KNOW YOUR PEAK HOURS WITH A VISIPLUS CUSTOMER COUNTING SYSTEM

Are you staffing at the appropriate times of the day? 

Well, that’s hard to know for sure, unless you’re taking advantage of the data provided by customer counting systems. Historically, managers utilize their sales data to determine the “busiest” times of the day. What if the times that your registers are the busiest aren’t actually the busiest times of the day on your sales floor?

Are you staffing for peak times, or are peak times dictating your staffing?

 If you rely on your sales data to tell you that between the hours of 11am -2pm, you’ll schedule your staff to be present during these times to assist in the customer flow. What if, however, by doing this without reviewing any additional data, you’re forcing this time to be your busiest? Without people counting systems, you may never see the entire picture. 

The problem

 Let’s assume that you schedule heavy between 11-2 every day, as this is what your sales tell you is your peak time. Without any additional data at your fingertips, it only makes sense. Now, what if this has become your peak time because you are scheduled so heavy during this time? What if, during another block of time during the day, you actually have more customers in the store, but since you don’t have the heavy staff presence, you walk sales since your customers aren’t being serviced? 

Real Life Example

 This is exactly what we discovered when we installed people counting systems. I used the 11a-2p example above because that was my data. For years, as a manager, I made sure I had the most staff on the floor during this time. After installing customer counting systems, we found that we had on average, 10%-15% more customers in the store between 4pm-7pm than we did between 11a-2p. 

Reacting to the numbers

 With this new information from our Customer Counting Systems, we began to schedule more sales team members on the floor between 4pm-7pm. After some trial and error, we finally got the staffing to reflect the foot traffic and the results were, no surprise, a new “peak time” for our store. We saw a moderate increase in sales and we contribute this to higher levels of customer service from our team when there are physically more customers in the store. The more customer interactions our sales team have, the higher the chance to make a sale. 

Impact on shrink

 While we often focus on physical solutions to shoplifting loss, often overlooked (and universally the most important) way to decrease shrink is to increase sales. By relying on the data provided by people counting systems, we were able to add sales to our bottom line. This not only added to our profitability, it decreased our shrink as a percentage to sales. While there are numerous ways to improve store performance and effect sales targets in addition to minimizing shrink, you shouldn’t overlook how important an accurate customer count, by hour, can be to your business. By having the ability to pull this data and review it daily, you can make better decisions regarding staffing, payroll and ultimately your shrink reduction strategies. 
 

Get more information on People Counting Systems, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.