RICHARDSON, Texas — Theatro, pioneers of the world’s first voice-controlled mobile platform as a service for the hourly workforce,  announced this week that Walgreens will be  implementing Theatro’s enterprise-wide solution at all of its 9,560 stores, with the first 1,000 locations deployed in 2019. Theatro’s all-inclusive service offering allows Walgreens store team members to communicate with each other quickly and easily, helping to bring to life an improved healthcare and retail experience for customers and patients.

Walgreens store team members can use their voice to interact with Theatro’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered Intelligent Assistant to get the information they need to perform their role and deliver differentiated customer experiences. Theatro’s cost-effective solution connects every associate to their enterprise network and to their leadership team at all times through the use of a small voice-controlled Internet of Things (IoT) device that allows the associate to remain “heads-up and hands-free” when assisting customers.

“As we transform our stores into modern neighborhood health destinations, it’s critical that we enable our store teams to enhance the experience for customers and patients,” said Richard Ashworth, president of Operations, Walgreens. “Technology solutions like Theatro allow us to communicate the changes we’re making directly and regularly with our team members, keeping them up-to-date and able to continue to offer great customer service.”

“One of the largest challenges retail teams face is the disparate and ad-hoc communication methods traditionally used to reach large numbers of store team members,” said Chris Todd, chief executive officer, Theatro. “Through our innovative voice Intelligent Assistant and broad suite of workflow and collaboration apps, Walgreens is empowered to improve store execution and labor productivity by leveraging the power of AI native to our platform.”

With Theatro’s platform, retailers experience a significant improvement in speed of service and labor efficiency from Theatro’s voice-based apps such as Register Backup, Morning Huddle and Price Checks or Inventory Lookups. Simple, efficient and effective mobile apps are the keys to unlocking productivity gains with hourly workers. With a library of over 80 voice-enabled mobile apps, as well as a robust API to support third party apps, Theatro’s platform allows associates to quickly and easily access the resources required to help a customer or complete a task. Store managers can now have more meaningful insights into critical customer service metrics such as speed of service to identify opportunities for store performance improvements.