Key Ways Businesses Can Use RFID Technology

Technology helps us run our businesses in all sorts of ways every day, from the products and services we create to how we sell and market them, handle administration and finance, pay our staff, ship goods, and much more. One particular tool you may not be investing in just yet, but that’s well worth considering, is RFID.

Radiofrequency identification technology involves the use of tags and readers to communicate information. Data gets transmitted via a radio waves-based wireless system, and devices don’t even need a line of sight to “talk” to each other, nor physical contact. The RFID tags you purchase will eventually contain details about goods that get signaled to the reader. This data can be a single serial number or pages of text.

It might sound complicated, but this tech is easy to use and affordable for even small businesses these days. Read on for some of the key ways you could use the digital gadgets in your venture.

Customer Service

Customer service is one of the most essential elements of doing business effectively. Even though you may not immediately realize it, RFID tech can help you deliver in this area. If you’re a retailer, manufacturer, wholesaler, etc., it’s essential to provide clients with timely updates about the location and status of goods and when they’re set to arrive at their door. These days, consumers have high expectations about the amount of information they receive and the timeframe they receive it in, and they also want to get goods ASAP.

When you utilize asset tags, you can enable customers to get updates more freely and quickly. They can log into accounts online or receive automated text messages or emails to see data about expected delivery dates as soon as package status changes, rather than getting in touch with and waiting for a response from company customer service teams. (This situation means your staff don’t have to spend as much time fielding questions, which is incredibly handy.)

There are other ways to use RFID to boost customer service, too. For instance, you can eliminate scanning and swiping needs in long lines and make people happy by processing them quickly. Plus, RFID technology can be used in fitting rooms and in other areas of retail stores to provide shoppers with more data about the products they’re considering or what other sizes, styles, colors, etc., are available.

Inventory Management

If your venture has lots of inventory to manage, you’ll know how time-consuming and stressful that job can be, plus costly in terms of labor. However, if you start using RFID to help you with this function, you’ll soon start to save time and money. You can see exactly what’s in stock and its location at any time via readers or integrated systems that track the whereabouts of RFID tags in real-time.

You don’t have to make employees go searching through a heap of stock or materials to locate items, and you don’t have to wait until stocktake time to get a thorough understanding of which products have sold well and those that haven’t and are taking up shelving space on.

Run reports to get accurate data that helps you see when you’re getting low on popular goods and need to reorder, too. You can utilize a lean inventory management system as a result and free up cash flow, which is always a good thing. Plus, RFID makes it simpler to conduct audits and keep track of inventory with use-by dates.

Tracking Goods

A third way you could use RFID is to track goods during logistics processes. Keep an eye much more easily on the movement of products throughout your supply chain without manually counting and acknowledging each item. RFID leads to fewer parcels going to the wrong destinations and having to be re-sent, which is incredibly handy.

You might appreciate, too, that as packages get transferred from place to place, workers don’t have to open parcels and count every piece to tick them off packing slips or order forms. Instead, hundreds of goods can be identified and monitored at once. This cuts back on the potential for human error and reduces manual handling bottlenecks.

These are just a few ways asset tags can make a difference to your venture. Business owners and managers can also use RFID technology to make better and quicker decisions, share data, and boost productivity, among other things. You may be nervous about having to learn a new technology, but RFID is straightforward and not hard to pick up or implement. It’s also a cost-effective solution to many different organizational needs. It’s well worth investigating today.