Tech Start-Up Theatro Launches Retail Employee Mobility SaaS Offering With The Market's First Enterprise Wearable

Nation wide deployment underway with The Container Store, new SaaS service provides unprecedented insight for store management with productivity analytics

Technology start-up Theatro recently announced the general availability of the Communicator Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, a mobile workforce productivity application suitethat leverages Theatro’s new enterprise wearable.

The store operations solution, delivered as a cloud based SaaS service over the in-store WiFi network to every retail associate provides brick and mortar retailers a voice activated enterprise wearable with critical management command & control and analytics to increase sales associate productivity, conversion rates and store profitability.

The service includes:

• Theatro Communicator – A 1 ½ oz.voice driven enterprise wearable designed for the retail sales floor associate.
• Communications Application – Voice driven application enable store associates to interact instantly with all store employees, store systems, store management and even associates in other stores. This simple communications app empowers store employees to communicate with each other either one-to-one or one-to-many.
• Indoor Location Application – Leveraging the retail store Wi-Fi network, the built-in tracking service provides store employees and management real-time information about where other associates are located at all times. Continuous real-time location data gives retailers a key tool for increasing responsiveness and productivity.
• Employee Analytics Application - Providing headquarters, regional and individual store management with unprecedented access to real-time and historical team performance metrics (communications, shopper engagements, social behaviors, where and how associates spend their time, how they move, etc.). Extensions of these tools include predictive data modeling for optimizing future store performance.
• Theatro Cloud – With no up-front capital outlay, Theatro’s cloud based SaaSoffering is available on a per-employee monthly subscription fee.

“We strongly believe in the idea that a retail associate should be heads-up and hands freewhile in the store. Good eye-to-eye contact coupled with readily available useful information is what we all want when engaging an associate while shopping,” said Chris Todd, Theatro CEO “Theatro’ssolution enables associates to be connected to the company’s information resources making them more productive and enabling them to provide great customer experience”.

Theatro is now in the early stages of a nation-wide deployment with The Container Store after several months of trials to incorporate feedback and enhancements into the offering.

“The Theatro wearable solution has been instrumental in our ability to enable our associates to deliver better customer service and communicate with one another”, noted John Thrailkill, VP of Stores Systems, The Container Store, “and ultimately it represents a powerful approach to more employee productivity by enabling instant and actionable capabilities”

Recognizing the limitations of today’s hand-held smartphones, tablets and computers for use in a retail environment, Theatro is an early pioneer in the use of lightweight enterprise wearables to bring software applications directly to the associate while allowing them to remain hands-free.  The Communicator wearable, coupled with the latest voice recognition software, enables the associate to keep their eyes off of a screen and on to their customer to provide better customer service.

“Ultimately, both IT professionals and business leaders should embrace enterprise wearable’s as an opportunity to increase worker productivity, create loyal customer relationships and drive business process reinventions for their companies”¹ reports J.P. Gownder, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research serving infrastructure and operations professionals.

About Theatro
Theatro is a two-year old Dallas start-up that has pioneered the market’s first voice-enabled enterprise wearable coupled with a software suite of productivity applications for the brick and mortar retailer.  Our “Heads-Up and Hands Free” mobile communications and management solutions, delivered as a cloud based SaaS service over the in-store WiFi to every retail associate, is the perfect solution for a retailer’s indoor on the move workforce.
For more information, visit www.theatro.com.

About Container Store
The Container Store is the leading specialty retailer of storage and organizational products in the United States. The Container Store's employee-first culture has landed the retailer on FORTUNE Magazine's annual list of "100 Best Companies To Work For" for the past 14 years.

¹Wearables will reshape the way enterprises work, Computer World, November 2013"