Visitor traffic counter inside Retail Store Chains
DigiTrafic® case study
The Client: A national top provider for mobile telephony and communication services
Initial situation: The Company was launched in April 1997 as the first GSM network in Romania. Its position- as the leading mobile operator on the Romanian market- is strengthened every year, both by increasing clients number and by offering brand new services: the first 3G and 3G HSDPA broadband services. Annual growth in the number of customers, the constant expansion of national coverage (97% of the population, 81% of the country, 3G and 3G broadband network covers 232 cities and approximately 40% of the population) and the increased levels of competition required the implementation of a management tool to provide real information on the business, regarding the actual number of clients entering the Company’s national store chain.
Mission: Providing and implementation of an integrated IT solution that enables top management representatives to permanently hold information regarding traffic data for every store and to consolidate these statistics to the headquarters in order to use them for planning marketing associated financial resources and for reducing operational costs in each location.
Solution: DigiTrafic® integrated hardware and software system.
Deployment strategy: setting a timetable for gradual implementation, depending on the national store chain opening rate.
DigiTrafic® system implementation took place in 2 stages:
June-July 2007: implementation for the first 80 locations
October-November 2008: implementation for the extended chain, in another 35 stores; providing a software upgrade for the entire network that allows centralized reporting, in compliance with all safety and security requirements for data communication
Arguments: Several arguments were taken into consideration when choosing this solution over the others competitors:
- the complete hardware and software solution, entirely developed by Quartz Matrix, for visitors/ clients counting and traffic flow analysis
- its main function of being an efficient tool for financial resource planning inside the Company’s Marketing Department
- the system provides real traffic data to ensure prompt responses from the market (outputs) to incoming signals (inputs)
- the acquired references in the national market field (the main national retail chain stores use Digitrafic ®)
- technical professionalism of the deployment team, that guarantees nationwide chain implementation
- complete service package (consultancy, sizing, training, post-implementation support) promptly provided with minimum intervention time
- low operating costs- after the deployment period had finished, Quartz Matrix team intervened for technical support in very few cases, by connecting remotely from the headquarters
- 16 years of gained experience for Quartz Matrix in the field of retail business IT&C solutions deployment
Software Upgrade- DigiViewSQL: After carrying out continuous research and development activities, Quartz Matrix IT specialists developed an upgrade for the reporting software, DigiView , in late 2008. The centralized application allows working with SQL databases and integrating traffic statistics in the structure of Company’s complex resource and client management applications, like ERP or CRM.
The new DigiViewSQL software runs as a Windows configurable automatic service on every store’s computer and collects data from the entire chain to the Company’s headquarters.
To ensure maximum availability, the access to the SQL database is done through a web interface, accessible from anywhere in the company’s LAN, without having to install other application or to configure e-mail addresses.
Connection to the database is done with authentication - username and password - and can be done on the local computer, or remotely, on a computer visible in Intranet or Internet. The Company’s system administrator can create, modify or delete users and their access rights.
Post- implementation benefits:
Depending on the recorded input of visitors inside shopping centers, where the Company has rented commercial spaces, it is easy to negotiate the rent value with shopping centers representatives.
Company’s Marketing Dept specialists determine the effect of marketing campaigns, if the right transmission channel was correctly chosen or if the message targeted the right client profile, by recording and analyzing traffic statistics registered before, during and after launching the campaign.
Based on the daily/ weekly/ periodical traffic analysis, the Company obtained a correct distribution chart of staff assisting the customers in their purchase process, according to peak times and days. Thus, it guarantees a high level of satisfaction in customers needs, reducing waiting time inside the store and personnel related expenditures.
With the help of traffic reports, the Company has identified which locations are most visited or most successful in terms of customer traffic, and which stores do not register the expected performance, thus allowing the management to make decisions for corrective effects. In this way, the Company can adjust the following variables: location operational costs, staff costs, promotion or discount policies, in order to promote sales and to limit losses.
Area Sales Managers have permanent access to traffic reports, graphs and statistics generated by the DigiViewSQL application which can process data according to various criteria (temporal or geographical).