Authors:
Roger Adema, David Bennett, Luis Lopez, Tony Niverth
Abstract:
What is disclosed is a system and method to incent customers to shop at times that are less busy in order to reduce wait time for the customer as well as help the store better manage personnel.
Background:
Customers hate busy stores and for retailers wanting to optimize their resources, having a steady flow of business is better than having periods of high and low activity. Some customers use their own experiences to determine when a store may be less busy and choose to shop during those times. Google also provides a bar chart showing popular times for businesses. Google indicates this data is 'based on visits' to the place in question.
Retailers can and probably do collect their own data on customer traffic to their stores during certain times of the day and days of the week or month. Savvy retailers may also be collecting data on average wait times for customers standing in line to check out. The challenge is using that information to influence their customers' behavior, especially their loyalty customers.
Description:
This disclosure describes several ways that retailers can influence customers to shop at their stores at less busy times.
1. Print information on the receipt indicating potential time periods during the coming week when customers may experience shorter wait times. This information could be printed only for loyalty customers or all customers or could be printed only during periods of longer wait times or at all times. Store associates can be trained to notify customers that the information is contained on the receipt.
2. Provide a store coupon to loyalty customers which would only be effective during certain periods of the day (presumably when the store is less busy). This would probably only be provided if the store can detect that the customer spent a longer time waiting to check out than normal. This would have the effect of both incenting the customer to shop during a less busy time (perhaps modifying their behavior in the long term) as well as mitigate the negative effects of the long wait.
3. Use the store app to notify customers when wait times are short. This can be targeted to loyalty customers whose shopping behavior is somewhat consistent with the desired behavior. In other words, if a customer is known to shop on either Tuesdays or Wednesdays and there is no indication the person has shopped yet this week, send a notification on Tuesday and/or Wednesday during slow times to try to incent the customer to shop. This can be accompanied by a small discount.
TGCS Reference 2510
