How to Collect Customer Feedback Using Corporate Website?

How to Collect Customer Feedback Using Corporate Website

A corporate website is an essential for a modern day business. Especially in Dubai and in fact all around the UAE businesses must have to have a presentable corporate website. In UAE the internet penetration is 99% which means that almost all of your customers and prospects can search your business online. This means that your corporate website plays crucial role in your online business identity and brand image. Furthermore your corporate website add value to brand’s image and credibility, people now a days expect from the businesses to offer some digital experience and information via online.

When it comes to customer feedback, it is the most crucial information a business needs to understand its customers and their needs. The customer feedback provide great insight to customers’ minds and it help businesses identify the areas of improvement. It also help in product development and customer experience management. That is why the customer feedback is the most crucial data which help businesses make informed decisions and increase the success rate of those decisions and business strategies.

See Also: Why Your Business Needs a Customer Feedback System?

How to Collect Customer Feedback Using Corporate Website

The Dubai and in fact the entire UAE is a very competitive market, businesses are adopting more customer-centric strategies in order to attract more customers. The customer happiness and satisfaction have become extremely important. Which means that the businesses should know customer’s needs, their expectations and their liking/disliking. Regardless of industry or business model, the customer feedback is a vital component of a successful growth strategy. Collecting customer feedback is relatively easier than before, thanks to the digital technologies and customer feedback systems the customer feedback collection have become much easier.

However, when the customer experience managers or any other team decide to collect customer feedback the biggest challenge is to choose the right channel. Your corporate website is one of the best place to begin with. Usually corporate websites have huge traffic, most of the customers visit your website and a majority of prospects look up in the internet and will eventually land on your web pages. That is why the website can be a great tool to start collecting valuable customer feedback. In this blog we will discuss how businesses can collect high-quality customer feedback data using their corporate website.

See Also: 7 Benefits of Customer Feedback System

How to Collect Customer Feedback Using Corporate Website

Methods to Collect Customer Feedback from a Corporate Website

The technology and programming techniques that are used to design and develop websites have become very advanced and rich in features. There was a time when businesses were having simple static pages just to publish basic information about their business and what they do. Now a days, the websites have transformed into a highly dynamic and very powerful platform which is used for communication and digital marketing purposes. Collecting customer feedback or integrating a customer feedback system in to your corporate website have become very easy today. There are several customer feedback system which are providing embedded widgets which can be installed to a web page to collect customer feedback and capture other analytical data.

Furthermore these days almost 95% websites are dynamic which means that they are running on some kind of content management system or CMS software. Whether you are using a customized CMS or any other popular COTS CMS, there are ways to integrate customer feedback system’s features in the CMS which can help businesses to collect the feedback data from their corporate website. Here are the most popular and effective methods to collect feedback from your website.

See Also: 5 Types of Customer Feedback

Methods to Collect Customer Feedback from a Corporate Website

Customer Feedback Collection via Popups

The popups are the most common method to display important content on a website. Businesses can easily put a customer feedback survey in a popup at their corporate website. It is important to understand that you should ask the right thing at the right time. Usually we see popups appearing instantly as we land on a website, in fact before we can see the content of the web page the popup appears. These popups are not good for the customer feedback. Because you want to learn about customer experience, their opinion and thoughts about your business, without letting them a chance to explore your website you cannot expect them to have an opinion about your brand.

That is why if you are taking customer feedback through a popup you should let customer explore the page and its content first and then ask them about their feedback. This can be achieved easily, you can put a timer on the popup. For example, if customer spends 80 seconds on a page then the popup appears. You can also set a trigger at the bottom or near bottom area of your corporate website, which means that when the customer reach to a certain areas of the web page the popup should appear.

See Also: Importance of Customer Feedback Tool for Small Business Owners

Customer Feedback Collection via Popups

For example, you have a homepage which require customers to scroll several time, which means there would be several sections of the web page, you can put the trigger at the last section or at the second last section. It means that by the time your customer will reached to that section they have already consumed a reasonable amount of content of your web page. You can use a combination of trigger and timer method to show the popup. Furthermore it is important to keep your feedback form or survey simple, shorter and easy-to-understand, as by that time most of the customer might not want to spend any more time on your web page.

If you will ask too many questions then the chances are people might leave without submitting their feedback. The best and most effective method is to ask 1 to 3 questions in a popup survey. It is better to use rating scales, happiness meter, or simple multi-choice responses. The open-ended questions are a great way to get more detailed and in-depth response. If your corporate website support multiple languages then the survey must also support those languages and it should automatically aligned with the customer’s selected language on the web page. These tips will help you increase the conversion rate of the survey and will provide you high quality data.

See Also: The Role of Customer Feedback in Personalizing User Experience

Customer Feedback Collection via Popups

Customer Feedback Collection via Dedicated Feedback Buttons

In order to obtain actionable results from a customer feedback campaign it is important that the quality and quantity of the data is good. The quality of the feedback data is always a bigger challenge, furthermore the quality doesn’t only depends on the quantity, and in fact the questions you asked will have huge impact on the quantity of the feedback. The primary purpose of conducting a feedback campaign is to understand a particular aspect of customer experience.

For example the purpose of product development survey is to understand what features customers like, what they don’t appreciate and what they expect from business to offer or what they would love to see in future products. This can be achieved only by adding more questions to the survey, however, more questions means less conversion rate. Most of the time when a customer or visitors sees more than 5 questions, they either quit or try to complete it quickly which in some cases also result in poor feedback quality. The feedback button at a website is the best solution to this problem.

See Also: Overcoming Challenges in Customer Feedback Collection and Management

Customer Feedback Collection via Dedicated Feedback Buttons

The Zeigarnik Effect is a psychological phenomenon which says the one who started an action is most likely to complete it. That is why the feedback button have higher conversion rate and can produce much higher quality customer feedback data. These buttons can be placed in the bottom of the web page, in the footer area or can be placed on any other strategically important section of the web page. The button should be highlighted and the text should be appealing. You can use a tagline such as, Submit Your Feedback, Share your Opinion, Talk to Us, etc.

Anything which appeals the customer and also tell them what this button will do. Businesses can use a variety of different surveys via Feedback Button. The ideal situation is to have less than 10 questions, but based on the industry, web page and other aspects you can add more questions too. The data can be collected in the website CMS or can be integrated with the dedicated customer feedback system along with the analytical data which help you further understand who your visitors are and integrating analytical data will also help you reduce the demographic questions in the survey and make it short. The feedback button is ideal for medium sized surveys.

See Also: Your Guide to an Effective Customer Feedback System

Customer Feedback Collection via Dedicated Feedback Buttons

Use Live Chat to Collect Customer Feedback

Here in Dubai and all around the UAE we have witnessed that the online chat, whether live chat or chat bots are gaining popularity, every other site have chat bots and most of the medium and large size enterprises are offering live chat features. The live chat is a great way to improve customer experience and simplify customer journey and it help businesses generate huge revenue. According to several studies businesses have witnessed huge increase in sales for up to 35% by adding live chat feature on their website or mobile apps. That is why the live chat is gaining so much popularity among both businesses and the customers.

The live chat feature can be used to collect valuable customer feedback data. The live chat button or interface can be placed at many places at a web page, the ideal is the pricing page/area and the checkout page which are the steps where the customers ask more questions. The support agents can be trained to collect structured feedback via live chat which can be processed further by analytical tools to generate conclusive reports. The live chat help you understand customers’ concerns which is important to address in the marketing and communication material. That is why it is a great tool to collect valuable customer feedback data.

See Also: What is Multichannel Customer Feedback and Why it is so Important?

Use Live Chat to Collect Customer Feedback

Use Lead Magnets to Collect Customer Feedback

As I mentioned earlier that the short surveys are not the answers to all your questions, in some cases businesses will have to conduct long surveys to get a better and clear understanding of the customer point of view. However, traditionally the conversion rate for long surveys is very less. That is why business use more innovative ways to attract customers and visitors to fill out long surveys. The lead magnet method is one of the most successful method to do so. Basically the lead magnet method is used to collect customer lead data, usually a business offers a free resource, online tool, e-Book, discount voucher or any such incentive to attract more customers to provide lead data, usually it is email and sometimes businesses also collect customer mobile numbers.

These contact details can be later utilized for marketing purposes to generate more leads and sales. For the customer feedback the lead magnet method is also very successful, businesses can offer any free incentive in return of submitting a customer feedback or survey form. The lead magnets are highly cost-efficient, mostly free, informative and very attractive. Customers often see them as high-value offerings that is why when a business use lead magnet method to collect customer feedback data the results are great.

See Also: Integrating AI in Customer Feedback System

Use Lead Magnets to Collect Customer Feedback

Collect Customer Feedback using Quick Polls and Happiness Meter

According to several studies most of the website visitors leave a website if they think the information is not relevant, worth spending time or too complex. Here it is important to understand how your audience is landing on your website. Most of the website traffic comes from search engine, particularly Google. The visitors who are landing on your website through Google search must be seeking something that is totally relevant to your page’s subject otherwise the search engine will not show your website in the results. The user that are coming from social media or other digital platforms must be landing on a special landing page or a product page.

Even with proper targeting most of the visitors left very soon or left without converting, this is because they either might not find the relevant information or the couldn’t understand your brand message. Apart from product pages or landing pages this effect is more prominent on blogs, FAQs, and helping content. In order to make your webpage content resonate with your audience you must have to know if what you are offering is serving the purpose or not. For that businesses can put customer feedback polls and happiness meters on such pages. It can be very helpful to measure the customer happiness and effectiveness of the content.

See Also: How to Collect Feedback using Customer Feedback Tool

Collect Customer Feedback using Quick Polls and Happiness Meter

Collect Page-Specific Customer Feedback

A corporate website always have multiple pages, usually it a homepage which is the main page, all other pages are called internal pages. The internal pages have some must have pages or types with very standardized information format such as about pages always have company details, management, mission, vision, etc. There are some pages which are used to publish content, such as blogs, media center, FAQs, etc. There are also dedicated pages for products and services which you are offering. These all different types of pages which serve different purpose and offer different type of information.

The page-specific customer feedback is a concept of asking only a certain group of audience to provide their feedback who happened to visit certain pages. For example, if you have FAQs page, you can ask the reader if the information was helpful or not. Similarly if it is a product or service page you can ask them if they found the solution to their problem or the product/service they were looking for, etc. matches their requirements or not, etc. That is what is called page-specific customer feedback it is very helpful in improving that page, its content, or the product/service you are offering.

See Also: Characteristics of Closed-Loop Customer Feedback Tool

Collect Page-Specific Customer Feedback

Conclusion

In the modern markets businesses need to align their offerings with the customers’ interests. This help them beat the competition and make them more desirable for the customers. In Dubai and all around the UAE the markets are very competitive, regardless of the industry the businesses will have to perform excellent in order to gain a competitive advantage. All this is making businesses more customer-centric which raise the importance of customer desires, demands, needs and expectations. In order to understand what your customers’ needs, what they will like/dislike, what they will expect from you and what could make them happy and satisfied, businesses need to acquire in-depth knowledge and understanding of customer behavior and their mindset.

And this knowledge can’t be acquired from anywhere else but your customers. The voice of your customer is the only place which can provide with the most accurate and highly impactful information. The businesses who based their decision on their customers’ opinion and say are tend to do well in the long term. That is why the customer feedback have become more crucial for the modern day success strategy. When it comes to collecting customer feedback data the businesses could easily overwhelmed with the sheer volume of channels and methods to collect the customer feedback.

Here in Dubai and all across the UAE businesses might adopt various modern ways and methods to collect customer feedback but they often neglect their corporate websites. Your corporate website can be a great source of high-quality and most effective customer feedback and business intelligence data. In this blog we have listed several methods of collecting customer feedback using your corporate website. If you want to learn more about the subject of if you want our help to implement a customer feedback collection system on your website, please feel free to contact us anytime through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

See Also: The best Self-service Kiosk Software for Hotels

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The best Self-service Kiosk Software for Hotels

The best Self-service Kiosk Software for Hotels

The hotel and hospitality industry is very sensitive about customer experience and service quality. The Dubai and the entire UAE is well-known for their tourist attraction and business activities. The hotel and hospitality industry is booming in the country. The industry is divided into several segments such as chain hotels, independent hotels, service apartments, mid-class luxury hotels, high-class luxury hotel, motels, etc. The industry is witnessing a steady growth and is projected to witness the same for several coming years.

That means the competition is very high and in order to remain relevant in the market, the hotel must have to offer the high quality service and excellent customer experience. The customer experience is a very complex and sophisticated phenomenon, it is not fixed, it keep changing, and sometimes those changes are subtle and very quick that it become very difficult to keep up with. That is why the hotels and hospitality businesses always invest huge resources in customer experience.

See Also: 10 Customer Self-Service Best Practices to Power Your Contact Center Results

The best Self-service Kiosk Software for Hotels

The hotels and hospitality sector all around the world is changing, in fact evolving into a much better and advanced industry by adopting modern technological solutions and innovation. The digital customer experience is one of the most popular trends all around the world. It is not only limited to hotels and hospitality sector, but the offering digital customer experience is very common all across consumer markets. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the digital customer experience is considered to most important and crucial to raise customer satisfaction.

The websites, smartphone apps and self-service kiosks are considered to be the most popular methods to offer a satisfactory digital customer experience. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the government sector, the private sector and service industry in particular are focusing more on making digital offerings to delight their customers. In this blog we will discuss what the self-service kiosk is and what are the features of a good quality self-service kiosk software.

See Also: The Impact of Self-Service Kiosk on Customer Behavior

What is Interactive Self-Service Kiosk?

An interactive self-service kiosk system consists of two major parts, one is the hardware components and the other is the interactive self-service kiosk software. The hardware components include a digital interactive kiosk, which usually have touch screen, some peripherals and a few hardware accessories enclosed in a body which can be placed on floor or desk and it can also be mounted on walls. The interactive self-service kiosks can be further classified in two main categories, indoor and outdoor. The indoor self-service kiosks are the most common and widely popular since more than a decade now, however, the outdoor kiosks are also gaining popularity since past few years.

The biggest difference between the indoor and outdoor kiosks is their technical specification. The outdoor kiosks are made weather proof, have special cooling solutions, and the displays are made brighter than the indoor kiosks. Furthermore the interactive self-service kiosks hardware comes in two configurations, one is based on Android OS and the other is based on Windows OS. The kiosk category, class and platform depends on the software requirements.

See Also: What is a Self Service Kiosk? Here’s All You Need to KnowWhat is Interactive Self-Service Kiosk?

What is Interactive Self-Service Kiosk Software?

The interactive self-service kiosk software is the actual brain of the system. All the source codes, programing and algorithms are part of the main software which is usually hosted on a server. The interactive self-service kiosk software can be hosted on online hosting, cloud or even at local in-premises data center. It can be divided into three main parts, the server side application, the administrative dashboard and the user interface (UIs) or client. The UI runs on the interactive self-service kiosk unit which also act as a client to the server. The administrative dashboard is basically the back office of the entire system.

It allows system admins to perform several tasks such as viewing the customer data, add/remove or modify the services offered through the system and collect analytical data from the system. The interactive self-service kiosk software’s server application is basically the main software engine which perform all the processes through its algorithms and process all the data and instruction from different users of the system. The interactive self-service software can be integrated with other enterprise tools, databases and central information center to synchronize data.

See Also: Emerging Trends in Self-Service Kiosk Technology

What is Interactive Self-Service Kiosk Software?

Features of a Best Self-Service Kiosk Software for Hotels

For any interactive self-service kiosk solution both the software and hardware are important, but the software plays the main role. There are tons of features that are completely independent of the hardware. Hence the software is far more important and complicated too. The interactive kiosk software make sure the customers get the service they want, if the software is not efficient, the customer experience would be bad. When it comes to the interactive self-service kiosk software, the businesses will have to decide between commercial off-the-shelf software and the custom software development.

The commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) are quicker to deploy, have comparatively less initial cost, but have very limited functionality and most of the time the customization is not available. However, the custom software development take more time, has slightly higher initial cost, but offer exclusively build solution as per the business needs. The customized software offer more control, flexibility and freedom when it comes to customization, scalability and upgrades. In this blog we will list the key features of an interactive self-service kiosk software that are must to have for better efficiency and satisfactory customer experience.

See Also: What is Employee Self Service Kiosk?

Features of a Best Self-Service Kiosk Software for Hotels

Reduce Customer Wait Time and Improve Customer Experience

The common problem at a hotel or hospitality businesses is the customer wait time for the check-ins. Imagine a customer had a 6 hours flight, and they reached at the hotel and they will have to wait in a queue just to check in. That would be very stressful and frustrating. The interactive self-service check kiosk enable businesses to effectively manage customer footfall and reduce the waiting time. The customers can easily check-in from the self-service kiosk. The self-service kiosk software can be integrated with the booking management system and the property management systems which enables it to facilitate the self-check in process.

Usually the customers do online booking via a portal or hotel’s website. They can be issued with a unique serial number which serves as their booking number and in some cases the customers are also provided with a barcode. The interactive self-service check in kiosk can take the booking number and verify it from the relevant system to let the customer check in. In case of the barcode, the self-service kiosk can scan it and authenticate it from the relevant system.

See Also: What Is a Self-Service Payment Kiosk? Unveiling the Future of Transactions

Reduce Customer Wait Time and Improve Customer Experience

The customers then can either proceed to the counter to get the room key, or they can be issued with mobile-enabled electronic room key which usually works with NFC. The interactive self-service hotel kiosk can also have digital lockers which can have they physical key or they can be linked to a separate digital locker which holds the keys. This makes the entire check in process fully self-service and automated and the hotel doesn’t have to assign an employee for that. The complete interaction is a digital experience, which is fast, convenient and simply.

The interactive self-service hotel kiosk comes with an intuitive user interface (UI) which offers a multi-lingual dashboard to the customers with on-screen instructions and help customers go through the simple steps of self-check in. The freedom and control over the check in process improve customer experience. Furthermore the customers who doesn’t have prior booking can also use the interactive self-service hotel kiosk for self-check in.

See Also: How Self-Service Kiosk are Improving Customer Experience in Dubai, UAE?

Reduce Customer Wait Time and Improve Customer Experience

Most of the time the customers feel hesitant in enquiring from the customer service agents. There are several factors that cause this such as there could be another customer or a queue behind them, they are in hurry, the language barrier could be a problem and sometimes the customers don’t want to engage in lengthy conversations, hence they try to choose in hurry. However, with the interactive self-service hotel kiosk the customer can get all the relevant information on the screen and there is no pressure on them, they can check and recheck same option many times, they can compare several options side by side and they can add more add-ons in their plan.

At the interactive self-service hotel kiosk the customers can choose the language of their preference and all the information can be provided in their preferred language which also makes things easier for them to understand. Hence the customers end up selecting the best deal which raise their happiness and satisfaction. The freedom and control offered by the interactive self-service hotel kiosk is unmatched. That is the reason the customer experience can be significantly enhanced.

See Also: Integrating AI and Machine Learning in Self-Service Kiosks

Offer Multiple Payment Methods

The interactive self-service hotel kiosk software can be integrated with several payment methods such as credit/debit card payment, online payment gateway, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and even cash also. This allow the customers to choose the most convenient payment method for them and add value to their experience. Furthermore the interactive self-service hotel kiosk software can also be integrated with online booking system, third-party booking systems, airlines, online and e-Commerce platforms, etc. Which enables it to link with promotions, discounts, vouchers, and packages market through different channels.

That is a very helpful feature, because in the modern marketplace the hotels and hospitality industry is utilizing several unorthodox techniques and engaging through multiple channels to maximize the sales and to attract different audience groups. The ability to accept different payment mode and to integrate different booking/selling channels in one system can significantly reduce the check in steps, effort and time. This helps hotels to significantly improve customer check in experience.

See Also: 7 Features of Self Service Kiosks

Offer Multiple Payment Methods

Push Promotions and Marketing Directly to the Customers

For any marketing campaign the customer reach is crucial, you should be able to reach to the right audience at the right time to maximize the outcome. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the hotels and the hospitality industry always make attractive offers and launch promotional campaigns to attract more customers. The interactive self-service hotel kiosk have an intuitive and very attractive UI. It allow customers to navigate through available information very easily and let them find the best match for their requirements. Furthermore for any business it is important to maximize the size of the average sale.

The interactive self-service hotel kiosk comes with a large size touch screen display, which have enough real estate to display interactive features and promotional content side by side. This help hotel management to increase the size of an average sale and let customers add more add-ons, features, offers, etc. to their purchase. Which help generating more revenue and increase the profitability of the business. Furthermore the multimedia marketing content also help increasing communication and customer engagement and help hotels understand the response of their campaigns for improvements.

See Also: How Can Businesses Benefit From Self-Service Kiosks

Push Promotions and Marketing Directly to the Customers

Personalized Experience Increase Customer Royalty

Another great feature of the interactive self-service hotel kiosk is that it can be integrated with the customer relationship management system which enables it to access the complete details of the past interactions with the same customer. This allow management to build more personalize customer experience while they are interacting with the kiosk. For example sometimes customers want to stay in the same room they stayed in past, but when they made booking they didn’t select that, so while check in if that room is still vacant the interactive self-service hotel kiosk software can prompt a message to inform them if they want to check in to that same room or not.

Sometimes the customers may have availed particular services which can be offered again or sometimes similar services are at discount they can be offered to the customer. Sometimes customers have some complaints, the interactive self-service kiosk can highlight that they will not face that again, or it can tell them how those particular issues had been addressed, etc. All these features help offering a personalized customer experience which tells customers that the business value them and help gaining their trust. The customer trust increase customer loyalty and help hotels get repeated business from those customers.

See Also: What are the Necessary Features of Food Ordering Kiosk?

Personalized Experience Increase Customer Royalty

Centralized Management Boost Efficiency and Productivity

The interactive self-service kiosk software is hosted at a server and it can integrate with other third-party tools, enterprise solutions, databases and systems which enable it to offer a fully centralized management system. The head office can have full control over all connected branches, they can monitor interactive self-service hotel kiosk in real-time. All the check-ins, customer interactions, feedbacks, etc. is registered at the central information center which allow head office, branch or facility manager to get live updates from the system at their administrative dashboard.

Furthermore the centralized management structure also allow the head office to make changes all across the network in real-time such as if the policy got updated, if new promotional campaigns are launched, if the rates got changed, or any announcement or news can be pushed to all connected kiosks or to selective kiosks if needed. These updates are immediate, as all of the interactive self-service hotel kiosks are connected to the same network. Moreover the head office can monitor and track the performance of each branch and can analyze the business intelligence data collected from each kiosk to boost the performance and productivity.

See Also: Analyzing the Impact of Payment Kiosks on Consumer Behavior

Centralized Management Boost Efficiency and Productivity

Better Checkout Experience, Customer Feedback & Business Intelligence Data

The check ins are crucial but the checkout experience is also important too. Any unnecessary delay in checkout could completely ruin the customer experience. The interactive self-service hotel kiosk offers self-checkout 24/7. The customers can instantly checkout using the interactive self-service hotel kiosk. Furthermore the hotel can offer them some discount vouchers at the check out to encourage them to come back again, etc. They can request them to sign-up for the newsletter to get future promotions and communications, etc. All these things help improving the relationship with the customer.

The hotel management can effectively collect customer feedback at the checkout or even at the check in process. Which can help them understand the customer behavior, their preferences, their liking/disliking, needs, expectations and demands. The customer feedback data is very helpful in improving the customer experience and services. The interactive self-service hotel kiosk software is a very capable digital tool, it can collect in-depth businesses intelligence data which includes analytical data, system usage stats and customer feedback. The business intelligence data help hotels evaluate their current processes, strategies and customer experience.

See Also: Self Service Kiosk for Retail Sector

Better Checkout Experience, Customer Feedback & Business Intelligence Data

Balanced Workload Improve Employee Performance

The hotel check in is usually the first human interaction with the hotel employees. At the check in counters, the service agents welcome the customers. If the footfall is high then queue formation is inevitable and in hospitality industry the queues are one of the major cause that effects the customer experience. The queues not only increase customer wait time but also cause several other problems. No one wants to stand in waiting lines, thus people got irritated and stressed when they face queues. Which further makes it difficult for the employee to satisfy them. The interactive self-service hotel kiosk help management reduce the workload of the employees and service staff by directing some of the customers to the self-service kiosks.

When the employee and service agents got engaged in queuing tasks, their performance declines as they can’t fully focus on their primary tasks. However with the balanced workload they can easily focus on their primary tasks which improve their efficiency and the service quality. The interactive self-service hotel kiosks help hotels and hospitality businesses make better resource planning and management strategies to maximize the performance of the employees and the quality of the service.

See Also: Top 10 Self-Service Technologies for Business in UAE

Balanced Workload Improve Employee Performance

Scalability, Upgrade and Future Readiness

One of the biggest advantage of the interactive self-service hotel kiosk is that it is very flexible towards customization and upgrades. Since it is a customized and tailor-made solution which is exclusively build for the hotel, the ownership rights belongs to the hotel/business and not the custom software development company. This provide hotels complete independence from the vendor, they can setup in-house team manage and maintain the system or they can outsource it to any vendor they want. This also save them from unnecessary scaling and upgrade cost.

The hotel can issue as many licenses as they want, they can redistribute the interactive self-service kiosk software to their partners or subsidiaries or anyone else. They will have full ownership of the software and the hardware. On top of that the customized interactive self-service kiosk software and hardware are built using widely available technologies which means the maintenance, further customization and upgrade cost will be low. Hotels can easily find experts to customize or maintain the system for them.

See Also: How Video Conferencing Enhance Self-Service Kiosk Experience

Scalability, Upgrade and Future Readiness

This also increase their future readiness, because the technology evolves very quickly, a new technology implementation at a department could impact the entire digital infrastructure. The compatibility and integration issues are very common whenever a business implement a new technology. Furthermore the market trends, business practices and methodologies are also subjected to gradual changes and sometimes major revamps. All these factors could impact any system or digital tool a hotel is using, however, with the customized interactive self-service kiosk software, all these changes, needs and demands can be handled very conveniently.

Establishing new integrations with the new systems and sorting out compatibility issues is fairly easier with the customized interactive self-service hotel kiosk software comparing to any commercial off-the-shelf solution. Since the customized software are owned by the business who uses them, it is easier to customize them in any way possible. There is no restriction, additional licensing cost, or any such thing involve. Which increase the future readiness and also help increasing the lifecycle of the system which is why customized software always have better ROI comparing to the commercial off-the-shelf solutions.

See Also: Why Self Ordering Kiosks Are a Secret Weapon for Small Restaurants

Scalability, Upgrade and Future Readiness

See More: Best Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022

Conclusion

For hotels and hospitality businesses maintaining satisfactory customer experience is a big challenge, especially in a competitive market like UAE. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the hospitality industry is rapidly growing which is inviting more businesses to the market. Competitive markets always led to high standards, which obviously means more running expense. However, businesses keep looking for solution which can reduce or optimize their operational cost without compromising the quality of work they produce. The interactive self-service hotel kiosk is one of the modern solution to deal with this problem, it not only minimize the operational cost and help businesses save some cost, but it also significantly enhance the customer experience. It help hotels offer excellent service via self-service kiosks which help reduce the workload of the employees and also help improving their performance.

The interactive self-service kiosk software is a modern AI (artificial intelligence) based smart software, which offers several innovative features to enhance the customer experience and to maximize the efficiency. The integrated software also help management have more visibility on the operations and provide them with intensive business intelligence data which help them evaluate their processes, policies, strategies and work flows. Businesses can aim for much higher goals by implementing modern technological solutions. RSI Concepts is a leading interactive self-service solution provider, if you want to learn more about interactive self-service hotel kiosks or if you want our help to implement a most productive and cost-efficient solution, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

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See Also: Why Interactive Self-service Kiosks are the Ultimate Customer Experience Transformation Tool?

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Top 10 Self-Service Technologies

Top 10 Self-Service Technologies

The customer experience and customer satisfaction is crucial for any business’s success. If a business failed to deliver good customer experience and satisfactory service, they are most likely to fail. In Dubai and all around the UAE the businesses across all industries are very eager to improve just that. Business invest a lot of resources and efforts to enhance customer experience and to increase customer satisfaction. The customer satisfaction and happiness help businesses gain customer trust and let them build strong relationships with the customers.

The customer loyalty is one of the most important factor in the success. Loyal customers tend to stick with their favorite brand, they do repeated business, they have higher tolerance for negative interactions, and they spread good words about the business which also help attracting more customers. The customer retention is crucial to maximize the profitability and to ensure a steady growth. In the pursuit of customer happiness, business started adopting technology based solutions to improve both customer experience and internal work flows.

See Also: 10 Customer Self-Service Best Practices to Power Your Contact Center Results

Top 10 Self-Service Technologies

The self-service technology is a great tool to enhance customer experience and to improve internal processes. Basically the self-service is method of delivering a service which doesn’t require any staff intervention. The customers are provided with a technology which enables them to avail the service without requiring any staff assistance. The marketplace have changed drastically in past few decades, in fact the past few years had profound impact on the market trends and customer behavior.

The self-service is not as that new, however, the rapid adaptation of self-service solutions are fairly new and we have witnessed in past few years that the self-service solutions are getting more common than ever before. Especially if you are living in Dubai or anywhere else in UAE you must have seen the very common mobile top up kiosks, which offer a variety of services through intuitive user interfaces and enable easy access to those payment services for millions of users on daily bases. In this blog we will discuss top 10 self-service technologies which can help businesses achieve their goals.

See Also: Top 10 Self-Service Technologies for Business in UAE

1. Automated Teller Machines (ATMs)

The automated teller machines or ATMs are the most common interactive self-service technology and in fact it is the very first self-service technology that has been introduced in 1967 in United Kingdom. The ATMs are one of the best example of self-service technology and are commonly available all around the world. Without the ATMs the customers will have to visit the bank branch to withdraw and deposit money. The customers will have to take time to visit to the bank, they usually had to face long waiting lines, and then the process was manual too, which also take time.

All these factors was not only harming the customer experience but also putting pressure on the banks. Furthermore the each bank have limited resources, they only had limited number of branches which was also another reason for large footfall. This was also limiting the market reach of the banks. However, with the ATMs, bans can now reach out to much wider audience without bearing huge cost. The ATMs are very cost-efficient and can offer a number of services to the customers without any delay or interruption, they operate 24/7 and customers can always find an ATM closer to their home or work.

See Also: How Can Businesses Benefit From Self-Service Payment Kiosks?

Automated Teller Machines (ATMs)

2. Self-Service Food Ordering Kiosks

The self-service food ordering kiosks are also very common in the country. Many popular food chains and different small and medium size restaurants and food businesses are using self-service food ordering kiosks. The biggest advantage of the self-service food ordering kiosk is that it can provide instant service, it help reducing the workload of the employee during the peak hours and help improving the customer experience. Furthermore the self-service food ordering kiosks can greatly enhance the customer experience by providing them more freedom and control over their order. Traditionally when a customer arrives at a sales counter, they are pressured by the queue behind them, they sometime feel shy in asking too many questions, and sometimes they just don’t want to extend their interaction.

All such problems can be eliminated through the self-service food ordering kiosk. The self-ordering kiosk help customers by providing them more information and enable them to make the payment via their preferred payment method such as cash, debit/credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc. The self-ordering kiosk is also very beneficial for the business, it improve the branch efficiency, help businesses increasing per sale volume and enable them to effectively promote their latest offers and high value items which help generating more revenue.

See Also: What are the Necessary Features of Food Ordering Kiosk?

Self-Service Food Ordering Kiosks

3. Interactive Hotel Self-Check In/Checkout Kiosk

The Dubai and in fact the entire UAE is a hotspot for tourist and business activities in the region. The hotels and hospitality industry is booming and showing steady growth. That is the reason the industry is also very competitive and the industry standards are slightly higher. In such circumstances it is crucial for a business to offer satisfactory experience. The check-ins and checkouts are the most crucial part of customer journey. It is important for the hotels to make sure the customers get a happy interaction at these points. The hotel self-service check-in and checkout kiosk help improving customer experience. As it offers instant service and let customers avoid the waiting time at the reception.

Furthermore the hotel self-check in and checkout kiosk can offer multiple services such as the customers can interact with the system via multi-lingual intuitive user interface (UI). The customers can make payment, confirm their bookings and make changes to their package and plan right at the self-service hotel kiosk. Furthermore it help reducing the traffic at the receptions and also help hotels to offer promotions, add-on services and much more at the kiosk which attract more customers and help increasing average transaction size. The hotels can also collect customer feedback and offer them a personalized experience via the intelligent self-service hotel kiosk software. It help them offer excellent experience, generate more revenue, collect business intelligence data and in resource planning processes.

See Also: The best Self-service Kiosk Software for Hotels

See Also: Fully Automated Hotel Reception with Interactive Kiosk

Interactive Hotel Self-Check In/Checkout Kiosk

4. Self-Service Information Kiosk

The self-service information kiosks starts gaining the momentum since past few years, especially at public areas where larger footfalls are expected. The information kiosk help businesses to provide useful information to the customers and visitors without engaging the employees. Usually some businesses have dedicated information counters, or in some cases the customers and visitors ask the service agents to provide them with the required information which not only put extra workload on the employees but also cause inconvenience for both the customers and the employees. Sometimes businesses will have to hire additional staff to meet such needs.

However, a self-service interactive information kiosk not only provide information to the customers and visitors. The customers can check for the pre-requisites for the services such as the list of the attachments with the form/file, the information about registration process or the information about the service itself. While using an interactive self-service information kiosks the customers can interact in any preferred language they want, and they can also share the information to their smartphones or email, if they want. Similarly the information kiosks help businesses improving the customer experience and also help them reducing the resource and expenses.

See Also: Emerging Trends in Self-Service Kiosk Technology

Self-Service Information Kiosk

5. Self-Service Wayfinding Kiosk

The self-service wayfinding kiosks are common sighting at shopping malls and large facilities. These kiosks are very helpful for the customers and visitors at the shopping malls, restaurants, public offices, government facilities, educational institutes, healthcare facilities and for outdoor venues. The main reason to use the self-service wayfinding kiosks is to enhance the customer experience. It is always difficult to navigate through large facilities. That is why customers keep arriving at the information counters and keep asking employees for directions, etc.

However, an interactive self-service wayfinding kiosk can help customers and visitors to easily find their destination. The businesses can provide all the relevant information through the self-service wayfinding kiosk. There are two major navigation types, 2D and the 3D. Now a days the virtual tours are also gaining some momentum. Whatever the case is the self-service wayfinding kiosks are very helpful for the customers and visitors. The businesses can also provide the complete contact directory along with the other materials that improve customer experience. Businesses can also publish marketing content and communication at the self-service wayfinding kiosk. The interactive self-service wayfinding kiosks are a great tool to improve customer experience.

See Also: What is wayfinding software and why is it important?

Self-Service Wayfinding Kiosk

6. Self-Registration Kiosk

The self-registration kiosk is a great tool to facilitate large footfall at exhibitions, events and other such activities. The self0registrastion kiosk is an integrated solution however, it can also work as a standalone system. The customers and visitors can reach to the self-registration kiosk and register for the event, exhibition, or any other purpose. As the name suggest the self-registration kiosk is used to facilitate the registration process. The kiosk is usually equipped with the required features that allow the customers to complete the sign up process. For example, the physical keyboard and track pads are common, however, the modern kiosks also utilize on-screen key-boards.

The self-registration kiosk can use multiple methods to validate the user data by integrating with the Emirates ID Card Reader, Passport Scanners, Barcode/QR Code scanners, etc. The self-registration kiosks are integrated with the customer data base or any other business tool. It can be integrated with the centralized information center to further improve the registration process. The self-registration kiosks are very good to help reducing the queues and the crowed formation at such events. It also help reducing the workload of the employees and improve their performance which enables businesses to reduce the cost and improve profitability.

See Also: The Future of Visitor Management: Digital Badge Kiosks

See Also: Enhancing Security and Efficiency with Visitor Badge Kiosks

Self-Registration Kiosk

7. Self-Service Airport Kiosks

The airports and mass transit facilities are with the high footfall and the crowed formation is common in such places. The crowed formation at airports cause several problems for the management and also harm the customer experience. For airports the customer experience and performance are the most crucial aspects of their progress and growth. Another big problem the airport management face is the efficient resource management. Everyone knows the airports experience could be frustrating for an average traveler, there could be delays, crowded waiting areas, too many formalities and multiple queues. This all add up to the traveler’s frustration and ruin their experience.

The self-service airport kiosk can help both airport and travelers to expedite the processes and help improving the customer experience. The travelers can utilize a self-service airport kiosk for boarding process. The kiosk can also dispense the boarding passes and can be very helpful in immigration process and other steps. The self-service airport kiosk are also compatible with other hardware and software accessories such as passport and ID card verification and authentication tools and they can be integrated with airline systems, booking services, and airport systems to improve the functionality and customer experience.

See Also: The Role of Check-in Kiosks in Transforming Airport Experiences

See Also: Future Trends in Airport Check-in Kiosk Technology

Self-Service Airport Kiosks

8. Self-Service Retail Checkout Kiosk

The retail industry is one of the most competitive industries in Dubai and in fact in the entire UAE the retail marketplace is very competitive, dynamic and evolving at a rapid pace. The purpose of self-service retail checkout kiosk is to provide customers instant service and improve their experience. The biggest cause of customer churn in the retail sector is the longer queues at the service counters which cause sales loss and also impact business reputation. The self-service retail checkout kiosk offer multi-lingual intuitive user interface which is also integrated with multiple payment methods and the reward programs. The retail kiosk comes with some basic hardware accessories such as barcode reader, QR Code scanner, RFID Scanner, weighing scale, etc.

The self-service retail kiosk allow customers to checkout without requiring any help from the cashiers. This can speed up the checkout process and it also gives customer more freedom and control. The self-service retail checkout kiosk is also linked with the inventory management system and POS system and automatically update the required databases. The self-service retail kiosks is a fully integrated solution which allow customers to print and scan the discount vouchers and access reward program easily. Furthermore the retail businesses can also run promotions and make announcements at the self-service kiosk to improve the communication with the customers.

See Also: The Role of Payment Kiosk in Streamlining Retail Transactions

See Also: Self-Service Kiosks in Retail: Revolutionizing the Shopping Experience

Self-Service Retail Checkout Kiosk

9. Self-Service HR Kiosk

The human resource (HR) is one of the most crucial business function. Its responsibility is to ensure the business have the right skills and technical workforce all the time. Their major tasks are hiring right talent, employee retention and better performance. The employee retention depends on the employee happiness and employee satisfaction. The HR offers a variety of services to the employees, for that the employees have to visit the HR office. Usually the footfall at HR offices is high, there is a lot of paper work involved in day-to-day tasks, and the employees have to wait a lot even for very basic services. That is why the HR departments utilize the interactive self-service HR kiosks to offer quick services to the employees and to make the service delivery mechanisms easy and convenient for employees.

In fact the self-service HR kiosk is equally beneficial for the HR staff as well. It help businesses digitalize most of the HR operations, reduce the footfall at HR offices, minimize the paper work and automate several services. The employees can print their salary slips, they can check their bonuses, over time, etc. Employees can update their documents, they can book appointment for the HR, they can apply for leaves, and they can manage their loans and much more. The self-service HR kiosk is the most efficient way to provide HR services to the employees who are working off campus and it also help employees who are visiting the HR office.

See Also: What is HRMS Self Service Kiosk?

See Also: Employee Self Service Kiosk (ESS Kiosk)

See Also: How HR Kiosks help managing the HR more efficiently?

Self-Service HR Kiosk

10. Self-Service Kiosks for Government & Public Offices

The government and public offices in Dubai and all around the UAE have literally transformed the administration in the region with intensive integration of digital solutions and offerings of e-Services. However, the government and public offices are the organization who still have very high footfall. This means that during peak hours an average customer might have to wait for extended period of time which have very negative impact on customer experience and happiness. The Government of the UAE focus a lot on customer happiness and satisfaction. The government is offering a variety of e-Services through online channels since more than a decade now.

The existing IT infrastructure of the UAE governments enabled them to immediately implement a vast variety of online services during the 2020 pandemic. In a few recent years we have also noticed a huge increase in the self-service kiosks at government and public offices. The government organizations are offering a multitude of services which include document processing, online registrations, payment, printing and scanning of documents, and much more. All these services are available to the customers without any delay, the self-service kiosks at government and public offices are offering instant services through multi-lingual interactive self-service kiosks which is also helping in reducing the workload of the service teams, and improving their performance.

See Also: How Self-Service Kiosk are Improving Customer Experience in Dubai, UAE?

See Also: Why Interactive Self-service Kiosks are the Ultimate Customer Experience Transformation Tool?

Self-Service Kiosks for Government & Public Offices

Emerging Online Self-Service Technologies

We have already discussed the most important and effective self-service technologies but here are a few more emerging online self-service technologies that are also gaining momentum. The online self-service platforms and channels are gaining popularity due to their more convenient and easier access and more flexibility. Here are a few top online self-service technologies:

  • Self-Service via Mobile Apps: The smartphone apps have proven to be the most successful channel in delivering customer services. The smartphone apps can offer a variety of features to the customers and help organizations and businesses offer a personalized experience to maximize the efficiency of the apps and customer satisfaction.
  • Online Customer Portals: The online customer portals are designed to organize and improve the communication and customer experience. The customer portals are usually online web-pages or web-apps that allow customers to interact with the business. Businesses can offer a variety of services via online customer portals with ease of access and convenience.
  • Chatbots and Auto-Answer: The chatbots and auto-answering call centers are a great self-service tools for modern customer service centers. Most of the time the customers have small enquiries and it is far more convenient for the customers to get support through these AI (artificial intelligence) based support tools and it also help improving the efficiency of the customer center.
  • Websites and FAQs: Obviously the websites and FAQs are not a new thing, however in past few years these channels emerged as a very efficient self-service technology. The gen-z and the most of the customers are very familiar with websites and online channels, they prefer to look up to the internet to find a solution before reaching out to a customer support/service center.

There are a lot of other self-service technologies that are also gaining popularity around the world. No matter what technology or platform businesses use but one thing is for sure they must have to focus on the digital customer experience and especially the self-service channels in 2023 and for many more coming years.

See Also: Integrating AI and Machine Learning in Self-Service Kiosks

Emerging Online Self-Service Technologies

Conclusion

The markets are evolving rapidly not only in the UAE but around the globe. The customer behavior is changing, their demands are increasing, and the market trends are also rapidly changing. In such circumstances the continuous evolution and the growth puts extra pressure on the businesses. The competitive markets and the skyrocketing customer demands increase the importance of the customer satisfaction. Businesses adopt and implement several technologies to achieve their short term and long term goals. The self-service technology is one of the most rapidly growing industry in Dubai and all around the UAE. The self-service technologies offer easy access and more freedom to the customers which help improving their experience and raise their satisfaction.

The self-service technologies also improve internal processes with the help of digitalization and automation. The self-service technologies are inexpensive, easy to design and deploy, have longer lifecycle and are easy to operate and maintain. That is why more and more businesses are adopting self-service technologies. RSI Concepts is a leading self-service solution provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design a customized self-service solution for you, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

See Also: How to create Customer Feedback Surveys for Product Development?

See Also: How Can Businesses Benefit From Self-Service Kiosks

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Best Features of People Counting Software

Best Features of People Counting Software

The people counting solutions are not new to the retail and service industry. Majorly it is the retail sector who utilize people counting solutions, however, public offices, mass transit, exhibitions and events management, facility managements, and government offices also utilize people counting solutions. In the beginning the people counting solutions were started as a manual processes, later replaced by basic technology devices which calculate the people entering or leaving a premises. Then over the time the technology have become more complex and the data become more accurate.

However, with the traditional people counting sensors and devices such as IR Sensors, Ultra Sonic Sensors, Thermal Cameras and dedicated people counting cameras have very low accuracy rate of around 80% to 90%. The biggest problems with the dedicated people counting sensors and cameras devices is that they have to be installed separately and require maintenance and management and on top of everything the deployment cost is also very high.

See Also: Crowd Fever Screening Thermal Camera

Best Features of People Counting Software

What is People Counting Software?

The people counting software is unlike any traditional people counting solution as it doesn’t require any dedicated hardware device. The people counting software is built on AI (artificial intelligence) based smart image processing algorithms which enables it to get direct video feeds from the CCTV surveillance cameras and process them to extract people counting, customer behavior and other analytical data. The biggest advantage of the people counting software is that it doesn’t require any additional hardware, which significantly reduce the initial cost and furthermore it is based on smart object identification algorithms which can distinguishes between the human and non-human objects and increase the system accuracy to up to 96%.

The highly accurate data and additional features make people counting software superior than any other existing people counting solution. Moreover the businesses can also link all branches and integrate the people counting software with any other third-party tool or database.

See Also: Complete Guide to People Counting System in 2022

What is People Counting Software?

Here are the Best Features of People Counting Software

The businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are rapidly adopting people counting software. There are several different solutions available in the market, however, only a few of them are offering great value in terms of cost and features. Here are some key features of people counting software that are very helpful for businesses:

Real-Time Footfall Count and Analytics

The AI (artificial intelligence) powered people counting software has highly sophisticated and smart image processing algorithms which enables it to collect customer footfall data from the live feeds of the CCTV security cameras. The smart software engine has highly advanced object identification mechanisms which enables it to distinguish between human and non-human objects. All these features help increase the accuracy, in fact the people counting software is proven to be the most accurate people counting solution ever.

Traditionally the people counting systems significantly reduce the accuracy of the data when the footfall increase. This is due to the limitation of the hardware sensors that are used to measure the people count, furthermore the calibration for such dedicated sensors could also affect accuracy. The occupancy level or the footfall count data of a people counting software is highly accurate with the accuracy of around 95% to 98% with a much wider coverage area and better capabilities to handle the large influx. All this people counting analytical data is available in real-time and also stored in the system for later use.

See Also: How and why Retail Store should use People Counting Software?

Real-Time Footfall Count and Analytics

No Need of Dedicated Devices and Sensors

One of the biggest advantage of the people counting software is that it doesn’t require any dedicated hardware device or sensor. That is very important for both small and large businesses, as installing new hardware devices is a complicated task, it has additional cost, it requires additional maintenance and management. Traditionally the people counting solutions requires different types of sensors and hardware devices, each technology have different coverage areas and different installation protocols, sometimes businesses have to install multiple devices in order to meet the coverage needs.

Furthermore it is not just the people count that is important for a modern business, in fact it needs a lot more to effectively improve its product positioning, marketing campaigns and overall operations. The people counting software doesn’t require any additional device or dedicated sensor, in fact it can be integrated with the existing CCTV security network and it turns all cameras into very powerful and accurate sensors for the system which enables it to collect a wealth of analytical data for businesses.

See Also: Best Features of People Counting Software

No Need of Dedicated Devices and Sensors

Collect Visitors’ Demographic Data

Collecting visitors’ demographic data is one of the best feature of the people counting software. No other traditional people counting solution can collect customers’ demographic data. The people counting software’s AI based advanced image processing algorithms can process the CCTV feed in real-time and can easily identify a visitor’s age group and gender such as kids, adults, elderly people, male, female, etc. This data is a treasure trove, especially for modern retail industry.

Businesses and organizations can gain a great competitive advantage with having visitors’ demographic data. This data help them catering the customers’ needs by offering them better products, services and it also help improving the marketing campaigns. The demographics data help businesses acquire a better understanding of their visitors and help them build their future strategies accordingly. Businesses can also base their marketing campaign, inventory management, resource planning and other operational activities based on the visitors’ demographic data.

See Also: People Counting System to Optimize Mall Operations

Collect Visitors’ Demographic Data

Get Heat Map Analysis Data

The heat map analysis data is one of the crucial part of a modern AI based people counting software. The heat map is basically a full record of customer movement within the premises, it highlights how the customers and visitors are moving within the premises. The customer movement is tracked and recorded in a very intuitive way which is called heat mapping, the heat map shows different concentration of people in different colors and overlay that information on a floor plan of the premises which enable the management to understand the customers’ movement within the premises.

The data is highly accurate and tells management how customers and visitors are moving, which routes they are taking and which areas are getting more customer attentions, etc. It help management identify the popular and unpopular sections of the retail store or the premises and help them improve their inventory management strategy. The heat map data is also helpful in resource planning and help improving the marketing campaigns and overall operation of the business.

See Also: People Counting System: Heatmap Analysis & Customer Churn Rate

Get Heat Map Analysis Data

Monitor Customer Dwell Time

Another remarkable feature of a modern AI based people counting software is the ability to monitor customer dwell time. The customer dwell time is the time that any customer spent in any particular region or spot within the premises. The dwell time is a very crucial matric it tells management which products, areas or spots are popular among the customers and let them understand why people are spending more time in those areas and regions. The customer dwell time is calculated continuously and it is visually overlapped the floor plan of the premises which further help the management to easily understand it.

The management can improve their marketing strategies, inventory management, internal arrangements, resource planning and the entire operation based on this data. For large premises and even open venues the customer dwell time is a very crucial matric to understand customer behavior. Customer tend to spend more time in places or in front of products which they find interesting or appealing, and vice versa. The customer dwell time can significantly improve the understanding of the customer behavior.

See Also: Advantages of People Counting Technology for Shopping Malls

Monitor Customer Dwell Time

Monitor Customer Churn Rate

The customer churn rate is one of the most important matric for the businesses. Because the customer churn could also cause a huge sales loss. The customer churn rate is basically the measurement of the number of customers who visited the businesses but left without making any transaction. There could be several reasons, such as they might not find what they were looking for, they were just window shoppers, or they felt the counters are too busy. Usually it is the queue at the counter which cause the rise in customer churn and it is due to poor resource management or simply too much customer influx.

It is important to understand and address the actual cause of the customer churn because these customers are genuine opportunities that a business is missing out and these opportunities can have a huge impact on the overall sales. The people counting software help businesses understand the customer churn rate. It can be integrated with the POS or the financial/sales system and the number of people arrived can be compared with the number of sales to measure the customer churn. Furthermore the heat map analysis and customer dwell time also help understanding the causes of the customer churn.

See Also: The Role of Check-in Kiosks in Transforming Airport Experiences

Monitor Customer Churn Rate

Improve Marketing Campaigns

The marketing is one of the most crucial aspect of any business. It assures the success and failure and could have huge impact on the overall performance of the business. Businesses use a variety of different methods for marketing. Some businesses place digital signs, offers and promotions at their premises along with digital marketing and other traditional marketing campaigns. Basically the purpose of each marketing effort is to increase the customer footfall.

The customer footfall tend to be directly proportion to the sales. As many visitors a business will have as much sales they will make. That is why businesses invest huge amount of resources and revenue in the marketing efforts. The people counting software can help businesses evaluate and asses the success of their marketing efforts. Businesses can easily identify a slight increase or decrease in the footfall and they can compare it with the sales data to understand the actual impact of the marketing campaign.

See Also: The Future of Visitor Management: Digital Badge Kiosks

Improve Marketing Campaigns

The in store efforts can be scrutinized by analyzing customer behavior and interest in the content and the digital or other traditional marketing campaigns can be evaluated by measuring the increase in the sales and footfall. Businesses can closely monitor the people counting software data while making changes and fine tuning their marketing campaigns to maximize the efficiency. The customer footfall count, the customer dwell time and the heat map analysis can offer a wealth of valuable business intelligence data which not only help businesses evaluating the existing marketing campaigns but also help them build their future marketing campaigns.

For example, if a digital sign is installed, businesses can monitor how many people spend time in front of it, or how many people take a different route to approach that digital sign. If the business have started a social media marketing campaign, they can monitor the campaign’s impact on the footfall and sales. Thus the people counting software is also very helpful in making your marketing campaigns more effective and impactful.

See Also: Enhancing Security and Efficiency with Visitor Badge Kiosks

Improve Marketing Campaigns

Monitor and Improve Employee Performance

It is important for businesses and organizations to ensure excellent customer experience. Which is impossible without efficient resource management and optimum employee performance. The people counting software is capable to distinguishing the employees from visitors, it can detect and identify employees with 100% accuracy. The people counting software monitor and track employee movements within the premises. It capture their dwell time and also provide heat map analysis. This enable the management to understand which employee is spending how much time in most productive areas and what can be done to improve the productivity.

Businesses can compare their employee positions during the peak hours and drive better strategies to improve employee performance throughout the day. Furthermore the business management can also make future plan to improve resource management strategies which results in better employee performance. The management can also plan service and other activities accordingly to further enhance employee performance during the peak hours and normal day to day operations.

See Also: Integrating AI in Payment Kiosks for Enhanced User Experience

Monitor and Improve Employee Performance

Have a Centralized Monitoring System

The people counting software is a very powerful tool. It comes with a main server side core application, which is hosted on a server, either online or in local data center. This allow the businesses to connect all the branches with the people counting system. Furthermore the people counting system comes with intuitive dashboard interface to monitor and view analytical data of the system. The head office can view all the connected branches and it can also assign local branch managers for each branch with limited visibility. It means that the branch manager will be able to view the data from their branch only or if more than one branches are under that manager they will be able to view that data too.

However, the head office management will be able to view the data form all connected branches. This help establishing a centralized monitoring and management structure which not only increase the effectiveness of the system but also improve the decision making capabilities of the senior management.

See Also: The Impact of Real-Time Feedback on Customer Experience

Have a Centralized Monitoring System

Easy Deployment and Scalability

The people counting software is a server based application which means that all its algorithms and processes are done on a server. All the source code is deployed on a server which allow businesses to deploy the system in their local data center or at a cloud or at an online hosting platform. This also enable the people counting software to offer centralized management system and also offer better security and performance. The initial cost of the system is also relatively lower as the system doesn’t require any additional hardware to install and also doesn’t require IT infrastructure at each branch. The people counting software doesn’t require much maintenance in fact and if is hosted in a hosting or at a cloud, then most of the maintenance is taken care by the service provider.

Furthermore adding more system users, branches and increasing the coverage area is also simple and doesn’t have any additional cost. Once the business acquire the system they are free to connect more branches only just a small cost of integrating more branches might be applied. That is why the operational and maintenance cost of the people counting software is very low and the ROI is excellent.

See Also: Why Shopping Malls in Dubai Need a Footfall Analytical Tool?

Easy Deployment and Scalability

Conclusion

The modern day marketplace is heavily driven by the data and information. The business who can collect valuable business intelligence data tend to outperform businesses who are still following traditional practices. For businesses the customer experience is a crucial aspect of their day to day operations. A happy customer experience means the customers will return and if they are more satisfied they will recommend your brand to others as well. An unhappy experience means the customer might never return to your business and they could also share negative remarks about your brand.

Although the digital marketing have taken over the traditional marketing but the word of mouth is still a key component for brand image building. Although with the digital channels and platforms such as social media and the online reviews the customers can still share their opinion about the brand in the online world. The people counting software is one of the most effective technological solution for the modern problems and needs of a business.

See Also: What is wayfinding software and why is it important?

The people counting software is far superior to any traditional footfall counting technology. It doesn’t require any additional hardware device or sensor, in fact it convert your existing CCTV security cameras into very powerful sensors. The AI (artificial intelligence) based algorithms and the powerful software engine can not only accurately measure the footfall but it can also collect a wealth of analytical data that can help business identify the problems in the customer journey, help them understand customer behavior, demographics and much more.

It also help them in improving many processes such as the marketing, inventory management, resource planning and the entire operations of the business. RSI Concepts is a leading people counting software provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to deploy a highly effective and cost-efficient people counting software for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

See Also: How Small Businesses Can Utilize People Counting Solutions?

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Best Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022

Best Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022

The customer feedback is an extremely important part of a business strategy. It is absolutely essential for customer satisfaction and customer happiness. The customer satisfaction drives customer loyalty, and the customer loyalty is crucial for customer retention. The customer retention helps business grow. Studies have shown that acquiring a new customers can be 5 to 25 times more expensive than selling to an existing customer. Obviously different industries have different dynamics, but one thing is certain that acquiring a new customers is much more expensive than selling to an existing customer.

A customer will only make a purchase again if their previous experience was satisfactory. The businesses who tend to grow each year are most likely to have an excellent strategy to listen to the voice of the customers. Because the customers understand your products and services better than you. Getting their opinion will help you understand what customers are liking and what they are not appreciating about your products and services. That is why the customer feedback plays a crucial role in improving customer satisfaction.

See Also: Cons of Manual/Handwritten Customer Feedback

Best Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022

When it comes to the customer feedback business in Dubai and all around the UAE are well-aware of its importance, however, some of the business take it more seriously than the rest. There are several methods and techniques that are used to integrate the customer feedback in the decision making process. Whenever a business requires to collect customer feedback they appoint a manager for the project. Usually it is customer experience manager who take responsibility to building a customer feedback strategy and executing the plan.

However, not each campaign produce equal results for all businesses. This is due to the difference between the methodologies and practices that a business follow to execute a customer feedback campaign. Obviously each business is different from the other, different methods and techniques produce different results in different industries. In this blog we will discuss the key component of a customer feedback campaign which are universal across all industries and can greatly help the customer experience manager to produce the desired results from the campaign.

See Also: Why Your Business Needs a Customer Feedback System?

What is Customer Feedback in 2022?

By definition the customer feedback is listening to their voice or taking their opinion about the business, its products/services and every interaction which can help the businesses to understand the strength of their relationship with the customer and help them identifying the causes that can improve or weaken this relationship. Basically the customer feedback is the customer’s prospective of the business. The customer feedback is technically the same thing in 2022 as it was from the time of beginning. However, there are some fundamental differences in a modern day feedback which have completely evolved the customer feedback in 2022.

Now a day’s business have to have a better plan and strategy to achieve the goals of the customer feedback collection campaign. Another huge difference between the old-school or traditional customer feedback and the modern customer feedback is the digitalization and it expands to both internal and external audiences. Furthermore the traditional customer feedback campaign was a manual process, however, the modern customer feedback campaign is a semi-automatic and highly efficient digital process.

See Also: The Impact of Real-Time Feedback on Customer Experience

What is Customer Feedback in 2022?

How to Develop a Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022?

The customer feedback strategy involves research, planning and execution of collecting customer feedback data and then integrating it in decision making processes to take appropriate actions. This may sound simple but it is not. Every business strives for the best, the evaluation and improvement is a continuous process in healthy business environments. The businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE conduct two distinguished types of feedback campaigns, the internal feedback and the external feedback. The internal feedback is a major part of the performance management strategy and it is a completely different topic altogether.

In this blog we will only discuss the customer feedback which comes under external feedback however, in case of service-based industries the customer feedback also includes feedback about employee performance, which is majorly related to their interaction with the customers. Before we jump into steps of making a customer feedback strategy it is important to understand what are the purposes of collecting customer feedback? Because the objectives and goals of the customer feedback will largely determine the customer feedback strategy.

See Also: What is Multichannel Customer Feedback and Why it is so Important?

How to Develop a Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022?

  • Make Improvements: No matter how good your sales are and how many subscribers your services have, there would always be a room for improvements. The marketplace is rapidly changing in Dubai and all around UAE. The customer feedback will tell you how well your products and services serve your customers and what else can be done to increase their satisfaction.
  • Gain Competitive Advantage: If a business managed to align its decisions and strategies with its customers, it can gain a great competitive advantage. All competitors offer relevant solutions, the competitive analysis is a great strategy but it is the customer feedback which can tell you what you are offering or can offer to be better than the other competitors.
  • Make Informed Decisions: Sometimes the managers and stakeholders make decisions based on their own experience and they make assumptions or take guesses of what the customer might be wanting. The success rate of such decisions is relatively low and the risk is too high. However, the customer feedback data help businesses make informed decisions.
  • Be More Reactive: The market trends change very quickly, this demand businesses to be more reactive to keep up with the changes in the market trends and customer behavior. The customer feedback will keep you informed such as if certain features of your products are outdated, or has been replaced with more advanced features, of if there is defect in the product, etc.
  • Improve Product Development: Estimated the ROI for any new product or service is crucial for a business. The customer feedback can help businesses build customer-friendly and most desirable products and services. Businesses can get customer response about several features they are considering to propose in the new product to make the product development process effective.
  • Improve Service Quality: The service quality is one of the most important aspect of the customer satisfaction. The customer feedback provide an in-depth understanding of the customer service and help businesses identifying the causes of negative customer feedback. Which can be rectified gradually to improve the customer service quality.
  • Improve Customer Experience: The customer journey and customer experience have huge impact on business’s sales. The customer feedback data help businesses highlight the areas of improvements and enable them to enhance the customer experience. A good customer experience means more customer satisfaction and higher loyalty.
  • Improve Customer Relationship: When businesses ask customers about their opinion the customers feel more connected and feel how important they are for the business. The closed-loop customer feedback strengthen the customer relationship as it tells customers that the business take actions on their suggestions and feedback.

See Also: 11 Customer Feedback Examples for Business Success

How to Develop a Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022?

The customer feedback can be very helpful in improving almost all business functions and help them achieve higher efficiency. The customer feedback strategy starts with a goal in mind, the goal could be new product development, product feature feedback, customer service improvement, customer journey and customer experience improvement, etc. The business first have to understand what they want to achieve with the customer feedback.

For example, their one of the most popular product’s sales start declining, then they must have to evaluate that product to understand what are the causes of the reduction in sales. If they have implemented a new method for customer service, but their sales start declining, then they must have to evaluate what went bad with their new method and so on. This is how the business should set a goal and purpose of collecting customer feedback data. Hence the customer feedback strategy starts with setting up goals.

See Also: Key Features of a Customer Feedback System

Here are the key component of the customer feedback strategy:

  • Setting up goals and objectives of the customer feedback campaign
  • Determine what information do you need to acquire from the customers
  • Define the targeted audience who will provide you that information
  • Chose right channels to conduct customer feedback campaign
  • Select an appropriate digital customer feedback system
  • Develop analysis and reporting mechanisms to get an actionable outcome of the feedback data
  • Plan and implement the closed-loop customer feedback collection process

How to Develop a Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022?

The customer feedback strategy is incomplete without discussing the different types of customer feedback. The customer feedback types are defined on the bases of data it can collect. The raw customer feedback data is analyzed by several analytical methods which help determining the conclusive results of the customer feedback data. It is important that the customer feedback data is both quantitative and qualitative. The quantity of the feedback will provide in-depth understanding and the quality of the data will increase the success rate of the decisions made using the data.

For example, you have 1000 customers, if you collect feedback from 30 or 40 customers only, you might not be able to understand how all of the customers might think, however, if you manage to collect customer feedback from at least 300 to 400 customers out of 1000, than the quality of the data would be significantly high. That is why the quantity of the feedback is so important. Furthermore the quality of the data depends not only on quantity but also on the questionnaire you design and the analysis you perform. For example, too long surveys led to incorrect responses as the customers want to complete it as quickly as possible.

See Also: Leveraging Customer Feedback System for Business Growth

How to Develop a Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022?

Here are some commonly used types of customer feedback surveys in Dubai and all around the UAE.

  • Customer Loyalty or NPS Score: The customer loyalty surveys or NPS Score (net promoter score) is a measurement of the customer loyalty. It basically asks customer how likely they are to recommend your business, products or services to others and their response provide the customer loyalty measurement.
  • Customer Satisfaction or CSAT Score: The customer satisfaction feedback or CSAT Score is a measurement of customer satisfaction. These surveys ask questions about how happy or satisfied customers are about the products, services they use or the experience and the interaction they had with the business.
  • Demographics Data: The customer demographic data is crucial to understand customer persona. Most of the time businesses doesn’t focus much on the demographic data but it is critically important. It help businesses categorize different audience groups and target communication to maximize the customer happiness.
  • Customer Effort or CES Score: The customer effort score or CES score is a simple measurement of the efforts a customer put to complete a task. The CES Score is used normally to assess the customer journey or a particular interaction. For example, how easy or difficult is was to upload the documents via self-service kiosk?
  • Customer Service Feedback: The customer service feedback is aimed to evaluate the sales, service and support teams. When a customer have an interaction with the staff the surveys is designed to understand how it was and how the interaction can be improved for future. It is a great way to evaluate employee performance.

These surveys are most common as they produce the highly accurate and organized data which help businesses to take informed decision and make improvements which help them gain higher customer satisfaction, enable them to strengthen the relationship with the customers and help them to grow.

See Also: Importance of Customer Feedback Tool for Small Business Owners

How to Develop a Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022?

Collecting the customer feedback data will help you understand the perception of your customers about your brand and it will help you evaluate your business practices, processes, products/services and much more. However, that is just the half part of it, the other half is to analyze the feedback, extract actionable reports from it and then take action. Taking action on the customer feedback means you make changes, adopt to new practices and methodologies or you develop new products and services or make changes to existing products and services to ensure maximum customer satisfaction.

The original purpose of the customer feedback is to make changes, identify problem and areas of improvements and improve to align your business with customer’s demands, needs, desires and expectations. Most of the time businesses reached to this point, however, a majority of the businesses never follow up or inform customers about the actions they took by inspiring from their suggestions and feedback. That is what is called closing the loop. Collecting customer feedback, analyzing and categorizing it, taking action on the bases of the customer feedback data and then informing the customers about those actions.

See Also: Importance of Customer Feedback System in Public Sector UAE

How to Develop a Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022?

One of the most important part of customer feedback strategy is the selection of right channels to reach out to the targeted audience. There are several ways businesses can reach out to the customers and targeted audience groups to ask them about their opinion. Traditionally businesses assign some staff to ask all customers and visitors to fill-in customer feedback forms. However, in Dubai and all around the UAE the lifestyle is very fast-paced, in fact all around the world an average consumer wants to leave the business as quickly as they have finished their transaction/purchase.

Then there are other problems with traditional practices such as manual feedback results in a lot of bugs during the data upload, on top of that the analysis becomes difficult and the overall quality of the data is reduced. That is why the digital customer feedback surveys are used, they offer multiple channels to reach out to the customers and help gathering high quality, well-organized and structured customer feedback data. Furthermore the quantity of the data is also high as it is way easier to attempt a survey via digital mediums than doing it on a printed feedback form.

See Also: Importance of Customer Feedback Collection for Beauty Salons

How to Develop a Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022?

The modern day customer feedback campaigns are managed by a digital customer feedback system. The digital customer feedback system is software tool which can be linked to multiple channels such as interactive touch screens, tablets, self-service kiosks, corporate website, customer portals, emails, SMS, QR Code based links, social media, etc. The digital customer feedback system collects customer feedback and automatically store it in the database, which allow managers to perform several analysis with in-built analytical tools and prepare customized reports.

The modern customer feedback system can be integrated with several other internal databases, business tools and central information center and make the entire process digital and semi-autonomous. This help reducing the efforts and resources for the customer feedback campaign and reduce the cost. Furthermore the ability to link multiple channels help businesses get a better insight. The customers also feel more comfortable while sharing their opinion through a digital channel.

Traditionally the customers try to sugarcoat their responses as they are directly interacting with the staff, however, with the digital customer feedback system the customers tend to be more honest and blunt which raise the quality of the data.

See Also: What are the best devices to be used for Customer Feedback?

How to Develop a Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022?

The digital customer feedback system offers several benefits such as:

  • It reduce the time, efforts and cost to set up and execute a customer feedback campaign
  • It collects data in highly organized and structured formats which make analysis easier
  • It offers in-built analysis tools and customizable reporting formats as per the needs, business can learn customer and market trends with in-built tools and the reports can automatically be shared to the relevant personal via email along with dashboard notifications and alerts
  • Businesses can easily modify the customer feedback survey questions remotely via administrative control panel and all the changes can be pushed to all or selective touch points
  • It can integrate multiple channels to collect customer feedback
  • It offers freedom and comfort hence the customers tend to be more honest with their opinion
  • Businesses can launch multiple different surveys simultaneously
  • A central management administrative module allow head office to monitor all connected branches and it also provide different administrative hierarchies and support internal work flows
  • The customer feedback system can be linked with sales system, customer database, customer relationship management system, complaint portal and any other system to automatically send customer feedback surveys to the customers after their interaction
  • Businesses can trigger alerts and notifications on any particular event, such as if the daily feedback got more than 10% negative feedbacks the branch manager and head office should be notified, etc.
  • The customer feedback system help businesses closing the feedback loop by providing dedicated features and follow up facilities within the system

See Also: 8 Proven Practices for Successful Customer Feedback Management

How to Develop a Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022?

These are the key advantages of using a digital customer feedback system. When it comes to the customer feedback system there are two major categories of feedback systems, one is the commercial off-the-shelf software or COTS and the other is the customized software development. The COTS are easy to deploy, slightly less initial cost, but mostly couldn’t fulfill the 100% needs of the business. The customized software development on the other hand is a very flexible approach to design and deploy a customer feedback system.

The customized customer feedback systems are tailor-made as per the business needs and offer high flexibility. The initial cost is slightly higher thou but the overall ROI is much better comparing to the commercial off-the-shelf customer feedback system solutions. That is why most of the businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE prefer to have a customized customer feedback system. The customized software development also offer more freedom and control over the software and make scalability, integration and upgrade much simpler and cost-efficient which is why its ROI is higher than the COTS.

See Also: Overcoming Challenges in Customer Feedback Collection and Management

How to Develop a Customer Feedback Strategy in 2022?

Conclusion

The customer feedback is extremely important for any business to survive and grow in the modern day marketplace. The Dubai and all around the UAE the markets are very dynamic, vibrant and fast-paced. The customer trends can shift over the night and the tougher competition is also a big challenge. The customer feedback provides business with the required information that help them deal with such circumstances. It offers a window to the customers’ minds and help businesses understand their needs, demands, desires and expectations. Furthermore the customer feedback is also a great tool to analyze and evaluate business practices, methodologies and performance of the customer facing processes and resources.

An effective customer feedback campaign is impossible without an effective customer feedback strategy. In this blog we have briefly discussed the customer feedback strategy and all important aspects of a successful customer feedback collection campaign. RSI Concepts is a leading customer feedback system provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to develop a highly cost-efficient and effective customer feedback system for you, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the below comment box and we will get in touch with you soon.

See Also: How to create Customer Feedback Surveys for Product Development?

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How Small Businesses Can Utilize People Counting Solutions?

The small businesses and medium size enterprises are always the lifeline of any economy. Here in UAE the SMEs account for 94% of the total operations and generate 60% of the GDP. That shows the small and medium size businesses are flourishing in the country. The small businesses are also important for a country as they are majorly responsible for producing the workforce for the country. The UAE government is very supportive for SMEs and have favorable policies for small and local businesses which is one of the main reason of such a staggering growth. The 73% of the SMEs in the country operate in retail and wholesale sector according to The United Arab Emirates’ Government Portal.

The Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and in fact the entire UAE is a very favorable market landscape for the small businesses operating in the retail sector. This means there is a lot of room to grow which also means that the market would be very competitive. The favorable market conditions always attract more investors which raise the competition. Small businesses can beat the competition by improving the customer experience and happiness and by making smart strategies for their sales and marketing campaigns.

How Small Businesses Can Utilize People Counting Solutions?

The retail industry has become very complex over the time, the market trends have been changed, the customer behavior and expectations got changed, the e-Commerce industry is rapidly growing in the UAE and the competition is also increasing day by day. This demand retail businesses to find innovative ways to improve the customer experience, raise customer satisfaction, upgrade their sales and marketing strategies and take a proactive approach to manage their operations. The modern age business environment is heavily digitalized and driven by analytical data.

Businesses who made informed decisions tend to have higher success rate than the businesses who are still following the traditional methods to operate. The people counting solution is a very powerful analytical tool which can make a huge difference and provide businesses with enough data and information at which they can form innovative strategies and improve their productivity and performance to yield higher profitability. In this blog we will discuss what a people counting solution is and how it can be a game changer for small businesses.

See Also: Best Features of People Counting Software

How Small Businesses Can Utilize People Counting Solutions?

What is a People Counting Solution?

The people counting solution is basically a technological solution to count the footfall at any venue. The people counting technology was introduced by the retail sector, as it is very important for the businesses to understand the customer behavior and footfall counts. The beginning of the people counting solution was manual but sooner technology is added to improve the efficiency. The earlier people counting solutions were based on laser light or infrared sensors, which were installed at the entrances of the retail store. As soon as someone enters the continuity of the laser light disrupted which indicates one entry in the store.

However, these sensors were not accurate enough. Later on as the technology progressed, we witnessed more and much better people counting sensing technologies such as ultrasonic sensors, infrared cameras with higher resolution and a few other. The modern day people counting system is an AI (artificial intelligence) powered smart software based system which can take the CCTV camera feeds as inputs and process the video in real-time to compute the footfall with higher accuracy. It not only calculate the footfall but it also collects a wealth of valuable analytical data which can help retail businesses to improve their operations, sales and marketing tactics.

See Also: Complete Guide to People Counting System

What is a People Counting Solution?

What are the Benefits of People Counting Solution for Small Businesses?

For any small business or medium size retail outlet the customer happiness is the top priority. They are eager to find ways to improve customer experience and service quality at their retail stores. Another bigger problem that most retail stores and small businesses face is the customer churn rate. It is majorly due to the long waiting lines and the second reason is people can’t easily navigate within the premises to reach to the right product they need. All these factors cause unhappiness and stress among your customers. If customers failed to find the relevant product, or if they will have to wait for long at the counters, they are most likely to avoid such business in future. Which could deprive you from valuable sales and revenue.

The retail stores and small businesses must understand the natural people flow within their premises and they need to understand the behavior and needs of preferences of the customers in order to cater their needs and expectations. In this blog we will discuss how a modern people counting solution can help retail sector and small businesses to deal with the most common and damaging problems they face.

See Also: How and why Retail Store should use People Counting Software?

What are the Benefits of People Counting Solution for Small Businesses?

People Counting Solution Accurately Calculates Customer Footfall

The customer footfall data is very important it provide small businesses a chance to relate it with their sales and understand the impact of strategies and actions they are taking to improve the operations of the business. The traditional people counting solutions are not accurate, they can get overwhelmed easily when the footfall increases and they provide very limited data. However, a modern AI (artificial intelligence) based people counting solution is far more accurate and it can capture tons of other details which help small businesses to based their strategies and planning upon accurate analytical data and matrices.

The people counting solution is based on smart image processing algorithms which can integrate with any CCTV camera feeds and process the video input in real-time to collect a wealth of analytical data and count footfall with almost 99% of accuracy. The smart image processing and object identification algorithms can accurately distinguishes between human and non-human objects. Moreover the modern AI based people counting solution can also identify the gender and age group of the customers with high accuracy. This data is very helpful in planning and strategy making processes.

See Also: Advantages of People Counting Technology for Shopping Malls

People Counting Solution Accurately Calculates Customer Footfall

People Counting Solution Offers Heat Map Analysis

One of the biggest advantage of the modern people counting system is its heat amp analysis. The AI based algorithms process the CCTV camera feed in real-time. This enables the system to track the movements of the customers within the premises. The smart software engine is capable of monitoring the customer flow all the time and it can process it into analytical data which can be overlapped on a 2D/3D floor plan to show visual representation of the customer flow with standard heat map color code, where the red shows the most traffic and the blue shows the least traffic or no traffic.

This might sound complicated but the retail store manager or branch manager can understand the entire customers flow with just one glance on the dashboard. Tracking the customer movement within the premises allow the branch managers to clearly understand which areas are the most visited and which areas failed to attract customers. This allow them to further analyze the reasons of customer attraction and help them build strategies to maximize the customer interest throughout the store and help them boost sales.

See Also: People Counting System: Heatmap Analysis & Customer Churn Rate

People Counting Solution Offers Heat Map Analysis

People Counting Solution Monitor Customer Dwell Time

The customer dwell time is a measurement of time spend by any customer in a particular area. The customer dwell time monitoring is crucial for the small businesses and retails stores. It help management understand where customers like to spend more time and which areas or zones of their premises are more captivating than others. The people counting solution has in-built AI based smart image processing and object tracking algorithms which enables it to detect the movements of the customers within the premises and also enable it to accurately calculate the dwell time of the customers in any particular region.

The customer dwell time data can also be displayed in visual representation which makes it more understandable. The people counting solution can show the customer dwell time data on the 2D/3D floor plan of the business premises. This data help businesses understand how customers are responding to different products, brands, offers, and inventory management strategies. This understanding enable businesses to rectify problems and fine tune their strategies to maximize the outcome.

See Also: What is wayfinding software and why is it important?

People Counting Solution Monitor Customer Dwell Time

People Counting Solution Help Improving the Marketing Outcome

For any small business or retail store the marketing is a key factor that contributes to its success. Businesses tend to utilize several different marketing channels along with in-store marketing techniques to boost the revenue. For example a small business have installed a new digital signage which is running adverts, promotions and offers to attract more customers. With the help of people counting system the management can understand how effective that move was. They can compare the footfall before and after installing the signage.

Furthermore if they have installed a signage inside the store to attract customers to particular areas, the heat map can help them understand its effectiveness. Similarly businesses also use digital marketing and other traditional marketing techniques to increase the footfall. For example the businesses started a digital marketing campaign and they are monitoring the campaign analytics as well as the footfall, they can easily understand the effectiveness of the campaign. The people counting solution can provide highly accurate data which help businesses maximize the outcome of their marketing campaigns.

See Also: What is a Self Service Kiosk? Here’s All You Need to Know

People Counting Solution Help Improving the Marketing Outcome

People Counting Solution Help Understanding Customer Persona

For any business it is extremely important to understand who their customers are? What they like? What they don’t like? What they expect from the business? And so on. The customer persona by definition means a profile or characterization of a particular user group. For example, all males from the age of 20 to 40 preferred to buy a particular shoe type. That is a persona or a group who is buying a particular shoe type and they are also most likely to buy more similar shoe designs in future. That is just an example, for a small business or retail store the customer persona is a much deeper understanding of customers, their behavior, purchase pattern and more.

The people counting solution is based or highly advanced AI based image processing algorithms which allow it to accurately identify the gender of the customers and visitors along with their age group. It can easily distinguishes between kids, young adults and elderly people. This information help small businesses and retails stores to understand the behavior, preferences and purchase patters of different customer groups and enable them to target each group differently to produce better results.

See Also: What are the Features of a Best Self-Service Payment Kiosk Software?

People Counting Solution Help Understanding Customer Persona

People Counting Solution Help Improving Employee Performance

Another great advantage of the people counting solution is that it can also track and monitor employee performance. For any small business or retail store the employee performance and better resource planning is crucial. The employee happiness and satisfaction depends on employee performance. That is why the management is always eager to improve it. The people counting system can identify the employees and it can distinguishes between the employee and other visitors/customers. This allow it to compile separate analytical reports and data for the employees.

It can track employees’ movements, it can accurately record their dwell time at any location in store and it can generate a full heat map of their entire movements of the day. Such information help the management to understand how the employees are behaving, where they are spending more time, how they were handling different levels of footfall and much more. Thus the management can build a better resource planning strategy to maximize the employee performance and engagement.

See Also: What is HRMS Self Service Kiosk?

See Also: Employee Self Service Kiosk (ESS Kiosk)

People Counting Solution Help Improving Employee Performance

People Counting Solution Offers Centralized Management

Most of the small businesses and retail stores can have several branches at several different locations. However, the top management usually resides at the head-office or main branch. The people counting solution offer centralized management which enables the businesses to connect all the branches and monitor the real-time data at a centralized location, whether the head-office or main branch. This help the higher management to get quick updates about any branch and allow them to take instant actions to improve the performance. Furthermore the centralized management also allow businesses to integrate the people counting solution with other third-party system, business tools or ERP solutions.

This is achieved using secure APIs which enable the people counting solution to communicate with the other system and send or receive data to and from that system. This allow the people counting solution to provide analytical data to other systems. For example, if the business is using an ERP and they want to have all the data at the ERP, they can have it by integrating the people counting system with the ERP via API integration methods. This improve management’s visibility, vision, control and management capabilities.

See Also: Leveraging Customer Feedback System for Business Growth

People Counting Solution Offers Centralized Management

Conclusion

Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the small businesses and retail sector is rapidly growing which is good for businesses, but the rapid growth also caused tougher competition. Now a days the customers have tons of options, if a small business or retail store failed to satisfy them then the customers will leave and they might never come back. That is why it is extremely important that the business cater to their needs. For that businesses need to gather important business intelligence data which can provide them better understanding of the customer behavior, customer journey, their inventory management strategy, employee performance and other matrices.

The people counting solution is a best companion for small businesses and retail stores. It can accurately measure the footfall count, it provides heat map analysis, it can track customer journey and movement within the premises and it can also monitor employees. The data gathered from a people counting solution helps improving strategies and management which results in better customer experience and efficient operation.

RSI Concepts is a leading people counting solution provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you deploy a highly cost-efficient and customized people counting solution at your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

See Also: People Counting System to Optimize Mall Operations

Posted in People Counting Software | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

How to create Customer Feedback Surveys for Product Development?

For any business it is extremely important to delight its customer with its products, services and customer experience. Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE know very well how important it is to satisfy your customers. Happy and satisfied customers start trusting the brand and become loyal to it. The customer loyalty have many perks, such as loyal customers tend to be a good brand advocates. Customer loyalty also helps establishing good relationship with your customers, loyal customers tend to have high tolerance towards negative experiences. Moreover it is 5 to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than selling to an existing customer.

That could have a huge impact on the cost, especially marketing and onboarding cost. That is why the customer loyalty is considered to be so important. For increasing customer loyalty business made several offerings, one of them is the most relevant products that resonate with your customers. The products that customer like, want and need. In order to understand customer persona, their preferences, and their interest, businesses take several approaches. One of the most effective approach is to acquire and analyze the customer feedback data.

See Also: Why Your Business Needs a Customer Feedback System?

How to create Customer Feedback Surveys for Product Development

The customer feedback can provide a great wealth of business intelligence data that can be utilized to improve customer experience, products/services, internal processes, employee training programs and communication. In fact the customer feedback can impact each and every aspect of your business. The businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE have started transitioning from a sale oriented to customer-centric business models since more than a decade now. Most of the large scale enterprises, SMEs, and local businesses have already transformed into a customer-centric business. That means they put customer first in every strategy, policy, plan and company goals.

The customer-centric business approach helped businesses gain customer trust, drive customer loyalty and increase profitability and support sustainable long term growth. When it comes to customer-centric approach, businesses have to understand what their customers think, feel, want and need. The intense implementation of digital solutions enable businesses to capture a ton of business intelligence data. Which mostly comprises of analytical data and customer feedback. The customer feedback enables businesses to align themselves with the customers and market trends.

See Also: Overcoming Challenges in Customer Feedback Collection and Management

How to create Customer Feedback Surveys for Product Development

What is Product Development and Why is it Important?

By definition the product development is a processes which comprises of series of steps including market research and analysis, concept and idea creation, design, prototyping, production, marketing and support. The purpose of product development is to replace outdated products, or the products that are not performing well, rebrand existing products, or to create new products to increase the market share and to obtain more customer satisfaction. Furthermore the growth is a continuous process for any business, and not every product will appeal all the audience groups, if a business wants to reach out to more targeted groups they might have to develop new products that cater the needs and demands of their targeted audience.

The product development is a very crucial process. It have huge impact on business, it costs a lot, and it requires a lot of efforts. That is why the businesses need highly accurate and comprehensive analytical data and customer feedback data at each step of the product development process to make sure the final product will produce the desired/expected outcomes from the business’s standpoint. In this blog we will discuss how business should use customer feedback to maximize the efficiency and efficacy of their product development process.

See Also: Leveraging Customer Feedback System for Business Growth

What is Product Development and Why is it Important?

Why Customer Feedback is Important for Product Development?

Collecting regular customer feedback is a very common strategy among the businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE. The customer feedback helps strengthening the relationship with customers, increase customer retention, strengthen customer loyalty, and increase customer engagements. However, most of the businesses do not integrate customer feedback in their product development process. Mostly in case of manual feedback collection businesses failed to make sense of the customer feedback data and doesn’t pay much attention to it. That is why the best way to collect customer feedback data is to utilize a digital customer feedback system.

The customer feedback system helps businesses collect highly accurate customer feedback data. Furthermore it have in-built analytical tools which help businesses to perform different analysis and let them generate customized reports which can be utilized in decision making process. The new products are designed to offer better value and functionalities which attract your existing customers and also help you to expand your market share. The customer feedback data can precisely tell you what your customers want and expect from you and this can also save a lot of cost of adding unwanted features and make product development process more effective and efficient.

See Also: Integrating AI in Customer Feedback System

Why Customer Feedback is Important for Product Development?

Here is how to create Customer Feedback Surveys for Product Development

A product manager is responsible for creating the product development surveys. The product development process is also known as product management process. It is important to have a very precise and clear objective before you start preparing your survey and questionnaire. Whether you are developing a completely new product or you want to upgrade an existing product or your aim is rebranding, you must ask yourself the following questions:

  1. What information do you need?
  2. What will be your plan of action?
  3. What do you want to learn from the final reports?
  4. Who is your targeted audience?

The answers to these questions will guide you to set the objectives and goal of the survey. This will provide you a better understanding of what your customers will like and what they might not appreciate much. Without this knowledge if a product is developed and launched, then it could be a financial disaster, as it is the customers who will decide if your product will be a hit or a flop. During the research businesses can also estimate how much the product will cost them and whether they will be able to compete in the market or not. Ultimately the business would want to make profit from the product, so it is important that you know if the features you might be planning to offer, are doable within the competitive price range.

See Also: The Role of Customer Feedback in Personalizing User Experience

Here is how to create Customer Feedback Surveys for Product Development

What are Different Types of Product Development Surveys?

The product success entirely depends on customers, whether they are satisfied with the product, its features, price and experience matters a lot. Businesses not only rely on customer feedback they do detailed market research, competitive analysis, customer behavior and several other information. However, when a product manager initiate the product development process they have to made several assumptions too. It is the product development surveys and customer feedback that validate these assumptions and let the product manager estimate the success or failure levels. There are several different types of product development surveys, some of the most commonly used surveys are:

  • Idea Validation: This is the most basic product development survey type. When a product manager have an idea, they ask the targeted audience questions about this idea. This will tell them if their idea of the product or new features will be able to solve the problems of the customers or not, whether they will be willing to spend for that idea or not, etc.
  • Concept Testing: Once the product manager have an idea and identified the needs of the customers, now is the time to test several different solutions which can solve the problems and fulfill the needs of the customers.
  • Customer Satisfaction: After developing a product the product manager ask customers if they are happy and satisfied with the product or service. The customer satisfaction surveys are designed to measure the level of customer satisfaction.
  • Customer Experience or Product Feedback: The customer experience or product feedback surveys are a detailed survey which let product manager analyze the customer experience in more depth to understand the customer satisfaction level.

The product manager can conduct several different types of surveys to acquire the needed information at any stage of the product development. It is important to utilize a structured framework to organize all the surveys and the responses. This will help you to extract the actionable data from the customer feedback with much better accuracy and authenticity.

See Also: What is Multichannel Customer Feedback and Why it is so Important?

What are Different Types of Product Development Surveys?

How to Create the Questionnaire for the Product Development Surveys?

For customer feedback survey the most important thing is the questions, sometimes product managers invest a lot of efforts and resources in planning the campaign, selecting the channels and means to propagate the questionnaires to the right audience, but still failed to get the required information. There are two things that will legitimize the information, first is the quantity of the feedback data, and the second is the quality of the feedback data.

Businesses often invest a lot in channels and mediums by which they will reach out to the targeted audience, however, the questionnaire is extremely important, if the questionnaire is too long, complex, use ambiguous language or ask irrelevant questions, then people might not attempt it, and most of the time people left halfway through due to these reasons. Here are a few key factors that you should consider while creating the customer feedback survey:

See Also: Characteristics of Closed-Loop Customer Feedback Tool

  • Set Clear Goals: Setting up the goals and objectives of a customer feedback survey means the product manager should know what they want to ask and to whom they will ask. They should decide what data they will collect and what information they need to acquire from this campaign. The goals and objectives tend to keep the product manager focused on the important things, and enable them to writer a better questionnaire which can produce required information.
  • Simple Language: It is important that you use a plain and simple language while creating your survey questions. Difficult language or ambiguous wording will result in low conversion rate, people often leave the survey without completing it. Avoid technical terms, lengthy sentence and use the language your audience speak and understand. Multi-lingual surveys tend to produce better results in terms of quality and quantity.
  • Specific Questions: It is extremely important that all of your survey questions are focused on the goal of the survey. Avoid including any question that produces unwanted information. Keep your questions specific and ask only about one topic, if you will keep asking many things, the accuracy and quality of the data will be reduced. It could confuse the audience and people might not take it or leave it incomplete.
  • Avoid Biased Questions: One of the biggest reason that reduce the quality of the customer feedback data is biased questions and leading questions or words in the questions. These are the questions and words that can influence the response. The suggestive statements or biased questions are most likely to confine the customers’ thought process and produce low quality data. Most often customers just lose interest in such surveys which also impact the data quality.

These some of the very basic rules you should follow while creating a product development related customer feedback surveys. Obviously each survey would be different, some would be long some would be short, but these rules are applicable to all.

See Also: Utilizing Customer Feedback for Competitive Advantage

How to Create the Questionnaire for the Product Development Surveys?

Basic Ingredients of a Product Development Customer Feedback Survey

The customer feedback surveys for product development target different audience groups, sometimes it is just a random strata from a large pool of customers, sometimes businesses might want to reach out to a wider audience and so on. Another important thing to understand is that the objectives of each survey would be different, some surveys might be intended to learn about the customers’ expectations, or features they might want to see.

Some surveys will be designed to evaluate your products’ existing features and some might be to build a completely new product. Whatever the case is here are some basic ingredients that would help you to maximize the outcome in terms of both the quality and quantity of the feedback data:

See Also: How to Collect Customer Feedback using Mobile Phone Applications?

  • Introduction: Most of the time the product managers don’t pay much attention to the introduction of the survey, some even don’t include it at all. The introduction is the very first impression of your customer feedback survey. It has to be good, it should explain the purpose of the survey, what customers should expect and how does it will help the customers in future.
  • Rating Scale/Happiness Meter: The rating scale or happiness meter is one of the most common and simplest form of questions. Usually there is a question or statement and the users are asked to rate their opinion via a rating scale, happiness meter or likert scale. This makes the feedback quicker and simpler and the feedback data is also easy to analyze.
  • Multiple Choice Questions: The multiple choice questions have a question or statement with multiple answers listed underneath. The user can either chose only one answer or they can select many from the given choices. The data generated is highly accurate and well-structured which makes analysis and reporting more convenient and easier.
  • Yes/No Questions: The yes/no questions are a great way to segment your audience, for example, you can put a statement asking if the user is already your customer or not and by the response they select you can provide them a separate series of follow-up questions. The closed-ended question (yes/no question) is a great way to organize your customer feedback data.
  • Open-ended Question: The open-ended questions are vital for a product development survey, it allow the customers/users to respond in their own words. They don’t have to choose any answer from a pre-set value, in fact they can freely express themselves. Although it is harder to quantify the open-ended feedback but it can be a great help for product development.
  • Thank You Message: It is always good to appreciate the customers and people for their efforts and time to complete the survey. The thanks you not should thank the users in a great and very warm way, then add a statement assuring them that their feedback will be utilized in product development process and to make improvement for the sake of customers.

A good customer feedback survey should be able to produce both qualitative and quantitative data. If you focus on a smaller group to get more in-depth insight, you might miss out a larger audience. So, it is important to prepare your surveys with the aim to target a larger audience. In order to generate actionable reports the quality and quantity of the customer feedback data both are important.

See Also: Key Features of a Customer Feedback System

Basic Ingredients of a Product Development Customer Feedback Survey

Examples of Product Development Customer Feedback Survey Questions

While creating a customer feedback survey it is extremely important to ask the right question and in a right way. The product manager should consider each tiny bit of detail and think twice before adding a question. First of all it is crucial that you prepare your questions to get the information aligned with your goals.

There is no hard and fast rule or set of questions that you must use, but there are some principles that you should follow in order to make your survey more productive. Here are some examples of the questions that are generic and can work in almost all different scenarios:

  • Question: How frequently you use our product [product name]?

Answer: The answers should give customer a frame of reference, such as daily, weekly, monthly or a few time in last six months, etc.

  • Question: Which features do you use the most or more frequently?

Answer: The answer should have the list of the features and the customer should be allowed to choose multiple options.

  • Question: What more features would you like to see in this product [product name]?

Answer: It can be an open-ended question or you can list down some features that you might want to evaluate.

  • Question: How happy or satisfied are you with this product [product name] or how was your experience with this product [product name]?

Answer: The answer should be a rating scale from 1 to 10 or a happiness meter with 3/5 emoticons representing different levels of satisfaction/happiness.

  • Question: How easy of difficult it is to use our product [product name]?

Answer: The answer is usually a likert scale with 7 possible answers ranging from very difficult, difficult, somewhat difficult, neutral, somewhat easy, easy till very easy.

  • Question: What is the one thing that we should add to improve this product [product name]?

Answer: It is better to keep it an open-ended question but you can also offer them some options to choose from.

  • Question: How likely are you to recommend this product [product name] to you friends, family and colleagues?

Answer: The answer is usually from 1 to 10 rating scale and the analysis is also very simple.

  • Question: Do you think the price of the product [product name] justifies the features and value it offers?

Answer: The answer is usually a 1 to 10 scale but happiness meter (3/5 emoticons) and a 1 to 5 rating can also be used.

  • Question: Any other suggestion or though you want to share with us which can help us develop better products in future or help us improve this product [product name]?

Answer: That should be the last question and it is always open-ended, it allow customers to express their thoughts, allow them to describe their opinion in their own words.

The product development customer feedback survey doesn’t have a pre-defined set of questions, all of the above mentioned questions are generic questions. The product manager can be more specific about the product and its features, they can enquire about the features they are planning to add in the product. This will provide you a deeper understanding of what your customers want from you and what do they think about what you are already offering them.

See Also: What to Collect and When with a Customer Feedback System?

Examples of Product Development Customer Feedback Survey Questions

See More: People Counting System: Heatmap Analysis & Customer Churn Rate

Conclusion

The product development is one of the most crucial process of any business, it is a time consuming process, require a lot of resources and it is expensive. On top of that if a product development goes bad it could have devastating effects on the business’s growth and success. That is why the product development process is taken very seriously by the businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE. In this blog we have discussed several aspects of the product development customer feedback surveys, including the basic principles and methods to create the surveys. If a product development manager or product manager follow these steps they can create highly efficiency and productive customer feedback surveys.

The customer feedback is an essential part of business intelligence data that help businesses to take informed decisions and avoid repercussions of making assumption or following the market trends blindly. The product development customer feedback surveys give you a deeper insight to the customer’s mind and help product managers understand what their customer wants, needs, or like/dislike. It will enable them to understand what customers are expecting and what they think about the existing products. Integrating customer feedback surveys in the product development process can result in excellent products and help reducing the risks. The customer feedback data should be collected and processed to product actionable reports. Which is extremely difficult with the traditional customer feedback collection methods and tools.

A professional customer feedback system or software is a great tool to collect customer feedback and analyze it with accuracy and ease. RSI Concepts offers a wide range of standard customer feedback systems along with customization which is helping businesses achieve their goals since more than a decade. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to build a tailor-made customized customer feedback system for you, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

See More: How Can Businesses Benefit From Self-Service Kiosks

See Also: 7 Benefits of Customer Feedback System

See Also: How a Customer Feedback System Helps Your Company Grow

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People Counting System to Optimize Mall Operations

People Counting System to Optimize Mall Operations

Shopping malls and retail businesses always have to monitor the footfall and count of people visiting them. As many people will visit a shopping mall as much business it will get at the end of the day. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the retail industry is very competitive, people have a lot of choice to choose from. There are several shopping malls within a closer proximity, which also make customer more demanding and picky. That is why it becomes extremely important for malls to take all steps to satisfied its customers and ensure they have an excellent experience.

In order to achieve that the mall management need to optimize the mall operation. The mall operation is relatively complex from several other facility management. There is a lot of resources involved both human resource and the financial expense. The shopping mall have to carefully utilize all resources to maximize the efficiency in mall operations. The people counting system is one of the best tool that can help shopping malls to optimize their operations and to achieve maximum efficiency.

See Also: How and why Retail Store should use People Counting Software?

People Counting System to Optimize Mall Operations

There are several technologies that are being used by shopping mall all around the world. The people counting technologies have evolved a lot and with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) the people counting technologies have completely evolved. Now a days a modern people counting system consists of a very powerful software. It is not just the software that evolved and transformed, in fact the hardware also improved a lot, there was a time when the people counting systems were able to calculate the people with varying accuracy and error levels ranging from 10% to 40% depends on different hardware sensors and situations.

Now a days a modern people counting hardware can count people with high accuracy more than 90%. However, a very latest breed of people counting systems have completely changed its approach towards hardware. Now a days, the people counting systems doesn’t need any dedicated hardware devices and sensors. In fact a modern people counting system can be linked with the existing CCTV security camera feeds and it is capable of analyzing the video feeds in real-time to extract the valuable data from it.

See Also: Best Features of People Counting Software

People Counting System to Optimize Mall Operations

These modern people counting systems are more advanced, can capture highly accurate data, provide a wider range of analytical data and offer more useful features. Here are some key features of the people counting system which can help management to improve their mall operations.

People Counting System: Highly Accurate People Counting Data

The people counting system uses CCTV camera feeds and turn your all connected CCTV cameras into a people counting sensors. The AI based software engine is equipped with modern image processing algorithms. It can detect different moving objects and can distinguish between human and non-human objects. Regardless of the number of people entering from a monitoring point or entrance, the people counting system can accurately measure the number of the people. It is due to advanced image processing algorithms and ability to distinguish between human and non-human objects.

Furthermore the people counting system can also differentiate between genders and it can also detect different age groups. This ability is achieved with the in-built analytical tools that extract demographic data form the live video feeds in real-time. These image processing features also raise the accuracy of the people counting data. As if a people counting systems is so powerful of identifying genders and different age groups, the people counting tasks is relatively simpler. That is why the modern people counting system can offer highly accurate people counting data.

See Also: People Counting System: Heatmap Analysis & Customer Churn Rate

People Counting System: Highly Accurate People Counting Data

When the shopping malls have real-time people counting data available for all the entrances and exits they can easily understand how many people are entering and leaving and how many people are inside the mall. Furthermore each camera is generating data, each camera is counting how many people are passing from its location, and this data is layered upon a 2D or 3D floor plan, which gives shopping mall a better understanding of people in any section, zone or area of the mall.

This information is very helpful for the mall management. The mall management can easily allocate resources according to the traffic in a particular region. They can also schedule the cleaning, maintenance and other services according to the people flow to minimize the interruption. The mall management can also assign staff and security according to the traffic in a particular region based on the data generated from the people counting system to improve the service quality and to ensure a smooth operation.

See Also: Advantages of People Counting Technology for Shopping Malls

People Counting System: Highly Accurate People Counting Data

People Counting System: Understand Customer Behavior

The modern AI based people counting system is a very capable tool. It not only measures the people count but it can do so much more. As the modern AI based people counting system analyzes the video feeds from the CCTV security cameras in real-time that means the data is fed to the system continuously. The people counting system can continuously monitor the customers and visitors within the mall premises. Which enables it to measure a lot of other matrices, such as it can measure the flow of customer in each area or zone.

It can also measure the customer dwell time in each area and zone. Let say 100 people enters the malls, 500 out of that only spend their time in F&B section and left. The remaining 500 scattered all across the mall in different areas and zones. This information is important for the mall management to understand where they need to put more attentions to. The management can significantly improve the mall operation when they clearly knows where most of their visitors will spend more time.

See Also: How Small Businesses Can Utilize People Counting Solutions?

People Counting System: Understand Customer Behavior

The people dwell time is very important it tell shopping malls that which areas are important for them. Which areas are lagging behind, and how they can arrange different tenants to achieve a balanced distribution of the traffic all across the mall. That could be a big operational challenge if the mall management doesn’t have such information. The customer dwell time also shows in which businesses/tenants the customers are taking more interest.

Let say there are three zones A, B and C people are entering from the A side, move across Zone B and end up in Zone C, the simple people count might tell that 500 people enters in Zone A and same number of people in Zone B and then in Zone C, however, the customer dwell time matric will tell which zone is popular for customers and visitors. If the Zone C have more dwell time, it will tell that people most likely made more purchases from Zone C. These information will help malls take effective steps to increase people’s interest in the areas where they are not spending more time which will eventually increase the sales.

See Also: Integrating AI in Customer Feedback System

People Counting System: Understand Customer Behavior

The continuous CCTV video feeds, advanced image processing algorithms and AI based tools enable people counting system to offer another great feature which is heatmap analysis. The heatmap analysis is a great analytical tool, it help mall management visually understand the customer flow. The heatmap analysis count number of people, measure dwell time and put it on a 2D/3D floor plan in a color coded format. Different colors shows different amount of traffic. This will help mall management to understand how exactly people are moving within the mall premises.

It can also lay down the complete route people take within the mall on the floor plan diagram, which also help management understand what is attracting people to move at a certain pathway and what is not attracting them and so on. The heatmap analysis is a great tool to understand complete customer journey, which entrances are used the most, which exits are used the most, which routes people take within mall, at which point they decide to return and so on. The heatmap analysis is very detailed and comprehensive. These all information help mall management to refine their strategies and help them making effective plans to maximize the operational capabilities.

See Also: The Future of Visitor Management: Digital Badge Kiosks

People Counting System: Understand Customer Behavior

People Counting System: Generate More Revenue with Premium Stores

Malls always have different rental categories for different stores placed on different locations. For example a 300 square foot shop next to the main entrance at ground floor would have higher rent than a same sized shop at the furthest spot from elevator at third floor. That is how the rent differs from one place to another, form one zone to another and so on. However, when the tenant comes to the malls, the malls must have to justify the premium rates for those hotspots. However, when the mall have historical data of customer flow and how customers are moving within the mall, they can easily determine all those spots and they can share the same data with the prospects to convince them for premium rents.

When a tenant knows they will be receiving a certain amount of traffic they can estimate their expected sales and profits which give them confidence to go with premium rents. The people counting system can provide highly accurate data which can help malls to arrange different tenants in a way to get more exposure and offer better visibility to the stores that are not located in busy areas. Hence the malls can set their rents on the bases of the data they get and they can generate more revenue.

See Also: Top 10 Self-Service Technologies

People Counting System: Generate More Revenue with Premium Stores

People Counting System: Effective Staff Management

The mall operation is heavily dependent on the performance of the staff and effective staff management. Most of the time the management face issues is directing staff to the areas where they are most needed. Sometimes they can’t effectively monitor the performance of the employees. However, with the people counting system the management can effectively track employee performance. The smart AI based software and image processing algorithms can distinguish between employees and other visitors. The same way that the people counting system tracks the customers and visitors, it can track the employees.

It can capture their movements, their pathways, and their dwell time at any area, and it can also provide heatmap analysis of their movement and dwell time. The management can easily relate it to the footfall and customer behavior. This allow them to make effective plans on the bases of historic data and they can also take instant decisions on the bases of live updates from the people counting system and assign more employees to the areas and job where they are most needed. This not only optimize and improve the operations but it also help improving the employee performance and efficiency.

See Also: Why Shopping Malls in Dubai Need a Footfall Analytical Tool?

People Counting System: Effective Staff Management

People Counting System: Maximize the Marketing Outcome

The marketing is one of the core function of a shopping mall operations. The management invest heavily in marketing activities and different kind of events to attract more visitors. Sometimes sales and promotions are advertised to attract more visitors. For that the shopping mall use several different marketing channels such as social media, their apps, websites, and other traditional and non-traditional marketing channels. These all activities consume a lot of resources, efforts and expense. It is crucial to measure and monitor the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns to understand which strategy is effective and which isn’t.

The monitoring and tracking also help measure the ROI of the marketing campaigns. The people counting system not only provides the accurate visitors data but it also provide complete historic record which help the management to understand the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns simply by measuring the increase in the footfall. The digital marketing and other traditional marketing campaigns are very expensive too, that is why it is important to invest only in the campaigns that really work. Furthermore the businesses can keep improving their campaigns by making changes and monitoring the impact on the footfall and sales.

See Also: The Role of Check-in Kiosks in Transforming Airport Experiences

People Counting System: Maximize the Marketing Outcome

A modern AI based people counting system is a very powerful digital tool which offer great functionalities and features. For example the people counting system can be integrated with the POS or sales system. It can be linked with any other enterprise tool or system via secure APIs which enables both system to share and synchronize the data. The people counting system can also be integrated to a central information system which enables businesses to transfer and synch data to and from the people counting system. This integration further improve the monitoring capabilities and boost the accuracy of the data. Which enables the malls to accurately track and monitor the performance of their marketing campaigns. Shopping malls also use a variety of methods to boost the customer flow and to maximize the sales within the shopping mall.

For example, the digital signage are a great marketing tool for the malls. Usually these signage are placed on strategic spots where they can have maximum exposure. The people counting system can help identifying the hotspots and it can also monitor the effectiveness of the signage by monitoring the people behavior. It can count how many people passed by a signage, how many people spend some time in front of it and how much this impact the overall sales. This way the malls can only invest in the result oriented marketing campaign and keep improving them with continuous monitoring.

See Also: What is wayfinding software and why is it important?

People Counting System: Maximize the Marketing Outcome

Conclusion

An AI based people counting system is equipped with high-tech image processing algorithms and highly effective analytical tools. Which can help malls in many ways to improve their operations. Effective and efficient mall management is a key to success. The people counting system can provide highly accurate people count. It can be linked with any existing CCTV security camera systems which save the cost of installing complicated hardware devices and sensors. The people counting system can take the feedback in real-time, its AI based algorithms can process it in real-time and they can provide reporting and analytical data in the dashboard in real-time. The shopping mall can do heatmap analysis to acquire highly accurate and very comprehensive data about customer flow and their movement within the mall premises.

The customer dwell time let them understand what interests the customers. The people counting system data and its ability to integrate with other third-party tool allow mall management to effectively and accurately monitor the performance of their marketing campaigns. The people counting system can also help management in monitoring the performance of the staff and enable them to boost the efficiency of the workforce. The people counting system not just monitor the footfall but it can provide a great wealth of business intelligence data that can be used to improve mall operations and optimize the resource consumption.

Optimizing the mall operations and achieving better efficiency is a key to long term and sustainable success. A people counting system can be game changer for malls and it can provide a great competitive advantage. RSI Concepts is a leading people counting system provider with both standard and customized solutions. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to build a highly cost-effective customized people counting system for you, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

See Also: 5 Types of Customer Feedback

See Also: A Complete Guide to People Counting System

See Also: Self-Service Kiosks in Retail: Revolutionizing the Shopping Experience

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Top Digital Self-Service Trends of 2022

Top Digital Self-Service Trends of 2022

Here in Dubai and all around the UAE businesses are embracing self-service technologies to enhance their customers’ experience and to improve the quality and performance of their service teams. The customer expectations, market trends and customer service methods have been completely transformed since past few years. Now a days, the customers are more familiar with the technology, the rise of social media, smartphones, and other consumer technologies have completely changed the customer behavior and their expectations.

For any good business it is crucial to meet customer’s expectations to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction. Customer experience and customer service quality plays a crucial role in customer satisfaction. That is the reason we saw a huge rise in self-service technologies in past few years. Basically any technology that enable the customers to do a transaction or to get a service by the means of digital and automated systems without any staff involvement is called self-service technology. Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are utilizing a variety of different technologies to enhance customer experience and to boost customer happiness.

See Also: The Advantages of Customer Self-service and Best Practices

Top Digital Self-Service Trends of 2022

The 2020 COVID pandemic have shaped the modern customer service and compelled businesses to evolve very quickly. Although it is over now, and everything have restored completely but its impact will remain for a long time. Several studies have been done so far, and it is witnessed that the new customer service methods have not only improved customer experience but also employee satisfaction which is a key factor in improving service quality and customer experience. The digital channels have been utilized in order to avoid physical interaction with the customers at the service centers. This also give a rise to self-service technologies and solutions.

The self-service solutions are win-win for everyone, customers love the control and freedom it provide, employee likes it because it lift-off some of their workload, the businesses embracing it with open arms due to its cost-effectiveness and higher customer satisfaction. In this blog we will discuss top digital self-service trends of 2022 which we are also anticipating to continue in 2023 and even beyond. These trends will help you upgrading your customer experience and customer satisfaction strategies to ensure long term success and consistent growth in future.

See Also: Analyzing the Impact of Payment Kiosks on Consumer Behavior

See Also: 10 Customer Self-Service Best Practices to Power Your Contact Center Results

Rise of Cloud Based Services and Solutions

The cloud technology have become the foundation of the modern self-service technologies. The biggest advantage is that the businesses can create all-in-one kind of ecosystem where they can easily scale as per their needs. The self-service solutions and systems can be expanded easily as per the growing needs and demands. The cloud offers a simple user control dashboard where with a few clicks businesses can scale up or down as per the current need. The cloud is totally managed by the vendor/service provider and the businesses don’t have to worry about the IT infrastructure or data center management, they don’t need technical staff to manage it, everything is fully managed by the vendor.

These attributes make cloud the most cost-effective solution for modern businesses. Another great advantage of cloud is that it help businesses achieve a unified environment where multiple systems can be deployed and this makes data sharing and integration super simple and very convenient. Such features help offering innovative solutions and services, which is considered to be the bedrock for the digital self-service solutions.

See Also: Emerging Trends in Self-Service Kiosk Technology

See Also: Integrating AI and Machine Learning in Self-Service Kiosks

Rise of Cloud Based Services and Solutions

Websites, Mobile Apps and Online Portals

The websites, mobile apps and online portals have become very common these days. Businesses are utilizing their corporate websites for communication and service purpose. Here in UAE almost 99% of the population have access to internet, they use smartphones and they are also using multiple social media platforms. In general an average user spend almost 3 hours daily on their smartphone. Which makes mobile apps even more important. Businesses offer dedicated web pages on their websites to enable self-service and they also provide various types of online portals such as customer portal, job portal, supplier portal, employee portal, etc.

All these portals can also be integrated with the mobile apps. Due to advancements in the smartphone technology, larger storage and increased computing power is available on an average smartphone, which fuel mobile apps trend. Customer also prefer mobile apps because of the personalized experience. The websites, mobile apps, and online portals are a great way to offer self-service solutions. People can access them on-the-go which enhance user experience and provide them more freedom.

See Also: What is a Self Service Kiosk? Here’s All You Need to Know

See Also: Integrating AI and Machine Learning in Self-Service Kiosks

Websites, Mobile Apps and Online Portals

Interactive Self-Service Kiosks

Interactive self-service kiosks have gained huge popularity since past 5 years in Dubai and all around the UAE. Businesses tend to use interactive kiosks to offer self-services and to facilitate several internal processes. The interactive self-service kiosk usually has a touch screen based UI (user interface) which help customers to easily interact with the system. The self-service kiosk comes with a software solution which is linked to the relevant internal databases and systems to facilitate self-service functionalities. The self-service kiosk is capable of improving user experience as well as the internal operations and business processes.

The digital interactive self-service kiosk help businesses digitalize their services and various internal processes which not only enable them to offer innovative features and intuitive methods for self-services but also help the performance of the customer service staff by streamlining various internal processes and with the automated features.

See Also: How Self-Service Kiosk are Improving Customer Experience in Dubai, UAE?

See Also: Why Interactive Self-service Kiosks are the Ultimate Customer Experience Transformation Tool?

Interactive Self-Service Kiosks

The interactive self-service kiosks are built on a very flexible technological platform which allow businesses to attach various input devices such as EID Scanners, Passport Scanner, QR Code, RFID, document scanning, document printing, invoice/receipt printing and integration with payment methods. Most of the time when a complicated service has to be delivered it might require scanning & printing documents, scanning ID proofs, and receiving service charges. These all features can be offered on a humble touch-screen based interactive kiosk.

The interactive kiosks can take cash payments, credit/debit card payments, digital payments such as Google Pay, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and can be linked with digital payment gateways, where the users don’t have to insert cash or card, instead they can make payment online from the touch screen interface. These features are linked with the main server application or core software, which is integrated with payment gateways, customer database, financial and other business functions to offer an effortless customer experience at the self-service kiosk.

See Also: The Impact of Self-Service Kiosk on Customer Behavior

See Also: How Can Businesses Benefit From Self-Service Kiosks

Interactive Self-Service Kiosks

Omnichannel Self-Service Strategy

The self-service technologies and solutions help businesses in offering a fraction-less omnichannel service eco-system. The omnichannel service means offering multiple channels to users to interact or avail service and all those channels are integrated with each other. The main reason behind building an omnichannel self-service environment is the desire of customers to be able to interact with business instantly and more conveniently. These days, customers want to get support from digital channels, studies have shown that 69% of the customers want to resolve the problem by themselves before deciding to go to a customer contact center or service center. This trend demand businesses to offer omnichannel self-services.

Where the customers can reach out to the business any time from their preferred channel and would be able to get a service without any limitation. Businesses can utilize self-service technologies to offer omnichannel service without any barrier. This has completely revolutionized the tech-support industry, now a days businesses are offering instant tech support where customers can connect with the self-service portals or service agents any time they want. Chatbots and AL based natural language processing algorithms have significantly improved the quality and customer experience.

See Also: How Video Conferencing Enhance Self-Service Kiosk Experience

Omnichannel Self-Service Strategy

Leverage Automation to Improve Self-Service

One of the most popular trend in self-service is the automation. The automation and digitalization help businesses achieve better customer experience with self-service solutions. The automation help reducing the need of human/staff involvement. Mainly the automation is done using intelligent algorithms and AI (artificial intelligence) based technologies. Most of the customers attempt to solve their problem at their own before reaching to the customer service and support. The most common trend to solve problems is to look it up in the internet. Customers tend to look for the online articles, blogs, how-to-guides, FAQs sections of the service provider/vendor, etc.

However, that is not always enough. That is why the customer portals, complaint systems, online support, and interactive self-service kiosks are deployed. This is where the automation can enable businesses to offer excellent customer experience through self-service without involving any staff. The self-service is not only for support and service, it also help businesses generate more sales. Businesses can create online portals, mobile apps, and interactive self-service kiosks where the users can make a purchase and acquire new services. Expanding in the physical markets, and opening up new offices or sale centers in new markets is very expensive, instead businesses can provide self-service interactive kiosks and online solutions to tap into untapped markets.

See Also: 4 Reasons Why Self-Service Enhances Customer Experience

Leverage Automation to Improve Self-Service

Collect Valuable Business Intelligence Data via Self-Service Solutions

Due to digitalization and fast-paced markets, the businesses need an optimum level of maneuverability to tackle obstacles and market changes. In Dubai and all around the UAE the markets are highly competitive and the customer demands are skyrocketing. This demand businesses to follow proactive strategies rather traditional reactive strategies. For that the businesses will have to be very informed. That is why the modern business landscape is very much data driven. The data flows like the blood in any enterprise. The self-service solutions bring automation and digitalization to the internal and external business processes.

The digital systems are inherently very efficient at collecting data and stats. By implementing self-service solution a business can easily collect valuable business intelligence data. The data help management make informed decisions and alert them on time, which increase their readiness and ability to deal with unexpected scenarios. The business intelligence data also help businesses understand customer persona, their interests, and preferences. Such information is very helpful in personalizing customer experience and communication which results in better customer satisfaction.

See Also: Can Self Service Kiosk Machines Improve Revenue?

Collect Valuable Business Intelligence Data via Self-Service Solutions

Conclusion

The digital solutions and self-service is completely revolutionizing customer experience and business practices. Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are rapidly adopting to modern solutions and digital systems. This help them bring automation and self-service, which not only help them to improve service quality but also customer experience. Happy customers tend to be more loyal with the business and loyal customers always gives repeated business. According to several studies acquiring a new customer is almost 5 to 25 times more expensive than selling to an existing customer. Furthermore the self-service help businesses tap into further markets. Expansion become easier and cost-efficient with self-service solutions.

Most of the customers try to solve the problem by themselves before reaching out to the customer support, this help balancing the workload of the customer service staff and make them happy and satisfied, which improve service quality and reduce employee turnover. The self-service solutions are very cost-efficient and tend to have longer lifecycle which ensures greater ROIs. The self-service solutions are not just functional or operational improvement, in fact in Dubai and all across the UAE the customers are also expecting some kind of digital interaction and self-service solution from their favorite brands.

In this blog we have listed the most modern digital self-service trends of 2022 and the same trends will continue in the 2023 and beyond. The self-service is not just a value added feature but it have become industry norm now a days. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you need our help to build high quality and cost-effective digital self-service solutions please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

See Also: How to Enhance Customer Experience with Customer Feedback Surveys?

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How Can Businesses Benefit From Self-Service Kiosks

How Can Businesses Benefit From Self-Service Kiosks

Businesses always seek ways to improve customer satisfaction, increase their productivity and efficiency to maximize profitability and to ensure a long term sustainable growth. It is very true that the customer satisfaction provides a foundation at which business can grow. Furthermore it is also important that businesses understand that there is a cost associated to better customer service and product quality. They need to find a balance between the expense and the quality of outcome.

This is where the businesses look towards technology and digital solutions. The technology minimize the cost, offer excellent value and enhance productivity and operational capabilities of a business. Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE have started adopting to self-service solutions since more than a decade now. Over the time the technology improved, the self-service solutions also got better. Now a days, the self-service kiosk are considered to be an integral part of customer satisfaction strategy.

See Also: Why Interactive Self-service Kiosks are the Ultimate Customer Experience Transformation Tool?

How Can Businesses Benefit From Self-Service Kiosks

One of the most common type of self-service kiosk is the ATM machine. We all are also familiar with the refreshment vending machines and the mobile top-up kiosks, these kiosks are very common in Dubai and all around the UAE. The self-service kiosks are serving millions of customers on daily bases across several industries. Different businesses are using the self-service kiosks differently, for example, the government sector is majorly using them to offer information and basic services, the event management industry is using them for self-service registration portals, the HR sector is using it to offer HR services (usually off-campus), the facility management are using them to offer self-service wayfinding portals, the service sector is using self-service kiosks, the retail industry is using to offer self-service checkout and many more. Here are some key benefits of the self-service kiosks which any business can use to gain a greater competitive advantage.

See Also: What is wayfinding software and why is it important?

How Can Businesses Benefit From Self-Service Kiosks

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Improves Customer Experience

Customer experience is one of the most important aspect of a successful business strategy. Satisfied customers tend to be more loyal towards the business, they are good brand advocate, they tend to tolerate more bad interactions, and they do repeated business and help businesses sustain growth. The customer experience depends on several factors, one of the most important factor is the customer wait time, and if customers will have to wait longer then they will get annoyed and frustrated which have huge impact on customer satisfaction and customer happiness.

The self-service kiosk offer quicker operation, self-service features and 24/7 availability. The kiosk can maximize the customer engagements and it can provide in-depth product information which help customers to acquire information very quickly. Since the self-service kiosk doesn’t require any assistance form the staff, the customers can have more freedom and control during their interaction.

See Also: What is a Self Service Kiosk? Here’s All You Need to Know

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Improves Customer Experience

These days in Dubai and all across the UAE the use of interactive kiosks is very common, so much so that most of the time the customers expect from the business to offer a self-service interactive kiosk or any other form of digital interaction. Of course the human interaction is important too, but the digital interaction offers more freedom, confidence and flexibility to the customers. Businesses can also offer personalized customer experience at their self-service interactive kiosk.

The self-service interactive kiosk comes with a powerful software tool, which can offer a personalized experience based on past customer interactions, their preferred products/services, and a lot of other analytical data. This ensures the customers are catered with the information, products and services they would be interested in. The system can also personalized the customer experience based on customer persona, their preferences and business strategies.

See Also: Emerging Trends in Self-Service Kiosk Technology

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Improves Customer Experience

The self-service interactive kiosks comes with intuitive user interfaces which also help improving customer experience. As here in UAE there are multiple nationalities and ethnicities which means your customer base would be very diverse. Communicating and interacting with such customers in their preferred language could be very difficult. If businesses wants to enhance their experience they might have to hire a lot of service agents to maximize their language capabilities.

However, with an interactive self-service kiosk businesses can easily integrate multiple languages without hiring special staff and interpreters. All those languages can be added to the system with only one time cost, there would be no impact on the operational expenses. This can provide a great advantage and it can increase customer engagements too. With the help of the interactive self-service kiosks businesses can easily offer personalized experience to maximize the customer satisfaction and customer happiness.

See Also: Top 10 Self-Service Technologies for Business in UAE

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Improves Customer Experience

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Offers 24/7 Availability

The lifestyle in Dubai and all around the UAE is very fast-paced. People don’t have much time to spare, everyone is busy and have schedules. In such lifestyle it become difficult to take time to visit a customer service center or a business. There are a variety of problems when you invite your customers to visit to your service center or business. For example, the first thing is the timing, each business or service center have fixed timings. When customers decide to visit a business or a service center, they will have to travel to there, then they will have to wait in waiting lines, sometimes the queues can get longer and take a lot of time. Which badly impact customer experience and cause frustration and stress. Another problem is that business usually have limited service centers/branches, it is very expensive to open a new branch.

However, the interactive self-service kiosk can operate 24/7, they don’t bound customers to visit only during the office hours or standard operating hours. The can cater to customers 24/7 and the deployment and operating cost is also very low.

See Also: How Self-Service Kiosk are Improving Customer Experience in Dubai, UAE?

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Offers 24/7 Availability

On top of that the interactive self-service kiosks can be placed at several places, opening up new branch or service center very expensive and complicated, however placing an interactive kiosk is very cost-efficient and easy. That is why the 24/7 availability of service offers excellent customer experience and higher customer satisfaction. The customers can visit there anytime they want, there will be no queue, and they will be served instantly. The reduction in wait time itself is a great advantage, and it can significantly improve customer experience.

The customers are interacting with a digital system, hence they can spend as much time as they want on the digital counter/kiosk. They can chose their preferred language, they can have access to all information and they feel more freedom while interacting through a digital channel or medium such as interactive self-service kiosk. Offering 24/7 service not only satisfy your customers but it also add value to the brand image and brand reputation.

See Also: The Impact of Self-Service Kiosk on Customer Behavior

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Offers 24/7 Availability

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Digitalization Drives Efficiency

The interactive self-service kiosks comes with a powerful software which is integrated with internal systems and central information center. This enables the system to offer services via a self-service mode. As the self-service operation doesn’t require interaction with the human staff so the customers should be provided with all the necessary information to be able to take them through the process and improve their success rate. That is very important, because if the customers start failing at the interactive self-service kiosk they would start complaining about it.

Large number of complains and unhappy customers can easily overwhelmed your customer support and service teams and would cause additional problems. That is why all the services and the delivery mechanisms are transformed to support the self-service mode. Sometimes businesses might have to remodel their internal processes and service delivery mechanisms to ensure the customers can easily get the service via a self-service mode.

See Also: 7 Features of Self Service Kiosks

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Digitalization Drives Efficiency

The digitalization of the services and improvements in the internal processes results in better efficiency and higher productivity. The digitalization drives innovation and automation, in fact the self-service solutions are all about achieving autonomy. Deploying an interactive self-service kiosk solution not only enable businesses to offer services in an automated way, but this automation also automates several service delivery steps and improve all internal processes as well. Such changes increase productivity and efficiency and improve performance.

This is due to the integration of several systems and converging all the data and information to a single portal. The same processes and changes can be deployed to the core processes that are being used by the service agents and other staff. Which will also help reducing their workload and reduce the efforts required for a particular task. Hence the productivity and efficiency of the entire business can be significantly improved.

See Also: What is HRMS Self Service Kiosk?

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Digitalization Drives Efficiency

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Reduce Cost and Maximize Profitability

The interactive self-service kiosk is a very cost-effective solution, it consists of a software application and a hardware kiosk machine. Creating the self-service kiosk software is just a one-time cost, and the hardware have longer lifecycle and can be used for many years without any significant maintenance. This means that the interactive self-service kiosk can offer excellent ROI. Furthermore the per-service cost can be significantly less comparing to the customer service centers.

The interactive self-service kiosk can support business growth, businesses can deploy these kiosks in their targeted locations and regions to extend their services to the customers in those regions and this also help acquiring more customers and generating revenue. Opening up a new branch or regional office is a very expensive feat, it is complicated, time consuming and required a lot of resources, whereas deploying a kiosk will just cost you a fraction of that. That is why the self-service kiosk can be great tool to support your growth.

See Also: What Is a Self-Service Payment Kiosk? Unveiling the Future of Transactions

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Reduce Cost and Maximize Profitability

Businesses also deploy interactive self-service kiosks in their service centers. Usually businesses hire more staff when their footfall increases. Hiring more staff and developing training programs for them can cost a lot. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE most of the general consumers are very well-versed with the technology, and most of the people prefer self-service. When businesses deploy interactive self-service kiosks at their premises, they can divert a lot of customers from the service counters towards the self-service kiosks. Which not only enhance customer experience but also help reducing the workload of the staff and also eliminates the need of hiring new staff.

In fact even if you don’t need to hire more staff you can still deploy self-service kiosks to balance the workload of the employee and allow them to focus on more important tasks. If we compare an interactive self-service kiosk with an employee, they are very cost-efficient and they can work 24/7 without any break. This maximize the efficiency while also reduce the cost in hiring or retaining more staff and increase profitability of the business.

See Also: What is Employee Self Service Kiosk?

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk:Reduce Cost and Maximize Profitability

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Remote Management and Instant Updates

The interactive self-service kiosks comes with a powerful information management system software. The software is basically a server side application, which manages the data, take commands from the users, follow the company policies and workflow and ensures a quicker and smoother service delivery. The front-end part is the user interface (UI), the UI allow the customers to interact with the system through the interactive self-service kiosk’s touch screen.

It also allow them to perform several tasks, such as scanning their Emirate ID, taking photos, printing documents, making cash payments or payments via credit/debit card or any other supportive method, take prints, scan QR codes, and several other functions that are required to deliver the service. There is another section of the software which is called the back-office or administrative dashboard. The administrative dashboard provide access to configurations, settings, information, data bases and other features of the system.

See Also: Employee Self Service Kiosk (ESS Kiosk)

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Remote Management and Instant Updates

The server software is always hosted online or on company network and the kiosks serve as a client to that server and also on the same network or online to communicate with the server. Usually the administrative control panel is provided to the head-office, regional offices and any other concerned person who is responsible for managing the system. This means that each time when a customer interacts with the system through the interactive self-service kiosk, all the data is stored on the server. The interactive self-service kiosk server is integrated with other relevant systems and databases such as customer database, financial system, inventory management, etc.

Hence the information and data can also be updated on all other connected systems to ensure the consistency and to eliminate the repeated work and confusions. Furthermore the information on the kiosk can also be management through in-built dedicated modules and can be updated on each individual kiosk or all of them simultaneously and in real-time. Hence there is no delay or gap between the kiosk and any other relevant system.

See Also: Integrating AI and Machine Learning in Self-Service Kiosks

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Remote Management and Instant Updates

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Offers a Wide Range of Functionalities

An interactive self-service kiosk is a highly customizable machine. It is built on a widely available hardware which also make it very cost-effective. Especially since past decade, the manufacturers have invested a lot in the R&D of the interactive technologies. This led to highly innovative and advanced technological solutions. Basically the interactive self-service kiosk consists of a computer module, which act as the main brain of the kiosk.

There is a touch screen display which let users interact with the user interface (UI) of the systems. Obviously the touch screen alone is not enough for a lot of services, so there are other peripherals are added to achieve the desired functionalities. Here are some generic functionalities that can be offered by an interactive self-service kiosk:

  • Navigating through dashboards and web pages via touch screen & on-screen keyboard
  • Input data and information using physical track pad and a physical keyboard
  • Connectivity via LAN, WiFi and 3G/4G connections
  • Print Receipts via thermal printer or a full-size (A4) printer
  • Scan and print documents via standard size scanner and an A4 size printer
  • Scan RFIDs, QR Codes, Barcodes, Passport and Boarding Passes
  • Integrated Retina Scanners, Facial Recognition, Thermal Camera & CCTV Security Camera
  • Make payments with cash and coins with dedicated cash and coin accepting modules
  • Make payments with credit/debit cards, Google Pay, Apple Pay, online payment gateways, etc.
  • Build customized vending machines for merchandise and small size items
  • Integrated special peripherals, sensors and hardware accessories to meet exclusive needs

These are some of the most widely used functionalities and hardware devices that can be integrated in an interactive self-service kiosk. Businesses can use any of the above or a combination of the above to achieve their required functionalities to maximize the customer experience.

See Also: Self-Service Kiosks in Retail: Revolutionizing the Shopping Experience

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Offers a Wide Range of Functionalities

A great benefit of the interactive self-service kiosk is that it is highly customizable. Which means businesses have a lot of room for innovation and they can offer highly advanced features to their customers to enhance the customer experience. Here are some industries who are rapidly adopting to interactive self-service kiosk systems and solutions:

  • Banking and Financial Sector
  • Government Departments and Ministries
  • Utility Service Providers
  • Facility Management and Real Estate Businesses
  • Healthcare Sector
  • Educational Institutions
  • HR Sector
  • Public Offices
  • Food and Hospitality Industries
  • Transport Sector
  • Airports, Ports and Immigration Departments
  • Telecommunication Sector
  • Retail Industry
  • Events and Exhibition Management Sectors
  • Marketing, Communication and Entertainment Sectors

These are some of the major industries that are embracing interactive self-service kiosks. Listing all businesses and their types is not relevant to our subject. The above list is to show how wide spread the technology is and how many different types of businesses are using interactive self-service kiosk systems.

See Also: What are the Features of a Best Self-Service Payment Kiosk Software?

Interactive Self-Service Kiosk: Offers a Wide Range of Functionalities

See More: People Counting System: Heatmap Analysis & Customer Churn Rate

Conclusion

Businesses from various industry sectors are rapidly adopting to modern technologies and solutions to enhance their customer experience and to maximize the productivity and profitability. The interactive self-service kiosk system is also one of those modern technologies that is embraced by almost all industry sectors. Businesses located in Dubai or anywhere in UAE knows very well that the customer demands are very high in UAE market and the competition is very tough. In such scenarios the customer experience and the customer happiness matters the most. In order to delight the customers, businesses offers a variety of products and services, the customer self-service is one of them. It helps improving customer experience and gain their loyalty. The interactive self-service kiosk solutions are available 24/7 offer excellent user experience with multi-lingual and intuitive user interfaces. The interactive kiosks offer a variety of features and hardware compatible devices which help businesses innovate new solutions to maximize the customer satisfaction.

The interactive self-service kiosk system also offers a powerful software which help businesses digitalize and automate several services, internal processes and workflows. The automation improves efficiency and also have positive impact on employee performance as the self-service kiosks and the automation help reducing the workload of the staff. Which also help businesses in improving the efficiency and it is also very helpful in optimizing and reducing the operational cost. The interactive self-service kiosks are the modern day’s solution for the ever growing customer satisfaction needs of the businesses. RSI Concepts is a leading interactive self-service kiosk solution provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you build a tailor-made interactive self-service kiosk solution please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

See Also: 10 Customer Self-Service Best Practices to Power Your Contact Center Results

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