Last year high-footfall locations such as airports and shopping malls took a massive hit due to the pandemic. The retail industry in India, for instance, saw a 67% decline in footfalls. Even the staff had to be reduced to ensure social distancing. Airports had additional tasks too. Apart from the routine tasks, they had to guide the passengers to comply with the additional COVID-19 rules, such as maintaining social distancing, ensuring that passengers were vaccinated or guiding them to undergo the RTPCR tests. With less staff and more responsibilities, it was a tough task for airlines to serve the passengers optimally. However, some airlines addressed these challenges through innovative solutions such as digital signage. Look at Delta Airlines, for instance. Considering that there was a long queue at the testing centre, they used digital signage to display the current queue number served at the facility. The number would be updated in real-time as the passengers moved through the testing phase. It helped in maintaining social distance between the passengers. The digital displays were synced with all the communication channels. So, passengers could track the queue in real-time from their mobile phones.
Whether it’s giving directions, advertisements, or instructions, digital signage can be useful in places where there’s high footfall. They are visually attractive, easily visible, and clear enough to convey important messages to customers. These locations can also use jump screens to display content across different screens to guide visitors as they pass to show the right directions.
Let’s look at some more ways in which high-footfall locations can leverage AV solutions to improve the visitor experience.
How To Leverage AV Solutions In High-Footfall Locations?
- Advertising
According to Nielsen research, 68% of shoppers said that digital signage ads could influence their buying decision. The bright screens, dynamic content, and attractive visuals play a huge role in attracting people’s attention. As the holiday season is just around the corner and life is returning to normalcy, people seem set to want to shop again in the malls. Dynamic digital signage can be a great way to boost sales. For example, brands can advertise an ongoing sale or event in their shop or even use it to share gift ideas with shoppers. Malls can also advertise different products available at different shops to engage with the shoppers and guide them to purchase. Another way to attract attention is to place digital signage outside the store. This could attract the shoppers to make an impulsive purchase too. Even airports can use digital signage for advertising retail stores and restaurants in the waiting area in case they want to shop or grab a bite.
- Contactless interactions
Even as operations return to normalcy, passengers at the airport would prefer to use contactless technologies throughout their journey to avoid contracting the virus. Digital signage can create and deploy unique QR codes, NFC, and web links and place them in any space or object. Passengers have to just scan the code using the mobile device and complete the check-in and check-out process without touching anything. The QR code can also direct the passengers to custom websites where they can get all key information about the airport on their device. Most importantly, digital signage eliminates or reduces human interaction by guiding and instructing the passengers in real-time as they proceed through the journey. This will reduce the burden on the administration and improve operational efficiency.
- Real-time assistance throughout the journey
Not sure which stores to visit in a mall to purchase gifts or unable to locate the favourite store? Well, digital signage can be of help. The interactive signage can help the shopper find the store quickly and complete their shopping. Some malls also use digital signage to direct shoppers to stores based on the footfall received. This is useful today when most stores are being asked to control crowding in-store. Signage can also provide information on restaurants they can visit for a quick bite. This helps to improve the shopper’s experience. Digital signage can also be effectively used to guide the passengers right from when they enter the airport to when they board the flight. For example, Flight Information Display Systems (FIDS) can help passengers find accurate information about the flight, luggage, etc. Similarly, airports can place tablet screens at various locations to assist the passengers as they proceed through their journey. This will help the passengers to complete the check-in and check-out process without any hiccups.
- Virtual welcome
Considering that most of the staff is still working from home, high-footfall locations could consider using digital signage for the virtual welcome. The signage could display content relevant to the visitors, about the precautions they must take, safety instructions, waiting time, etc. This could help in improving the visitor’s experience. These locations can also place portable screens at various locations to provide live human assistance to visitors, guide them to fill out the forms, etc.
Conclusion
Although we hope to have reached the end of the tunnel when it comes to the pandemic, high-footfall locations still have to follow safety precautions to prevent the spread of infection. Malls, restaurants, airports, etc. can use digital signage outside to inform about the real-time number of people present within the traffic and guide them through the premises with minimal human intervention. Digital signage gives brands an opportunity to improve the visitor’s experience and engage with them. It’s especially important now as high-footfall locations look for ways to grow their business.
Resurgent’s Surge+ is a cloud-based video communication platform that can help people have a physical presence across all locations seamlessly. From welcome space to no-touch assistance and support, and using jump screens to accompany visitors throughout the journey, Surge+ can help high-footfall locations to build a positive experience and ensure business growth.
To know more, contact us.
