Telstra has today unveiled their innovative new Melbourne Discovery store just in time for Christmas.
The new Telstra Discovery store is located at the corner of Swanston and Bourke Streets – the same location as they launched their ‘Androidland’ focus store in 2012 – quite literally right in the heart of Melbourne CBD. Telstra says that the Discovery store redefines the traditional retail store, drawing on an internationally awarded retail design to create a highly interactive and innovative customer experience.
Andrew Coull, Telstra Country Wide Executive Director said the Melbourne Discovery store will showcase world class technology alongside a new level of personalised service for customers.
“We’re really excited to be launching Melbourne Discovery in a city that loves tech, bringing together our world-class technology and innovative service experience for Melbourne customers,” Mr Coull said.
“More than ever, it’s a store that makes a personal connection between people and technology.
“Our team of highly trained experts is dedicated to providing the best in personalised service for our customers. This is supported by the very latest innovations in digital technology that allow customers to seamlessly switch between physical and digital experiences as they explore, discover, try and buy.”
“Today, more than half of our service transactions are digital and so it’s important we provide our customers the choice of when, where and how they interact with us,” he said.
The new Melbourne Telstra Discovery store will have a team of 75 tech experts who have completed extensive training on customer needs and behaviors, and creating personalised experiences, along with the Melbourne team having a high level of gender and ethnic diversity, from which the team is able to serve customers in Mandarin, Cantonese, French, Spanish, Malay, Hokkien, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Napali, Newari and Vietnamese, which are among the most popular languages spoken in the Melbourne CBD.
Telstra has said that the store team will also curate the Top 10 tech space within the store, providing their personal reviews, tips and recommendations on tech products and services for customers.
Now getting down to the best bit of the news release is of course what will the store have for us tech geeks (yes I said it). The store will carry more than 1,500 devices which are live and able to be played and of course used with whilst in store. There will also be a showcasing of products and services which are available through Telstra of course as well.
The store also boasts some very innovative ideas such as Heat mapping cameras (which monitor the flow of customers in store) and a traffic counter at the entry of the store assist with managing service and fine tuning the layout of the store. There is also 36 HD screens around the store offering customers information on products and services. Telstra have also stated that the Melbourne Discovery store will also have Tap and Take capabilities which have been expanded into more areas of the Melbourne store, providing customers with the ability to tap and take information on more product categories.
For mobile accessories, there is also a “+61” – the accessories shop within a shop’ which will include everything from connected hand-bags that charge devices to GoPro cameras and drones.
Another unique feature of the store is how it reflects the Melbourne community, with an in-store barista providing free coffee to customers and a pop-up space available to local community organisations.
The pop up space will be managed by The Wise Foundation – a local charity that works to strengthen communities through the development of innovative social businesses. It will talk to customers about the role of social innovation in the community and showcase some of the initiatives they have in place with partners such as the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre and the Mulgrave Famers Market. You can find out more about what the WISE Foundation is all about by clicking this link here.
Of course, the Melbourne Discovery store intersects nicely with the Sydney based Discovery store, located along George Street in Sydney’s CBD (and right opposite the main Apple Store in Sydney), which was launched back in October 2014. Mr Coull said since opening of the Sydney Discovery store it has delivered significant increases in sales volumes, the number of customers visiting the store and how customers rated their experience.
“Just in the past week, our Sydney customers had more than 6,000 digital interactions with us in the store – in addition to thousands of face-to-face conversations with our expert team,” he said.
“In addition, we’ve also seen significant interest from the retail industry in the technology and innovations we’ve developed.
“We expect to see these results and more translate to our Melbourne Discovery store.”
The Sydney store has also earlier this year won the International Design Award from the Internal Retail Design Institute (New York) and the Service Design Award from the Sydney Design Awards.
Lastly, Telstra has said that some elements of the design, technology and service features of Telstra’s Discovery stores are being implemented in selected stores across Australia, where they suit the local market. To date, Telstra network stores in Macquarie Centre, Macarthur Square and Chatswood in Sydney, Edward St in Brisbane CBD, Casuarina in Darwin and Cranbourne in outer Melbourne have been redeveloped.
You can check out the new Telstra Melbourne Discovery store at the corner of Swanston and Bourke Streets in Melbourne’s CBD from today.
It was closed when I went there at 1:30pm today, with a sign to go to the other store at 206 Bourke St. The 206 Bourke St store was closed with a sign saying to go to 220 Collins St. They certainly run a tight ship at Telstra.