Retail Tech in Focus | Maximising customer insights and ROI from robust technology solutions

Retailers are increasingly looking at technology solutions to help them tackle many of the key business issues of today including the need to reduce costs, improve operational efficiency, and deliver an exceptional customer experience that ultimately drives loyalty and additional revenues. One of the key routes to helping address these various issues is to operate a robust WiFi network architecture that can be securely leveraged through the layering of various software applications that provide rich data insights into customer behaviour and operational characteristics within the store environment. Through its best-of-breed approach to technology adoption, Trust Systems has partnered with Cisco and its Meraki solution from which can be built, an eco-system of applications that can deliver a myriad of benefits to retailers and which are wrapped in a managed service. The base solution provides a backbone for smart WiFi using access points that help optimise the network along with a simple dashboard that highlights network availability and identifies any potential threats to connectivity thereby ensuring the necessary resilience to operate within demanding environments. On this robust platform, retailers can leverage many insights through the detection of mobile devices within stores. This can generate basic analytics including visitor dwell time and the frequency of customer visits. From this base data, various trends can be identified such as peak traffic times which can then determine the optimum staffing rotas that will provide the best experience in-store. This data can be used to compare against external KPIs and to identify weekly and seasonal fluctuations in customer behaviour. Further insights can be gained from the Meraki dashboard showing heat maps that can highlight customer flows in-store, which can help with deciding the most beneficial positioning of employees. The heat maps might also indicate that digital media should be deployed in the store windows if there is evidence of many customers walking past the store without entering. Another layer of customer insight can be added through the adoption of a location-based solution Cloud4Wi that can deliver real-time messaging, pricing and promotions to customers who have opted in – this could be done through the retailer’s loyalty programme. Using trend information on peak flows of activity, the type of phones detected, combined with known information on the customer (from the loyalty scheme or similar) it is possible to deliver a superior experience through a more tailored proposition to the shopper. The insights gained from the WiFi infrastructure with the Meraki solution can be further enhanced through the deployment of smart cameras that can be layered onto the base package. This combination delivers a significantly better result for retailers than traditional CCTV solutions encompassing loss prevention, compliance and health & safety. Real-time content from each camera can be accessed remotely from any device, unlike CCTV products that typically limited users to only having on-site access to footage. Alerts can also be triggered when an activity takes place, which can be determined from motion and audio analytics. Certain movements of people or vehicles, as well as sounds, can trigger alerts to the relevant operational teams who can take immediate action. The in-built analytics of the cameras can also determine patterns during certain timeframes from which alerts can then be sent. The functionality of the cameras can be extended further through the layering of the V-App smart vision analytics solution that gives a much more granular level of insight, which can be pushed up through the Meraki interface. Its AI capability enables it to gather rich data from across the store estate and recognise sensitive scenarios such as someone walking onto the premises carrying a baseball bat or a similar potential weapon. It also generates powerful insights such as estimating the age of people, which is useful in both retail and hospitality environments when customers are purchasing certain age-sensitive products such as alcohol. In addition, the solution can identify gender and also understand the mood of an individual. These are three powerful pieces of information – which can be accrued without customers having to log in or opt in – that represent a very valuable additional layer of insight that enable a better understanding of customer journeys that drives greater loyalty. The managed network can be enhanced further through the adoption of IoT sensors using Bluetooth technology that can generate additional insights from within buildings. This could be environmental information such as temperatures and moisture levels. Having such insights within retail premises is important when considering retailers’ increased focus on sustainability. This improved understanding of their physical environment enables them to monitor fridges and cold aisles and have alerts triggered when certain thresholds are breached. These data insights can provide retailers with visibility of energy usage and thereby help them identify potential areas for cost savings. There is no doubt whatsoever that the insights these solutions generate are increasingly valuable to retailers in enabling them to run their businesses more efficiently and successfully, which highlights how technology can be leveraged to a massive advantage when a robust infrastructure is first put in place.