From store to office: facial recognition technologies in business centers
Business centers combine the functions of administrative and office buildings, shopping and entertainment centers. Consider how facial biometrics are applied in different areas of such complexes.
Table of Contents
- Use in shopping areas
- Fighting shoplifting
- Marketing researches
- Increase sales and improve service quality
- Use in the office area
- Protection from third parties
- Increased throughput
- “Invisible” control
- Different functions — unified security
- Instant reaction
- Incident investigation
Use in shopping areas
Today, biometric technologies are increasingly attracting the attention of major players in the offline retail market. Facial biometrics not only increases the security of stores, but also becomes an effective marketing tool.
Fighting shoplifting
First of all, facial recognition technology helps to fight shoplifting. Retailers spend a lot of resources to reduce the number of thefts, but even qualified guards cannot guarantee the security. Enriching video surveillance cameras with facial biometrics allows you to identify a potential thief “from the doorstep” and notify the store security about his appearance.
Biometrics also improves the efficiency of working with stop-lists. And if the technology is implemented in the video surveillance system of several stores of the shopping gallery, these lists can be combined. And here we are already talking about a fundamentally new level of collective security of tenants.
Marketing researches
Biometrics can also serve as a tool for collecting information about customers, both at the level of a particular store and at the scale of the shopping area of the building as a whole. The camera installed at the entrance of the facility records the number of visitors, their age and gender, as well as counts the number of returning customers. In the future, based on this information, you can create a portrait of the target audience of a store or shopping center, find out the number of regular customers, and evaluate the effect of advertising campaigns.
Increase sales and improve service quality
The better the seller knows the buyer, the more goods or services he can sell to him. The problem is that often employees are not physically able to remember all the customers “in person”. Biometric technologies also help to close this gap. For example, the Id-Target software solution from RecFaces identifies a customer entering the store, and when integrated with the CRM system, sends the sales consultant complete information about the buyer and his preferences.
Another area of application of Id-Target is the loyalty system. The face recognition device at the checkout saves the customer’s time that he would’ve wasted searching for a bonus card or dictating their phone number to an employee. This makes paying for purchases faster and more comfortable.
On the one hand, the personification of service with the help of biometric technologies helps the company to increase sales, and on the other hand, it has a positive impact on the brand reputation and customer loyalty.
Finally, facial biometrics allows you to increase the efficiency of interaction with the client by personifying advertising content. For example, you can use Id-Target to target information on digital devices in a store or sales office. After identifying the customer, the CRM system receives data about the customer's gender, age, and purchase history and displays information about the most interesting products and offers.
Use in the office area
Differentiation of the flow of customers and employees of the office part of the building is one of the important tasks in the work of business centers. The offices are usually separated from the shopping areas and occupy one or more upper floors of the building. The problem of unauthorized persons entering the administrative zone is solved with the help of access control devices. Enriching the ACS system with the face recognition function helps to increase the efficiency of their work, and make the process of passing the control more convenient for employees.
Protection from third parties
The use of facial biometrics in the work of the ACS completely eliminates the possibility of transferring RFID cards from one person to another. The employee's face becomes his unique pass, which cannot be “borrowed” or forged.
It is worth remembering that an attempt to enter a secured area is not always the result of some malicious intent. Sometimes a visitor to the business center can simply get lost or go up to the wrong floor. Access control devices with face recognition technology in the elevator area of the complex become a means of combating such “involuntary violators”. If necessary, they can also be used to divide the elevators into public and service ones, intended only for employees whose biometric data is included in the unified database of the office center.
Increased throughput
The face identification process takes less than a second. This is significantly less than the time it takes to pass with RFID cards. Employees stop wasting time in queues to the turnstiles at the checkpoint, and may not be afraid to forget the pass at home.
“Invisible” control
The integration of facial biometrics into the operation of ACS systems allows you to secure even those areas that cannot be physically equipped with access control actuators. For example, open-space offices or open areas of business centers. Enriched with a facial recognition function, the cameras track the movement of people in territory without contact and promptly notify security personnel about violators.
Different functions — unified security
Galleries with shops, restaurants, fitness centers and office space-despite the variety of functions, the business center remains a single entity that requires a comprehensive approach to security. Enriching the video surveillance system with facial recognition technology helps to prevent possible incidents in a timely manner and increases the effectiveness of their investigation.
Instant reaction
The use of facial biometrics in video surveillance systems eliminates the risks of inattentiveness of security guards. The system automatically detects an unwanted visitor in any of the zones of the complex and sends a notification to the security staff via the selected communication channel: messengers, SMS, email or a special application.
Incident investigation
Due to the multifunctionality of business complexes, the nature of incidents that can occur on their territory is very diverse. This includes conflicts between visitors, shoplifting, and incidents in the office part of the building. The classic video surveillance system is not able to provide a quick and effective investigation of such incidents. Viewing hours of recordings by security service operators is often ineffective.
The use of facial biometrics in the video surveillance system allows you to create long-term archives, in which it is convenient to rank visitors' passes by date, time, control zone or a specific camera. Intelligent search saves resources and significantly speeds up the investigation.
Combating shoplifting, marketing research, increasing sales, and an integrated approach to ensuring the safety of tenants and customers-biometric technologies can be used to solve a variety of tasks in the work of business centers. You can learn more about the security and retail applications of RecFaces products in our free online training courses.
The webinar schedule is available here: https://recfaces.com/training