Radios Are Dead and Here Is What Comes Next for Retail Store Ops

In this Retail Technology Spotlight series, Chris Walton sits down with Soroosh Seyhoon, Chief Revenue Officer at Zello, to explore how capturing and analyzing frontline voice data is transforming the way retailers understand and manage store operations. From AI-powered in-ear assistants to real-time operational intelligence, Soroosh explains why the conversations happening on the sales floor represent an untapped goldmine of data that most retailers are completely ignoring. Drawing from deployments across hundreds of store locations, Soroosh shares how Zello is helping retailers move beyond measuring outputs like sales and throughput to finally measuring the inputs, the frontline communications that drive those results. The conversation covers everything from reducing associate turnover and accelerating onboarding to auto-reporting safety incidents and uncovering hidden staffing inefficiencies hiding in plain sight. From digitizing push-to-talk communications to replacing two-device workflows with a single-pane-of-glass solution, this episode offers a practical roadmap for retailers ready to stop flying blind on what's actually happening on the floor and start building the connected store of the future. Key Topics Covered: 00:01:44 - The friction points plaguing store operations today and why "hearsay" is running retail 00:05:40 - How voice data transforms store operations from outputs to inputs 00:08:38 - Meet Ella: Zello's AI agent that answers associate questions in real time 00:16:20 - Real-world examples: price check patterns, safety incidents, and broken buttons 00:21:19 - Where retailers should start to get the biggest bang for their buck 00:24:16 - What's next: proactive AI agents, PBX integration, and push to connect Over 8 years and nearly 200 episodes, the Retail Technology Spotlight Series has featured some of the biggest names and boldest thinkers in retail. Explore the full archive here: https://omnitalk.blog/category/spotlight-series-podcast/ Sponsored Content