Anttila Kodin Ykkönen has made their customer service stronger by implementing the Digia PiccoLink Suite – hand terminal solution. Digia’s hand terminal solution has enabled the introduction of new services, and it has brought flexibility and fastness - even for routines that used to take a long time.

Solution benefits

• Improved customer service
• Faster operations models
• One hand terminal allows simultaneous connection to several databases
• Reliability and fastness by the use of barcodes
• Explicit user interfaces
• Connectivity to other systems
  
  

An effective assistant to interior designer

Before the wireless hand terminals were in use, the interior designers of Kodin Ykkönen moved around and logged the appropriate products for their client into paper lists by hand. After this the information was saved into the database workstation and according to the data an offer was made. The interior designers save the chosen products for offers with the new system directly into the back office system – by utilizing the barcodes. The interior designers are able to see through the hand terminal the most updated information no matter where in the store they are located; they also receive online information about prices, campaigns and the availability of products.

Anttila Kodin Ykkönen has made their customer service stronger by implementing the Digia PiccoLink Suite – hand terminal solution. Digia’s hand terminal solution has enabled the introduction of new services, and it has brought flexibility and fastness - even for routines that used to take a long time.

Innovative customer service

Kodin Ykkönen (part of the larger Anttila-chain) is the largest and most all-round department store specialising in home and decoration. The chain operates in seven different cities in Finland.

In order to make the functions faster and to serve its customers even better than previously, the company has taken into use Digia’s wireless PiccoLink hand terminal solution. The solution enables the use of simultaneous multiple services and can be used by many users at the same time. Respectively, it is possible to request for information from the back office systems directly into the hand terminals. The solution strengthens the effectiveness of mobile workers and adds new services to customers.

The solution supplied by Digia is implemented at the moment as a helping tool in planning decoration and gift lists. The system is used with the user friendly Digia PiccoLink RF500 and RF600 hand terminals. From a hand terminal it is possible to be in connection with several systems and applications simultaneously. The personnel and customers have approximately 30 hand terminals at their use. In future it is possible to expand the system to be part of other services too.

Many people who are planning a wedding or other special days have found the customer gift list system an excellent way to express their gift wishes. There is an electronic customer gift list system used at Kodin Ykkönen. The customers are moving around the store with Digia PiccoLink hand terminal and collect the products into the customer wish list by reading the barcode of the product in question. This way the customer wish list is saved automatically into the back office system. In the end the customer service prints out the actual customer gift list that was generated through the hand terminal. The guests choose the suitable gifts from the list.

Practical solution by combining old and new

The reason to implement the new system at Kodin Ykkönen was mainly the increased service needs. The previous system did not fulfill all the requirements. The new system supplied by Digia enables the continuity of the previous applications. In addition, the existing Digia PiccoLink solution was utilised, which could be seen as cost efficiency – new additional terminals and base stations were not needed.

In addition to Digia PiccoLink Suite the new system contains the Digia’s iSuite Client software. With the help of this software user interfaces, database updates and external as well as internal integration have been made to other systems. The base stations are connected to the database with Digia PiccoLink Suite. This enables faster and more faultless flow of information. The actual routing to different back office systems was made with business logic based on Digia PiccoLink Suite XML.

The solution implemented at Kodin Ykkönen is part of a larger Digia iSuite Hub integration solution that has been supplied to Anttila. The earlier data transfer solution was replaced by this new solution. Digia iSuite Hub integration solution takes care of data collection between 33 department stores and Anttila’s chain management. The solution also takes care of connections to Kesko’s systems e.g. when it concerns the bonus point system.

“With the help of the new system we have reached even more faultless and more effective operations. Digia’s PiccoLink Suite –radio hand terminal integration program has brought speed into using the existing operative programs; simultaneously the malfunctions have decreased and the user friendliness has increased – it is now possible to switch from an application to another just by one button click.“ IT-manager Mikko Paalasmaa, Anttila Oy.

Applied technology

• Digia iSuite integration solution
• Digia PiccoLink Suite open integration tool for mobile hand terminals
• Nordic ID’s hand terminals