How Facial Recognition will change the Face of Retail
The use of facial recognition technologies in retail environments promises to change the way we think of customer service. As more shoppers move online, the role of the store is changing from an outlet, to a place where shoppers expect personalised service.
Stores need to innovate. By recognising repeat customers, and knowing their preferences, brands can offer great personalised service to mass shoppers. Great service leads to loyalty, the goal of any retail operation. A subsequent benefit of this technology is enhanced safety and security in the store.
By tagging shopper preferences and purchase history to an identity, stores will be able to leverage this technology for great customer experiences.
The steps to effective deployment of facial recognition are:
Customer Identification: Sales and Service staff identify customers (or potential customers) that are of importance to a company.
Assign Attributes: The Customer is tagged (with their consent!) and their preferences of the customer are added to the system.
Recognise: On return to the store or chain, the customer is recognised by the system, and their preferences are shown to sales and service staff.
Service: It’s now up to the staff to ensure the customer is serviced.
Use case: High-end Retail
A customer purchases a particular style and size of fashion item.
Staff tag that customers’ sizes, purchase history and preferences in the system.
Upon any future return to the store, staff are alerted to that specific customers value, and know their preferences immediately.