Beacons - the future of Consumer engagement !!

Imagine customer is looking at smart LED TV in the electronic shop's window, and he/she gets a text with 10% off on that same TV, immediately purchases it & then pays automatically using online account. 

Or even have you noticed, when you walk near Apple store, you get their notifications on your smartphone?

This is possible today as part of Digital Transformation with Beacon technology.

It is revolutionizing the customer experience with in-store analytics, proximity marketing, indoor navigation and contact less payments.

Beacons are small devices working on tiny Bluetooth low energy (BLE) radio signal that can be received and interpreted by an app on smartphones. This can work within 50-70 meters of a beacon device. No scanning necessary. In addition, this system can pinpoint where your customer is in the store micro location and push specific information for them.

Big players in Beacon technology are Estimote & Apple, while major retailers like Macys, Taget, JC Penney are using beacons for Cross-Sell.

Beacons will boost the Retail business in many ways:

• Bring shoppers into the store by targeting them with right offers as they walk past retailer’s windows.  This is called proximity marketing.
• Engage your customers and get them feel excited about visiting your store
• Navigate the customers to the tailored products
• Notify your customers about new products at the right time and place
• Use the real time data of how much time customers are spending in each part of the store which can be used for optimizing the in-store experience
• Use customer’s purchase history and wish list items to come up with product-specific offers when they approach that item
• Allow contact less payments at POS, on smartphones so customers don’t have stand in queues

Today Beacons have gone beyond Retail.

• SK Telecom and Seoul National University Bundang Hospital are using Smart beacons to provide round-the-clock patient information and navigation to its 6,000 daily patients
• Starwood hotels are running a pilot to replace room keys with beacons
• American Airliines is using beacons to improve connections with customers at the airports

With use of Bigdata Analytics, Retailers can create a better shopping experience and offer superior customer service and better customer retention.

It is not distant, when as soon as a customer walks in to the store, your sales staff will know their name, what product categories they shop most, the items they browsed last time but didn’t purchase and what their spending habits are to give them personalized attention.