Understanding how people use your spaces, whether that be employees, visitors or customers, provides you with behavioural insights that you can then use to optimise how you operate your site.
The data that comes from occupancy monitoring and occupancy monitoring and people counting solutions are sources of amazing information that your businesses can use. It can tell you how many people visit your space, when they're coming, how they're moving within it and when they leave. Analysing the data with your specific business challenges in mind will give you valuable insights on how you manage your space.
If you’re a commercial retail location, you can use people counting solutions to identify high and low traffic areas, and market your retail spaces accordingly. If you're a museum, you can use occupancy monitoring solutions to spot opportunities to sell additional tickets while staying within capacity limits. You can also tell your sponsors how many people are visiting their exhibits, thus giving them valuable, quantifiable information.
And if you’re wondering if your office or warehouse space is being properly utilised, you can use occupancy and directional data to understand usage and behaviours — helping you better configure your workspace.
Not to mention, the world’s coming out of a pandemic right now — but Covid is still a serious threat, and we need to take it seriously.
Occupancy monitoring and people counting solutions saw a big spike in usage in 2020 for this simple reason. It’s a cost-effective, easy, and accurate way to make sure capacity guidelines are being followed, which prevents outbreaks, keeps regulators happy, and makes customers and employees feel safer.
The impact of Covid and the focus on hygiene has also drawn attention to the benefits of monitoring occupancy in washrooms and restrooms, which is more important now than ever in terms of safety for your employees and cleaning staff. Switching from fixed cleaning schedules to an on-demand system helps provide a consistent level of cleanliness and sanitisation.
Usage based cleaning based on real-time data improves hygiene, which helps to reduce the spread of illness and can also optimise cleaning schedules, thereby reducing costs.
Whilst there is so much that can be gleaned from different data-points, the quality of the data is paramount. Inaccurate data leads to inaccurate insights, which can then lead to poor decision-making and planning.
Take for example the number of customers in-store and the trends in occupancy you can spot over time. If you undercount the number of people, you might not plan to have enough staff on hand to deal with all your customers. Or if you're using live data, undercounting could mean you go over your safe capacity without realising it. Conversely over-counting could result in more staff than required, or not gaining additional revenue from visitors that could have safely been admitted.
There are many different types of solutions on the market for occupancy monitoring and people counting, each using different technology. The challenge is finding a solution that will provide reliable and accurate data.
If you're using WiFi sensors to count phones in your facility, for instance, you're assuming everyone has exactly one phone and that it's turned on — which often isn't the case as some people may carry more than one phone and others not any.
Heat sensors can similarly be affected by external factors such as changes in the ambient temperature and the height of the ceiling. And manually counting people with a clicker is prone to human error — not to mention costly.
Data accuracy can be affected by a number of different factors that are unique to each space and each installation. We believe accuracy figures should be based on the actual space data is gathered for rather than a generic test site that isn't effected by external factors.
Having accurate data simply gives you better information. Plus, you can rest assured when making decisions using accurate, real-time data — for example, if you’re brushing up against your Covid or fire safety limit, you’ll know better when you need to stop letting people in.
Equally, by understanding live occupancy, organisations such as visitor attractions or pay-per-use spaces, can sell additional tickets as they see occupancy numbers reduce, rather than using a timed entry model.
Data accuracy is important to us and our clients.
We find that most of our clients achieve accuracy rates of 98-99%. And we know this to be true because we audit each and every device after installation. We also provide input during set-up to help you achieve the highest levels of accuracy.
Talking about accurate data and actually seeing it live on a dashboard are two different things. By offering clients a commitment free 30-day trial, you can test the solution in your own space to see how accurate the data is.
And if that's not enough, a few other reasons to trial...
In addition to occupancy data, the HoxtonAi solutions also provide directional data-points - i.e. information on the direction in which people are moving. Combined with occupancy data, this provides a richer data experience and helps clients gather more meaningful insights to improve operations.
For example, commercial retail spaces can use this information to understand which are their most visited sites and which route has the most foot traffic.
A different use-case would be to use the data to reconfigure spaces. By understanding when people are visiting a space such an office, where they may be congregating and how they're moving around in the space, office designers can create a layout better suited to usage.
Occupancy monitoring can help you make lots of other decisions. Information is power — especially in the 21st century — and the more you know about what’s going on at your properties, the better decisions you can make.
We don’t want installing our system to be a pain. If you’ve ever struggled to use a new device — a computer, a phone, a TV — you know how difficult it can be.
And waiting for someone to come install something? That’s even worse. Anyone who’s ever waited for a plumber or an electrician to come to their house knows how frustrating it is to sit around, not knowing when they’re coming by.
That’s why we made our sensors and our system easy to install (by yourself), easy to learn, and easy to use. That means no frustrating delays and no lost time. Plus, you start collecting and using your occupancy data sooner!
Through starting a trial, we invite you to test our claim of easy self-installation in 20minutes - without any special tools.
The HoxtonAi solution is designed to adapt to your changing business needs.
Once a device is installed, it can easily be moved to another location. This is a big deal for making short-term changes — like if you’re adding a new exhibit to a museum, or you’re throwing a big party in a particular area. It can also be used to help designers understand if their new layout is working in the way intended. When areas that aren’t usually important become important, the flexibility of our system lets you adapt.
Furthermore, the devices can also easily be changed between solutions without requiring additional installations or devices - i.e. from Ai People Count to Ai Occupancy Monitor on the same device. So if you do move your device for a new exhibition to start monitoring occupancy for your sponsors, you can easily do so.
Our flexibility also extends to our contracts. We understand that our clients don't necessarily want to be tied into long-term contracts. We offer flexible contracts to suit your changing business needs.
You can scale our occupancy monitoring to your heart’s desire. You can track as many locations as you want. Many of our clients have installed sensors in multiple facilities, and they monitor everything from a central dashboard— letting them compare trends across locations.
And it’s easy to install new sensors in new areas of an existing facility as well. Since the system is self-installable, adding a few extra sensors is no trouble at all. That way, you can always target down the data you need.
Whether you already have certain questions you want answered by people counting, or you just want to learn more about how your employees, visitors and customers are using your space, occupancy monitoring can give you new insights that will help you make better business decisions.
As mentioned earlier, we believe in a commitment free approach to trying occupancy monitoring. So, we’d like to offer you a free trial.
Come see what occupancy monitoring is about. Learn new things about your business. Find out how your spaces are being occupied.
Date us before you marry us.
Try the HoxtonAi solutions for free.
To request your free 30 day trial, simply click below, fill out the fields, and we’ll be in touch!