Verizon creates cellphone ‘smart store’ in metro-east

A local wireless retailer now sells more than just cellphones.

For the past three months, Verizon Wireless remodeled and retooled its Fairview Heights locale to be its first “smart store” in the metro-east. It has reopened earlier this month with new gadgets and concepts inside 5902 N. Illinois St.

Assistant store manager Kristy Kluge said the Fairview Heights store is the first in the metro-east to be selected for the smart conversion because it has been a high-traffic location for Verizon.

“We’re not only a cellphone company,” Kluge said. “We’re an innovative technology solutions company. So we want to be that one-stop shop for our customer. We’re about really enhancing the customer experience and making life easier. So our big focus is to have a lot of interactive tools to help people get comfortable with technology.”

This is not the first transformation for the building, located at the corner of Ashland Avenue. It was originally built for Hardee’s and was transformed from a fast-food restaurant to a cellphone store when Verizon moved there in six years ago. Kluge said the market has changed within that short time.

“If you look at five years ago, we did phone calls and text messages on our phone and that was it,” she said. “And now we run our lives off our phones. So we can our business, our day-to-day life, or social networking, everything.”

Immediately upon entering the revamped store, customers will see two large display bays, one to the right and left, that invite them to not only see, but touch and test the various wireless products to see how they work.

To the right are digital fitness bands, home security equipment, “pretty much anything wireless,” Kluge said. The cellphones on display do more than place phone calls and send texts. These phones can turn on or turn off the lights, reset the thermostat, open or close the garage door and even lock or unlock the front door when your not at home.

To the left is the amplifier display area, which contains Bose and Beats brand audio equipment that can enhance music and video sound quality over cellphones and tablets. Customers are also invited to hear it for themselves.

Both interactive displays includes touch screens and equipment that demonstrates these capabilities. Kluge said all new stores that Verizon opens will be smart store by including these interactive capabilities.

“We don’t only have cellphones, we have tablets, we have connective solutions, we have home phone systems that run through our cell towers, we have 4G routers, we have machine-to-machine equipment to help small business,” Kluge said. “We really have everything.”

The store divided into zones. There are no counters, but individual stations. Beyond the two front display bays is a horseshoe-shaped table with chairs, where Verizon plans to hold wireless workshops to teach consumers how to use this technology and accompanying gadgets.

An assortment of cellphones are found along the back wall. A computer station to the side allows customers to log on and adjust their wireless service and an adjacent kiosk is available for automated bill payment.

There are no counters at the newly remodeled store. Customers check out at one of four individual tabletops in the middle of the store.

“Every item has a certain place, so it’s very organized,” Kluge said. “It’s mainly about improving customer experience. We have the phones lined up back here so you can come and play with those and we have other different things. There is an ecosystem for everything in here. So there are items that are paired together and work together.”

“Our big thing is customer experience.”

This story was originally published July 19, 2015 at 4:47 PM with the headline "Verizon creates cellphone ‘smart store’ in metro-east."