Essential planning for footfall analytics

Footfall analytics provide empowering information, but a successful system needs diverse members of an organisation to buy into it. You need to bring together different groups and ask what analytics they need to make informed decisions.

You might find that the Marketing department wants sales conversion figures, where visitor counts are linked to point-of-sale (POS) data. Customer services may be more interested in queue lengths and times. Other decision-makers may want to know the path people take through a building. Some employees might want nothing to do with the system, seeing threats rather than opportunities.

When all concerned have expressed their wishes and concerns, you should have a detailed picture of what you want to achieve. This will tell your systems integrator exactly what is needed. They will then know where cameras are needed, the live data to provide, when to integrate with existing systems, how information is to be shared and so on.

Bringing everyone together at the beginning makes for a much stronger brief and a healthy debate on which key performance indicators should be measured.

The next stage is to install a pilot system in just one room or store, and to decide how you will measure its success.

Accuracy of course is the primary measurement for the trial system. After this – are all the requirements you set out fulfilled? Are the analytics available as you expected? Are the staff on-board and happy about the new information to which they have access, or are there any unforeseen problems to be addressed? Has the system fulfilled its aims – whether it be increasing sales, improving the visitor experience or reducing costs?

Only once the test installation is a success should it be rolled out further.

If you want our advice about planning a people counting system – call +44 (0)161 839 6437