Customer focus is key to Torex revival

They cite a step change in the way that consumers want to interact with and be treated by, retailers – especially once they are a multichannel customer. It is a change that many retailers are witnessing and can provide strong incentives for investing in the kinds of thought leadership, consulting services and new technologies that these companies can offer.

However, technology providers have not always been so good at serving their own customers. One supplier that has been honest about its past failings is Torex. While it asserts that its retail and hospitality software has always been sound, under new venture capital owners it admits that promises to retail customers have not always been met.

And, to their credit, Torex's new management has been prepared not only to acknowledge failures of the previous incarnation of the company, but also introduce a new level of honesty in its treatment of customers. It seems that it is taking its industry’s own advice.

Last week, it hosted some 140 people representing 80 different customers at an event designed to lay out its product development plans and explain the company restructuring. Out go the sales people who are given incentives to sell particular software products and in come account managers and product specialists with deep industry knowledge to put together solutions.

To back this up it is developing a common architecture so that its many software products will also work together. In addition, product strategies and release schedules are being created for 15 of the systems it offers.

Customer support is also set for major change. Torex says that it is looking at how it can increase the speed and efficiency with which customers with problems receive support. It will change the way support staff are remunerated, giving them incentives to fix problems first time.

Torex is also putting its money where its mouth is, investing in new accounting and CRM systems. The company says that it wants to be more knowledgeable about its customers and more cohesive in how it interacts with them.

All this sounds remarkably similar to what many retailers are being told to do, doesn’t it?

With an installed client base that includes many high street retail names, the fortunes of Torex are tremendously important to the industry. So let’s hope that, just as retailers are learning to be customer-centric, this technology supplier continues to rise to the challenge too.