Customer service has evolved from being solely about the product to the service and now, to the experience felt by the buyer. Initially being sectorised to certain channels like the telephone or mail, today it encompasses a huge variety of methods which includes Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data, as well as pre-emptive solutions and suggestions before customers can even make a purchase.
Simply put, customers want more than just speed today, and it is up to retailers to be on a continuous innovative path to stay competitive in the market. Businesses today need to look into holistic methods and ways of snagging customers and keep them coming back because customer satisfaction has now proven to be vital in any buying or selling process.
Customers want more than just speed today, and it is up to retailers to be on a continuous innovative path to stay competitive in the market
A smart solution for retailers
One such solution was developed by Telekom Malaysia’s innovation arm, TM R&D back in 2017 with the aim of gaining specific insights into customers based on customer traffic.
Aptly called Analytics of Customer Experience (ACE), it is a platform designed to analyse customers experience and footfall within a certain physical location with an added feature of offering suggestions on how to make the experience better. Businesses utilising this solution are not only able to learn and understand customer movement within a store but also its demographics, how long customers stay in a store and any emotion elicited from that experience.
This has proven to help elevate every experience a customer has, which also directly leads to an increase in sales and brand loyalty towards them. Using this, businesses should definitely utilise such solution, because now there is a way forward in mapping their marketing and advertising strategies as well.
How was ACE developed?
The solution was crafted using eight (8) main key elements that ensured its method would never be intrusive to the customer, especially in terms of data privacy.
Here are the elements:
- Customer Personalisation- its main goal is to gather customer persona using data analytics that will help meet the specific needs and wants of a person.
- Customer Journey- this is aimed at creating a journey or pathway for a customer to experience from start to end.
- Emotion Detection- the solution deals with the process of identifying human emotion and calculating satisfaction or unhappiness in the entire process.
- Visitor Visibility- this refers to being alert to any kind of customer interaction so as to analyse what makes a sale or doesn’t.
- Cross-Chanel Consistency- this allows businesses to obtain relevant information from multiple sources of data to have the best insights.
- Ambient Intelligence- an ambient customer experience ties together the physical, digital and virtual aspects of an experience in one location.
- Brand Loyalty- the solution looks at how algorithms can help form relationships between the brand and customer, resulting in long-term loyalty.
- Space Optimisation- targeting the right crowd with the right type of message is instrumental in reaching the specific groups businesses want.
ACE allows businesses to obtain relevant information from multiple sources of data to have the best insights.
It is important to note that ACE dispatches two (2) non-intrusive sensing methods to essentially research people in open spaces in order to develop profiles.
The first method looks at an access point with Wi-Fi that has a scanning feature that identifies mobile devices with their Wi-Fi turned on, allowing classification of various customer profiles just from the signals.
The second method consists of utilising businesses built-in cameras and CCTV’s which are used to monitor and track a customer’s movement, interaction and emotions using photos and foot traffic.
Findings from both methods are then uploaded and sent to ACE cloud-based data analytics system, consisting of different software that is able to analyse, detect, record and report to a data visualisation dashboard for businesses to then view.
Benefits & potential of ACE
ACE has many advantages because the data and information garnered using the solution can become the competitive edge businesses today are looking for because the opportunities and potential to meet customer’s needs are realised and followed through.
The impact of advertising campaigns can also be determined from early on, particularly when it comes to targeting geographical areas.
ACE captures data without needing to interact with a customer, so it is proven to be completely non-intrusive. It is also highly cost-effective, as ACE uses CCTV and off-the-shelf camera systems to connect to, thus images captured can obtain up to 85% accuracy. Additionally, ACE has the ability to differentiate between a customer and an employee at a business.
With this solution, there are no privacy or data issues as all information and images are captured out in the public along with Wi-Fi identifiers. ACE is an Application Programming Interface (API) based, which allows devices and applications to be connected to one another.
Aside from that, ACE can have many subscribers at the same time, without it losing quality or speed. This solution is also designed in a commutable manner, so businesses are able to choose what sort of insights and information is relevant to them. To top it all off, ACE is very accessible and can be used on any kind of device including a mobile phone, making it easy and seamless to utilise.
ACE uses CCTV’s and off-the-shelf camera systems to connect to, thus images captured can obtain up to 85% accuracy
Easily digitise your retail
ACE is one of the many solutions that can help businesses adapt, learn and manoeuvre the customers of today. Indeed we have been spoilt for choice as technology has played a large part in our everyday routine including when shopping. These days, most people do not even know what they want until they see it, and here is where ACE can impact sales and advertising, after-care and brand loyalty.
With many concerns these days on data breaches and privacy loss, ACE promises to only provide information and analytics to businesses that can utilise the data to better serve customers in the future. It also helps that it is flexible, easy to use and able to integrate with external systems. ACE won the MSC Malaysia APICTA Awards 2019 which places ACE as the champion solution in the Digital Marketing /Advertising field for that year. Up until today, ACE has been deployed at 84 TM Points across Malaysia.
About TM R&D
Established in 2000, TM R&D is a world-class R&D company of TM Group; with a special focus on Intelligent Connectivity, Advanced Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT and Digital Platforms. The organisation helps businesses to solve operational issues and co-create solutions for the global market. To date, TM R&D has commercialised 18 solutions and deployed seven platforms for TM saving the Group millions in operational efficiency and support. Additionally, TM R&D has generated more than 2,800 Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) with 100 percent adoption of all its innovations since 2016.
For more information about TM R&D and its innovations, visit www.tmrnd.com.my or email your inquiry to business@tmrnd.com.my or follow them on LinkedIn (TM Research & Development) for more news and updates.
