As the world has realized that the coronavirus pandemic is not going away anytime soon, companies and consumers have adapted to a new normal, with safe hygiene and social distancing practices. These guidelines are most likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future and as a result, many businesses and municipalities are now on the lookout for covid-related signage. Imagine how simple it would be to maintain social distancing and other guidelines with the help of LED signage technology? Not only are these long lasting but are an attractive digital display solution, which means you can keep changing and updating content as per the current social distancing situation in the indoor/outdoor space.
The latest in technology innovation post covid is a combination of video display, software, sensors and more to develop a new category of digital health safety protocol solutions. With advanced signage solutions displaying critical information, retailers can ensure social distancing and safe health practices are being enforced without the need for employees to look into it.
Communications and Updates
Whether it is employee morale or safe handling of social distanced customers, starting each day with consistent and effective communication ensures everyone in the store/office/organization are on the same page.
Digital signage that is mobile and can be reconfigured should be positioned in high-traffic locations and moved as necessary to locations that don’t have digital signage. Every day the messages can be tailor-made with just a few clicks by a signage operator located literally anywhere!
In the pandemic era, there is a lot of uncertainty over how many customers are allowed to enter a store, how customers are expected to behave, store timings, and so on, it is essential to have clear and accurate information at the entrance of every store to avoid confusion and make sure customers behave well.
If your store already uses digital signage, you can repurpose those, or can benefit from additional social distancing displays at entrances, bottlenecks, and high foot traffic areas. In addition to covid-related information, your signage could also display items that are out of stock so customers looking for those particular items don’t need to enter the store and interactions can hence be avoided.
Capacity indications
Since the spread of covid-19 is from individual to individual, it is necessary to limit the number of people standing close to each other. Apart from keeping a track of the number of people inside your office/organization, you also have to make sure it doesn’t get over crowded. You can set up real-time occupancy monitors based on the people counting engine or a crowd proximity detection system to avoid crowding or at least alert people when the space is getting too crowded. But distancing alerts must be flexible because it is fine for living partners to walk together or a parent to walk with their children.
Prompts and reminders
Keeping customers/public well informed is important in controlling virus transmission in crowded situations. You could incorporate a video management system into your digital signage which can be programmed in a way that it will react automatically with visual and audio notifications every time a breach of guidelines takes place. Other safety protocol and regular reminders for hand washing and maintain range of social distancing can keep repeating on the digital display and audio system.
By conveying mask rules, health guidelines and other service announcements through digital signage, company employees are free from personally monitoring and directing crowds in your workspace and can focus on other productive tasks.
Managing queues
Social distancing can be a challenge, particularly in public spaces. While custom printed floor-stickers may do the job for some, real-time customer count displayed on digital signage inside a store, restaurant, meeting room or in an elevator, is necessary in certain places to restrict the number of people inside.
Also, at pharmacies and grocery stores, digital signage can display clear instructions on how customers can make use of the self-checkout facility, assist with queueing and long lines in certain areas, and so on. Messages such as ‘next customer’, ‘order is ready’ and ‘do not enter’ are common instructions that can help with the queue management process.
Automate the information process
We already spoke about how occupancy management systems control crowd, and real-time audio-visual messages maintain covid-care practices. Businesses can also invest in wellness kiosks for temperature checks and dispensing PPE such as masks, face protective screens and sneeze guards.
In addition to that, today’s technology incorporates contact-less, yet interactive displays by way of QR scanners. For example, if a customer wants to find the shoe section but does not want to touch an LED display, he can scan the QR code of the display on his smartphone and an interactive map will come up on his phone to navigate his way through and find the shoe section. Another option is to speak to the interactive display, which will in turn show the customer his way just like a smart speaker would.
Making use of these innovative technology ensures peace-of-mind for staff and customers while a retailer enjoys automated information processes.
