Rising to new retail challenges with robotic cleaning machines

In retail, consumer expectations are higher than ever, and steadily growing pressures on your teams have morphed into severe and widespread staff shortages and sharply rising labour costs. Daniel Cross, UK marketing manager for Tennant Company, highlights the benefits of introducing robotics into your cleaning activities as the company launch their brand new autonomous scrubber dryer – the X4 ROVR.

Despite these turbulent circumstances, the path forward for retail leaders is clear, retailers need to consistently deliver stand-out customer experiences. They need to do that while controlling costs, including labour and need to harness big data to find their biggest opportunities to drive more intelligent operations across their business.

With the launch of Tennant’s new X4 ROVR robotic scrubber dryer, Tennant has introduced the fourth robotic cleaning machine to its fleet. A cleaning robotic with greater manoeuvrability, specifically designed for operation in smaller spaces such as retail stores and aisles where X4 ROVR’s compact size, improved obstacle detection, and enhanced mobility result in fewer assists and deliver a step-change improvement in ROI.

Creating a positive shopper experience

Cleanliness has and always will be a top concern among customers. Robotic floor cleaners allow retailers to move floor cleaning from the night shift to the day shift, bringing customers peace of mind by showing them visible proof of continuous cleaning. This not only enhances the individual customer experience, it helps you create a strong positive brand image.

Supporting not replacing your staff

This new breed of robots possesses sophisticated on-board artificial intelligence (AI) systems that enable AMRs to not only follow complex processes and make intelligent decisions about how to proceed on a task, but also to safely navigate dynamic indoor spaces, including the retail floor during business hours.

In most cases, robotic floor scrubbers are the same, or very similar, to the core cleaning machines already used by many retail cleaning teams — fitted with an array of sensors and an on-board AI “brain” interface. This significantly simplifies adoption, as cleaning teams are typically already very familiar with the cleaning machines.

Robotic cleaning machines directly address the supply-demand imbalance presented by rising cleaning demands and limited labour resources. But robots aren’t replacing cleaning staff. They’re working alongside human employees to make cleaning teams more efficient, freeing human employees to focus on more complex, strategic cleaning initiatives — and can help to improve employee job satisfaction.

Harnessing the power of robotics data- turning data to insights to actions

The technologies available with Tennant robotic cleaning machines provide new streams of real-time data that hold powerful insights on in-store operations:

Data

Robotic floor cleaning machines provide performance data that shows which areas were cleaned and how frequently.

Insights

Store leaders receive real-time reports that provide proof of cleanliness and gain confidence that a clean store can help create a better customer experience.

Action

Labour can be re-deployed to other tasks to support CX, including cleaning bathrooms, stocking shelves, collecting carts, and other value-added tasks.

Key performance indicators

Measure and Track KPI’s across your fleet of robotic floor cleaning machines and gain visibility to cleaning results with BrianOS® Ops Management Tools, including the BrainOS® Mobile app, BrainOS® Portal and BrainOS® Email Reports.

Robotics is changing retail for good, are you ready?

The question is: do you want to be ahead of the curve, or chasing from behind? To stay ahead, retailers should begin identifying opportunities where robotic floor scrubbers can help their operations. Launching a pilot programme with Tennant can put your business in a better position to easily and rapidly scale up and expand in the future.

Embrace robotics in your retail cleaning operations and learn more at X4 ROVR Autonomous Floor Scrubber | Tennant Company or email TennantUKsales@Tennantco.com