Blog

What if your cash register could count people and not just cash?

November 29, 2011 by Mike Wittenstein — Customer Experience and Service Designer, Storyminers

Since the invention of the cash register by James Ritty in 1879, shopkeepers have been using the device to count cash. With the interconnectivity that today's cloud-based technology solutions and data architectures bring, it's possible to count customers too.

Michael Koploy, ERP Analyst at software selection and referral company, Software Advice, shared four distinct benefits of integrating traffic analytics into POS software in a recent blog entry.

Building on the thinking Michael introduced, it makes sense to me that retailers should know their traffic just like McDonald's operators know their hourly customer counts at the counter and drive through and like theatre operators know their ticket counts at the box office and their customer counts at the concession stands. It's amazing that retailers have gone without this information for as long as they have.

In addition to customer counts, making web and call center analytics available to managers and to the retail sales associates would make it easier to know whom to serve, when, and how. Here are a couple of practical examples:

Suppose, over time, we learn that a sudden surge of on-line activity on Friday afternoons translates into an uptick in Saturday morning in-store pick-ups. Available associates might be polled (possibly without management intervention) until one accepts the offer for an extra half-shift. This idea takes the work out of management, delivers a better customer experience, and keeps labor costs in line.
If a smart call center managers digs into the details behind a flurry of price-check calls and learns that a key competitor is offering a lower price, they can quickly adjust the on-line price and get new pricing information onto the store floor instantly to avoid customer defections to that other brand.

The opportunity to cross-pollinate information about customer activity from different sources and make it actionable on the store floor, on-line, and in the call center, opens a new competitive playground for savvy, forward-thinking retailers and the service companies that support them. While not a 'disruptive' technology innovation, mixing analytics at the point of sale means smarter decisions can be made by more people in real time–and that means real profits to retailers and better experiences for customers.