Enhancing the Retail Experience While Improving Operations: Here’s How

Every competitive business is constantly on the lookout for ways to improve and streamline operations. However, retailers have the extra burden of maintaining superior customer service to stay ahead of competition. The best leaders in the retail space are always looking for ways to make regular customers even happier while attracting new ones to their business.

This has been a tall order, especially during a pandemic. What can a retailer do?  

Facial Recognition to the Rescue

Biometric technology offers a powerful means of elevating the customer experience while improving operations. It all revolves around customer identification, which can be easily automated through the use of facial biometrics. For customers who enroll their face to the store loyalty program, the benefits can be realized immediately, whether in-store, online or using a mobile app.

Here’s an example:

A shopper can enter a store, grab the items they need and proceed to a contactless self-service kiosk. Facial recognition identifies the customer immediately and requires no additional actions. There’s no need to present a payment card, as this information is already attached to the customer’s biometric profile. All the customer needs to do is scan their items and drop them into a shopping bag. Eligible customers can even purchase age-restricted goods such as alcohol without needing to show photo ID — their identity and age have already been confirmed during the one-time enrollment process.

Facial recognition enables a fast, convenient way to shop that minimizes the need for human intervention and touching shared surfaces — important considerations for many shoppers concerned about the spread of pathogens. And it’s even better for customers enrolled in loyalty programs. They’re automatically identified as preferred customers, and rewards points can be automatically applied as appropriate during the checkout session.

Watch the video below to see how facial recognition can help retailers deliver secure, frictionless and personalized customer experiences.

What Are the Benefits to Retailers?

For customers, the benefits of using facial recognition are obvious, but it also translates into compelling advantages for the retailer. Automated biometric self-checkout means shorter lines and more efficient throughput. It also frees up human resources, which can be applied elsewhere — whether for stocking shelves or assisting customers in the aisles.

The same facial recognition technology can also be used to identify employees, further streamlining a store’s operations:

• Staff can easily clock in and out with a face scan and can log into a till without having to enter credentials
• Retailers benefit from the elimination of possible buddy punching for timesheet fraud
• Stores can prevent unscrupulous individuals from processing fraudulent discounts on a temporary checkout till
• Compliance is heightened because there are auditable and indisputable records of who clocked in and out for work and at what times, as well as who was using the till during a given transaction

With its reliability, efficiency, security and capability for automation, facial recognition technology really does offer a win-win-win in the retail environment — for customers, employees and managers. It gives operations a competitive edge and offers a next-level customer experience.

To learn how your business can benefit from becoming an early adopter of this game-changing technology, read the eBook, The Ultimate Retail Experience Starts With Facial Recognition.