Why Shopping Malls and Retailers Would Benefit from an Automated People Counting System
30.09.2021What is an Automated People Counting System?
An automated people counting system monitors the number of customers entering and exiting a facility to provide an accurate count of customers on the premises in real-time. The data collected is then analyzed to predict customer traffic and visit patterns. Such analytics allow retailers and shopping malls to improve their marketing strategies, enhance their customer engagement and optimize capacity and resource planning by facilitating intelligent business decisions.
Why is it Beneficial?
By employing an automated people counting system, managers are able to gain a clear understanding of customer traffic and visit patterns, as well as marketing program efficacy. Marketing managers are able to improve their strategies by receiving rich insights into the number of customer visits during a particular promotion. They are able to identify attractive zones, peak hours, dwell times, and turn in rates to determine optimal marketing strategies. The success of a marketing campaign is then measured by its ability to convert customer visits into sales. Managers are able to ensure sufficient supply and customer service by forecasting demand and making data-driven predictions. They can enhance customer satisfaction by ensuring that there is an appropriate amount of sales representatives and open cash registers available to reduce customer wait times. Additionally, managers are able to control occupancy levels by monitoring traffic flows and setting occupancy thresholds.
Shopping mall decision-makers are able to maximize rent collection by identifying frequent visitor paths and optimal store placements. They are able to identify which stores or combination of stores attract the most customers; allowing them to determine optimal rent rates. This solution also helps managers implement on demand services; hence, optimizing operating costs. As an example, maintenance and cleaning work can be based on pre-determined thresholds or faults, triggered by other complementary IoT services. These services can be enabled by combining technologies such as water detection, environment monitoring, customer survey screens, and RFID-based tracking of staff to help measure and enhance customer satisfaction.
How Does it Add Value?
By implementing an effective automated people counter, businesses are able to:
- Receive Accurate Data: Enhance business intelligence by making use of reliable, customer visit data with an employee exclusion feature.
- Optimize Capacity and Resource Planning: Identify attractive zones and predict future customer visits to enhance capacity and resource planning.
- Measure Marketing Metrics: Evaluate the impact of a promotional strategy and make improvements by identifying total visitor count, customer paths, turn ins, visit duration and transaction count.
- Improve Customer Loyalty and Engagement: Enhance customer satisfaction by gaining a better understanding of customer visits, dwell times and product engagement.
- Influence Customer Visit Time: Stagger traffic and occupancy levels by providing customers with a live occupancy count.
- Improve Staff Scheduling: Optimize operations by scheduling staff based on customer traffic and facility usage patterns.
- Determine Optimal Tenant Mix: Maximize rental revenue by determining the most suitable space based on traffic patterns and store profile.
- Enforce Social Distancing: Reduce the spread of Covid-19 by receiving an accurate count of customers on the premises in real-time.
- Manage Smart Energy: Optimize building operations by adjusting energy levels according to real-time occupancy levels.
- Optimize Facility Servicing: Ensure timely service delivery and improved customer satisfaction as cleaning and maintenance personnel are able to identify and focus on high-priority areas.
- Reduce Wait Times: Improve queue management by identifying peak times and scheduling staff accordingly.
The Future of People Counting
By implementing an automated people counting system, retail and shopping mall management are able to streamline business processes and receive useful marketing and operational insights. In order to remain competitive, businesses must be able to gain a holistic understanding of their customer’s needs to successfully enhance customer engagement and increase brand loyalty. With an automated people counting system, managers are able to make connections between visitor patterns and business strategies. The end result? The deployment of effective and impactful marketing and operational strategies.
BlueSurge’s People Counting Solution
The People Counting solution offered by BlueSurge Technologies entails the deployment of advanced stereoscopic technology to capture a highly accurate people count, which is then transmitted to the SurgeCloud for further analytics. With the employee exclusion feature, businesses are able to receive data that is customer-specific with minimal anomalies. This solution provides organizations with a rich set of analytics and visualizations to make well-informed business decisions.
Optimize operations, enhance marketing programs, increase customer satisfaction, and reduce costs with the People Counting solution offered by BlueSurge Technologies. Click here to learn more!