Know your customer: how biometrics transforms the queue management approach

Gone are the days when customers were easy to please and ready to make do with high quality and reasonable prices only. Today they are getting increasingly picky about the speed and level of service which has immediately become a front-burner for businesses.
According to PwC research, up to 32% of customers are set to sever ties even with their favorite brand after the very first service shortcoming. Trying to keep up with unprecedentedly high requirements and growing competition, companies more and more frequently turn to digital technologies and a contactless service model. Now let us take a look at the global experience of implementing facial biometrics and talk about the prospects this innovation might bring to the industry. Contactless service made a splash during the first pandemic wave. Still, the spring of this trend dates back to long before COVID-19 outbreak. Banks, state institutions, retail and transport were among the key spheres where the innovation was put into practice. Back in 2016, Amazon piloted the so-called “smart” shops project, at the core of which there was the idea to shift away from a traditional shop model with shop assistants and switch to the use of a CCTV system equipped with the machine vision technology and a customer recognition system. At the same time, major European grocery retail players such as Kaufland, Tesco, Billa and others also began equipping their stores with self-service cash registers. As for the transport industry, a great contribution to the development of this trend has been made by airports. Using self-check-in facilities and baggage drop-off desks has become commonplace in major world air hubs since the second half of the 2010s. As a result, these innovations have minimized the time of pre-flight formalities and made passenger experience much more comfortable. Meanwhile, airports have benefited from this innovation as well since the transition to self-service has certainly optimized work under growing passenger traffic. This trend has proved especially handy in the banking industry with the development of the queue management system (QMS). Since the mid-2000s, banks in the USA, Europe and Japan have been integrating the QMS. This solution has become a top choice for businesses since it is relatively inexpensive and easy to use. According to Market Research Future, the volume of the global QMS market totalled $267.8 million in 2021. Experts estimate that the average annual growth rate will be 5% to 7%. As reported by Exactitude Consultancy, the volume of the global market could reach $ 762 million by 2029. The COVID-19 pandemic, in some terms, was a pivotal point for the industry, because healthcare and retail got immensely interested in the QMS. Nevertheless, the banking sector is still ahead of the curve in adopting the technology. Highly competitive environment as well as endless pursuit of a higher level of customer service practically lay behind the increasingly growing demand for queue management services. Speaking about geographical distribution, today’s market leader is North America, which accounted for up to 2/5 of the global QMS market in 2021. However, in the coming years, the countries of the Asia-Pacific region are expected to step forward to compete with the US as their average annual growth is estimated to reach 8.7%. This breakthrough is connected with the concept of “smart” cities implemented all over the region. Digital technologies, including biometric ones, drive the industry's growth now. The integration of facial biometrics in the QMS not only ensures complete contactless method (the client does not need to touch the screen to receive a ticket), but also becomes an effective automation and accounting tool for business. Biometric solutions and self-service terminals help to increase customer loyalty and reduce enterprise costs. In the future, biometrics has every chance to change the very essence of traditional QMS. Let's turn to the example of Id-Line, a new RecFaces product — an ready-made software solution.
Contents
- Biometrics in queue management systems
- Personalized customer routing
- Higher security level
- Additional verification in self-service terminals
- Id-Line tech-features
- Ready-made methods of integration with QMS and CRM
- Easy integration with third-party systems
- Interface selection
- Easy-to-use profile base
- Sound privacy policy
- Configurable notification system
- Liveness control to prevent system compromise attempts
- Biometric revolution in the QMS
Biometrics in queue management systems
“Know the customer” from the get-go
Id-Line is a biometric product that identifies a person by face and can be integrated into QMS. The solution is primarily intended for banks, visa centers, state and municipal institutions, and transport facilities. However, it’s possible to use it at any facility that requires queue management. Unlike classic QMS algorithms, biometric operations are guided by the principle «Know Your Customer» (KYC). Previously, all QMS disposed of a limited number of simple scenarios to distribute customers to operators. The procedure was the following: a customer takes a ticket at the terminal, gets an individual number and waits for an operator. When their turn comes, they give the assigned operator their documents, and only then the operator, who cannot get any information on the client from the system, can start filling in their card. This, repeated for every client, slows the work down significantly and results in ponderable losses for banks, especially if counted for a month across all offices. In biometric terminals, though, it is facial recognition that performs the “know your customer” function. Id-Line identifies a customer and transmits their personal information to the CRM system, which automatically opens an individual customer card on the operator's desktop. The employee should quickly check the information from the database against a personal document. In case of mismatch of one or several parameters, the operator can suspend service and contact security service. If there are any inconsistencies or conflicts, the operator can consult the security service as well.
Personalized customer routing
In classic QMS, customers are ranked in a queue in accordance with different types of services: to get a loan, to get a card, to make a payment, to open a deposit, to exchange currency, etc. Id-Line allows to expand capabilities of customer routing and make the service more personalized. For instance, if a customer belongs to the VIP category, they are given priority in the queue. Integration with CRM also allows to automatically prepare a special offer for the visitor who will be informed in detail about it by the operator.
Higher security level
Every day banks are visited by a large number of people, among whom there might be not only potential customers, but also unwanted visitors or even fraudsters. In this case biometrics based QMS equipped with CCTV provide the opportunity to monitor the crowd and may automatically notify security service if visitors from stop-lists appear on camera.
Additional verification in self-service terminals
Biometric solution Id-Line can be used not only as a QMS supplement, but also in terminals of a bank self-service zone. As a rule, one or two verification factors are used in such terminals. However, PIN codes as well as passwords can be easily compromised. Id-Line with a CCTV system provides additional verification based on photo identification.
Id-Line tech-features
Easy installation
The installation of the biometric solution is no more complicated than routine installation of a standard Windows program. The whole process is described step by step in Administrator Guide and requires just basic knowledge from a user. On average, it takes only 20 minutes to install Id-Line.
Ready-made methods of integration with QMS and CRM
The product offers a set of ready-made scenarios to exchange information between the solution, the QMS and the customer’s CRM.
Easy integration with third-party systems
The biometric solution offers an easy-to-use API for integration and data exchange with third-party systems of the customer's information infrastructure.
Interface selection
Id-Line has an intuitive interface which provides quick access to a whole range of functions and features: from operational mode to fine-tuning. Besides, the solution’s interface windows or widgets can be embedded into the “native” interface used in the company.
Easy-to-use profile base
The biometric solution provides convenient data import and export tools that help to build client databases and, if necessary, export them.
Sound privacy policy
While operating, Id-Line does not store information about unidentified visitors who are not in the profile base. If a person does not give consent to personal data processing, the administrator deletes information from the camera.
Configurable notification system
The solution provides an on-the-spot notification system flexible for customization. If necessary, it is possible to turn on notifications of identification and verification of customers from different lists, including stop-lists, and also of any attempts to compromise the system. Push-messages, e-mail or notifications of external systems via API and HTTPS can be chosen as delivery channels.
Liveness control to prevent system compromise attempts
Id-Line has a build-in automatic liveness control function which ensures additional image verification from the solution’s cameras. It allows to minimize risks of the system’s compromise: a fraudster will not be able to get access to service with the use of a printed photo or digital image of the organization's real customer.
Biometric revolution in the QMS
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Id-Line biometric solution can be called a ground-breaking product for its market segment. The advent of facial biometrics is expected to blueprint a new direction for further development of classic QMS. The product has already shown impressive results allowing businesses to decrease the customer service time by 30 seconds. In effect, this means that an operator can serve three more customers every day. Biometric identification does not only optimize and automate work, but also changes the very way queues are formed in banks and other institutions. Id-Line permits to achieve high personalization of service and to ensure personal service for VIP-clients. The Product is becoming not only an instrument to build users’ loyalty, but in the long run — also to increase LTV. And finally, the solution successfully copes with the task to ensure security due to rapid response to compromise attempts. In the nearest future, facial identification is sure to contribute to the growth of the QMS global market and will become a crucial competitive advantage for banks, companies in the governmental sector and enterprises of different industries. More to the point, the transition to a new level of queue management will not require considerable time or financial costs. Practically speaking, Id-Line is an ready-made biometric product at its finest. Learn more about the RecFaces solution by availing of its free 3-month demo-subscription.