for every runtime service delivered to the users (customers). Subject matter experts (SME) analyze the raised query of a particular domain in an efficient manner. To analyze a query the application support team diagnose the issue to find its root cause. They either resolve it or pass it to relevant team. Application support team consults, analyses and manages the developed software to fit customer needs. 

Below attributes are essential for a good application support team - 

• Staying up to date with software and technology trends 
• Capability of dealing with users having business as well as IT level of understanding
• Being empathetic to the business users
• Active listening and communication skills 

How application support relates to retail domain?

Now-a-days retail is literally in technology’s pocket - 

Today’s customers want ease, quickness and accuracy in each of their routine tasks, one of the important task among these is shopping. Now-a-days for shopping, customers are not limited only to visit malls or brick-and-mortar stores, as online shopping has become a popular trend. It is easy, quick and provides detailed experience about the product features, costing and many more just by peeping into a device. There is a great competition between digitalized retail stores and their service quality matters a lot for them to stand in the market. Application support plays significant role in maintaining this quality. Retail business applications are directly accessed by the business users. Hence, it is critical to provide support to these applications. In case any road-block and issues, are encountered by the customers will directly result in loss of customer along with impacting the brand image in a negative way. As a result, Retailer now-a-days are turning to invest more in technology solution to achieve customer loyalty. Most of the business organizations are spending more than half of their annual budget on maintenance and support of their IT Applications and Websites rather than acquiring analog business.

Benefits of Application support in retail domain

· Business evolution:

Retailers should try to understand that digital transformation in retail industry is a process of business evolution and to maintain that, application support is required. 

· Improved reliability:

Application support reduces the probability of failure and provide assurance of better performance of the application, which reduces the frequency of issues resulting in retaining the customer thus avoiding business losses.

· Personalized monitoring:

If there is a dedicated team of application support, it’s possible to gather information of bugs, a possible crash or quality concerns while the application is running. Support team resolves issues in time and can identify loopholes before users experience them.

· Improved User Experience:

With correct application support & maintenance, we can provide consistent growth in quality and on-time service to our customers. Happier customers lead to better reviews, more referrals, and ultimately generate a higher ROI.

Conclusion:

Application support is a process which ensures optimum efficiency and minimum downtime for the application to which support is provided. Retailer who aim at keeping competitive positions in the market, application support is an inevitable factor. Retail business is something which functions 24*7 and may require support at any point in time. Therefore dedicated support team is required, to sustain and have an edge in this competitive market.

About Author:

Avneet Chawla is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, he actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. He can be contacted at:  avneet.chawla@spluspl.com