Category: News

Digital touchscreen technology is popping up everywhere, and the question from a lot of companies is, “How can we swipe a piece of the interactive pie?” The flexibility available through hardware and software means customization is not only a possibility, but a preference. Providing solutions unique to a company’s offering or communications opens up the opportunity to intelligently integrate tech. Touchscreens provide the ability to empower customers, staff and stakeholders while elevating creativity and efficiencies.

It’s an exciting time to see how different industries are integrating touchscreen technology to enhance customer experiences and their own capabilities. Here is a few of our insights on how a variety of industries are integrating touch tech:

Transport & Travel

A time of heightened emotion, travel often results in customers stretching from calm to chaos. Digital touch technology has been explored in varying ways for the transport industry, from digital bus time tables and taxi touchscreens and full destination exploration. From the basic convenience of tracking where your ride is to doing a quick cost calculation to buying tickets or exploring a foreign place, customizing a digital touchscreen to a niche purpose is possible. Alleviating stress is at the core of transport and travel signage and can elevate a traveller’s experiences from good to great.

Touchscreens can be utilized for timely communications, real-time messaging and for allowing customers to explore their options. Rather than fumbling through Google, understand your customer journey and provide everything they need before they know they need it.  More frequently, touch technology is lending itself to developing smart cities, with public places embracing the opportunity to integrate interactive.

Entertainment

Entertainment precincts from art galleries to stadiums are hives of activity, and we have zeroed in on a few keys elements of engagement that can be elevated through touch technology. Find your gate, find your seat, find that exhibition you’ve been eyeing off or discover one you didn’t even know was on. The best part about touchscreens is the capability to build dynamic layers, providing as little or as much information as you need. Bringing life to locations through visuals and video will resonate with customers as they move through high activity spaces. When the screen is not being interacted with, entertainment precincts can take the opportunity to make promotions and specific information really stand out.

Retail

Retail is pushing the boundaries with digital engagement and integration. The technology available through digital touchscreens is opening up the floor to brand experience more than ever before. The opportunities for interactive elements are varied, with the central focus always staying on the customer. Empowering the customer through social media activations and digital browsing of the brand story allows the brand to provide more than just a product. It allows for an experience. The natural interaction increases dwell time and has proven to result in sales.

Project Snapshot

The Brisbane Airport Corporation recently integrated touchscreen technology into their taxi rank. The installation utilizes state-of-the-art ultra-bright 1p55-rated technology which is built into a customized casing provided by our manufacturing team. The solution was built for optimum function in an outdoor environment and remains unaffected by the elements. The screen allows for easy readability no matter the time of day or night. With a focus on customer service and maximizing efficiencies, the taxi touchscreen has been implemented in the taxi zone to assist and inform customers on the journey to their final destination.

Check out the video below to see the Taxi Fare Calculator in action:

As featured on Digital Signage Connection.

Facing the challenges associated with assisting customers through the property purchasing journey, developers often implement a strategic marketing mix to provide maximum impact at each phase. Once customers are stepping into showrooms and sales offices, the audience is captive, and it is imperative to deliver engaging and informative content that is effective at converting potential customers into convinced buyers.

Already in the digital swing of things, the property industry has a lot to gain from the implementation of interactive sales spaces. With sensory cues at an all-time high, interactive screens allow future buyers to design their new home in front of their eyes. From the floor plan up, intelligent CMSs layer content so customers can visually explore design options, with the final product coming to life. Torn between colors? Comparisons can be made at the click of a button. It is impossible to avoid the buzz around “customer experiences,” but strategic use of digital opens up new avenues for the personalization and the customization of marketing for big purchasing decisions.

Location mapping is a key element for any sales display, with position playing a key role in the purchasing process. Customized area maps with services and amenities highlighted can be animated and visually display the direct accessibility for new homes. Unique camera and drone footage can be utilized to display the region of interest, offering a better insight for buyers not local to the area. For developments that are yet to be built, site maps can display the lot sizes and dimensions and reference to adjoining lots.

Video content can also be displayed through digital screens, bringing to life communities and locations in the sales space. The screens can be multipurpose, operating as lively advertising boards day and night while also serving as active sales assistants, allowing prospective buyers to peruse alone or with the guidance of sales staff.

Take the miniature case study below as an example: As an experienced and awarded property group, Pradella specializes in unique developments, setting the benchmark in progressive innovation and architectural design. Ensuring their sales space reflected the design and innovation aesthetics of their development, they integrated two 43-inch touchscreens. The touchscreens have a number of capabilities unique to the Riverside Coomera Resort, placing the ability to explore floor plans, layouts, designs, colors, site specifics and location all at the customer’s fingertips. The interactive displays are seamlessly integrated into their site-based sales space, providing an effective marketing and advertising tool.

With the ability to custom-design the screen’s interface and seamlessly integrate branding, it’s a no brainer that property professionals are choosing to make interactive screens an integral part of their marketing mix.

As featured on Digital Signage Connection.

To be successful in the highly competitive real estate industry, agents are looking to enhance their customer relationships by utilising technology to provide increased flexibility. Adopting digital media positions an agency as an innovative market leader and is a powerful, cost effective tool for communicating with current and prospective customers.

As consumer markets continue to evolve in the digital space, buyers and sellers expect up-to-date and engaging content on all communication platforms. This flexibility allows agents to update their listings and announcements in real time, keeping on the pulse instantaneously as the market changes. Clever integration of video and touchscreens can assist agents in dynamically showcasing their property range.

See how digital media can improve flexibility, provided increased personalization, differentiate the agents offer and save money below.

Flexibility
One of the key advantages of digital signage is the flexibility of the content management system. The system provides total control of content allowing agents to update their screens anywhere, anytime. Once a property is on or off the market, this can be reflected on a digital sign in a matter of minutes. Digital platforms allow agents to forget about waiting for marketing materials to be printed and focus on highlighting new listings within the sales office in real time. Automated processes can be easily built into digital platforms which helps reduce administration processes and allows agents to spend more time to focus on their customer’s needs.

Personalization
Many of today’s customers are digital natives, those who have grown up with touch-friendly devices and assume everything is able to be swiped, pinched or zoomed. Placing a touchscreen within a sales office or window provides visitors the ability to browse listings, engage with the agency, and receive personalised offers. Digital media not only provides the opportunity to display properties in a dynamic way, but can be seen as less intrusive and intimidating than dealing with a salesperson. Businesses can enhance the customers experience and empower their visitors by allowing them control over their real estate journey, which is an important part of the customer experience for large scale investments such as property.

Differentiation
Touchscreen digital displays revolutionize a real estate agency’s traditional window by providing a 24/7 silent salesperson and the ability to engage with buyers and sellers effortlessly. Integrating touch screen technology within a window grabs the attention of passing customers, inviting them to learn more or to continue the experience in the sales office. The technology will not only appeal to potential buyers, but can help attract additional listings. Agents can take a simple floor plan to the next level by incorporating interactive maps, images, videos and 3-D models. With technology continually advancing, agents can provide customers with the ability to capture and email onscreen annotations.

Savings
Invest once with digital media and all printing, transport and labour costs of traditional signage fly out of the window. The digital experience enables a more streamlined approach to communications by allowing agents to adapt and optimize content whilst also reducing the cost per listing, resulting in increased revenue.

Digital media not only offers multiple channels to deliver information, but allows agents to acquire information about visitor selections and preferences, improving the understanding of potential buyers and sellers in the area. Incorporating digital elements into the broader marketing strategy will position a real estate agency as a market leader – ensuring they are providing current property information and promotions at all times, even when the sales office is closed.

As featured on DigitalSignageToday.

As the first touchpoint with your business, it is essential to eliminate the frustration that often accompanies finding a parking space. Research by Columbia Business School has proven that a relaxed and happy customer is willing to spend more money and more likely to become a repeat customer. Avoid making potential customers irritable through focusing on creating an easier and more convenient parking experience.The growth and universal impact of digital technology is the key to engage with, entertain and monetize customers in the modern world. Not only can digital technology play an essential role in providing the seamless parking experience that customers now expect, it can also create insights to drive the future direction of businesses and the services it provides.

Key to creating these insights is the implementation of a very important sales channel; an online booking system. Not only can businesses request general, vehicle and payment details, but loyalty incentive programs can develop a reliable customer base. Execution of an online booking system will allow for a streamlined customer experience as customers can reduce the hassle of searching for a parking space. Over 65% of Australia’s population shops online for a quick and effortless service, and the parking industry needs to reflect this norm in their offering. How?

1. Better Facility Management

Dynamic digital parking signage allows businesses to run facilities unattended using enhanced graphic displays and instructions to guide customers from entry to exit. A key benefit to this technology is the cloud based content management system allowing businesses to easily modify the content anywhere, anytime. Operators can also collate and analyse data of car park usage and trends, allowing the business to improve engagement with customers, create targeted digital marketing activity, plan capacity and implement dynamic pricing.

2. Reduced Traffic Congestion

Number plate recognition software will eliminate the need for drivers to stop and collect a ticket whilst linking dynamic digital signage solutions with intelligent sensor systems will provide real time space availability. The combination of this technology will optimise the traffic flow and help to ease congestion at the car park entrance and throughout surrounding areas.

3. Increased Security

BPA research shows that after location, security is the main concern when choosing a car park. Intelligent sensor systems and CCTV can be synced with LCD video walls to create a centralised command centre to provide a safe customer service experience. Centralised command centres enable staff to speak to customers, quickly address any security and traffic management issues and raise boom gates.

4. A Better Customer Experience

Digital parking technology provides a unique communication tool to manage crucial brand touch points and enhance the customer experience with customised, engaging content. By improving the ease of entry, payment and exit along with the implementation of a loyalty incentive program, customers will be more inclined to park at the same location more frequently.

Not only will your business improve your customers parking experience through the implementation of digital technology, the advertising capability of dynamic digital signage provides the opportunity for increased revenue by engaging with nearby businesses or through the promotion of car parks specials, car wash and valet options. Incorporating dynamic pricing is also a powerful way to instantly increase revenues and the bottom line.

As featured on Parking Australia.

Health care facilities can be mystifying and unpredictable. Digital signage within the health care sector is a critical tool to drive the improvement of the patient, visitor and staff experience. Whether it be digital screens to reduce perceived wait time in the waiting room or interactive kiosks to provide navigation around a confusingly large hospital, keeping visitors and patients informed using digital signage significantly improves their overall experience. Below are just five examples of how.

Waiting times

Health care facilities are notorious for making patients or visitors wait, whether this be a matter of minutes or hours. In the book “Psychology of Waiting Lines”, David Maister says “unexplained waits feel longer than explained waits.” Placing digital screens which include queue-management information such as estimated waiting times in waiting areas can help lower anxiety, alleviate frustration and reduce the perceived wait time by as much as 35 percent. With the ability to display multiple forms of content, digital screens are not only informative but also provide a more enjoyable wait. Healthcare facilities can entertain patients and visitors through engaging news, shows, relevant health information or facility updates.

Wayfinding

Navigating as a patient or visitor through a large facility such as a hospital can be confusing, frustrating and stressful. Put simply, wayfinding is the information systems that guide people through a physical environment and enhance their understanding and experience of the space. In a high stress environment, such as a hospital, an interactive wayfinding kiosk can give your patients and visitors an enhanced sense of well-being, safety, and security. Providing a detailed map with physician directories and step-by-step directions will allow your patients and visitors get to their destination faster and more easily.

Promotion

Not only can digital signage improve the patients and visitors experience, but it can provide healthcare facilities with an additional revenue opportunity. Digital screens effectively inform and promote products, services and events to visitors without being seen as pushy. By selling advertising space to third parties healthcare facilities can enhance the sales of services or products.

Safety and directional

Most importantly for the healthcare industry, digital signage can act as an emergency alert system, raising awareness throughout the facility and delivering essential health and safety messages. Through a centrally controlled system, critical messages can be pushed out to all digital screens in the facility improving the ability to respond to any type of situation.

Staff can also be informed about safety procedures and events which could limit the accessibility of certain areas through the display of safety schedules.

Staff communications

Digital screens can be placed throughout staff break rooms for the same reasons as you would put them in waiting rooms – to engage and inform. Replace old static notice boards or whiteboards and instantly update your staff with new work policies, procedure changes, new treatments, safety alerts, training opportunities and other notices through a cloud-based content management system. This cost effective and flexible solution can be implemented across multiple locations, providing a solution to communicate with any number of employees quickly and efficiently. Digital signage can also be paired with technology to enable content to be pushed out directly to staff’s phones.

The health care industry is a natural fit for digital signage due to the constantly changing nature of its facilities and the dynamic nature of the healthcare sector. The ability to centrally update content ensures real-time messaging of critical information allowing any healthcare facility to provide staff, patients and visitors with the most current and accurate information at any time. Much faster, more impactful and eco-friendly than paper-based static signage, digital signage ensures a reliable, streamlined source of communication. From a small general practice, to a large bustling health care facility hospital, digital signage delivers a strong return on investment for any health care facility.

As featured in DigitalSignageToday.

Digital Signage Expo (DSE) in Las Vegas is the world’s largest and longest-running conference and trade show exclusively dedicated to showcasing innovative digital and interactive technology solutions. Now that CV Media & Design’s resident digital tech guru, Matthew Taylor, has returned and settled back into life post-DSE, let’s go through his top picks of the show.

Planar LookThru Transparent OLED Display

An overall favourite of DSE visitors, it was virtually impossible to take a photo of this without people surrounded. Planer’s display enables users to view video content, digital images and text on a virtually frameless glass video screen whilst still being able to see through it. Transparent technology such as this can generate high-impact engagement by placing call-to-action messages in the shoppers’ line of sight and within arm’s reach of the product, precisely where purchase decisions are made. Planar’s display offers creative, new digital signage opportunities that can take this medium to a new level.

LG Transparent Cooler display 49WEC

LG’s Transparent Cooler Display features a transparent display that can be customized to showcase digital content as well as allowing customers to view offerings inside the cooler. At a distance, the display can appear non-transparent, and communicate content such as infotainment or promotions. As the user steps closer to the cooler, the opaque screen can transform into a clear panel to display the cooler’s offerings. Using advanced video solutions such as this are not only highly effective, but allow retailers to stand out from the competition.

Going far beyond traditional merchandising display media, these advanced transparent digital signage tools by Planar and LG will be extremely effective for businesses to increase sales and improve communications. In addition to influencing purchase decisions, transparent technology is sure to be essential in engaging with customers, particularly with the digital generation.

Another two highlights included the revolutionary LG Dual-View Curved Tiling OLED 4K Display and LG 86-inch Ultra Stretch Signage. Both of these present a number of digital signage solutions for retailers to provide customers with a multimedia experience in those previously avoided tricky spaces.

Contact the CV Media & Design team for a custom innovative digital signage solution for your business now.

The approach to safety for companies across varying industries is seeing a shift in delivery. Safety professionals are continually seeking to evolve their training and culture as an integral part of their systems and processes. Safety is a number one priority, but often employees feel disengaged from the content and the platforms in which it is being delivered. Although the management of team member safety is a legal obligation, companies also feel a moral responsibility for ensuring that everyone arrives at work and returns home from work every day.

A number of key priorities can be seen emerging in which safety teams are seeking to eliminate paper work and embrace digital media for onsite safety messaging, training and overall integration of safety programs.

Digital Safety Signs

Removing the over saturation of safety signage, digital options present a cost effective and engaging alternative to traditional static signs. With the ability to layer changing content, companies can deliver a number of safety messages whether it be

• Safety alerts
• Important site information
• Safety non-negotiables / Golden rules
• Safe to home messages
• Weather information

Digital offers the opportunity to explore different content mediums and the capability to layer static, animated and video material to deliver more effective messages.

Internal Safety Messaging: Corporate Communications

Incorporating safe work and safe to home messaging into corporate and company communications can be made easy through digital platforms. With varying technologies and content opportunities, companies are embracing technology to maintain ongoing communication channels with their teams as digital messages are viewed as a more integrative part of the surrounding environments in contrast to emails or pushed memos.

Using digital can heighten the awareness of corporate communications and allow for ease of updating and changing messages in accordance with circumstantial and environmental factors.

Safety Procedures and Processes

To eliminate paper work, moving procedures and processes to video platform can allow for a more refreshing approach to mandatory safety communications. Visually representing, through video format, safety non-negotiables such as wearing PPE, pre-start stretching and maintaining hydration, team members are provided an ongoing visual reminder that is more effective than static alternatives.

An increasing trend amongst companies is the link between safety and the safe to home messaging, humanising the realities and importance of staying safe at work. As a human issue – video platform lends itself well to this level of communication as the visual stimulation has a much stronger connection with people’s emotions. Developing well thought video content for safety messages for your company can aid in teaching, improve understanding and elevate accessibility.

Wellbeing Initiatives

Health and wellbeing initiatives are becoming a more common element to the overall safety programs of many companies. Often these programs encompass team members mental and physical health and how that is impacted from work and home stresses. These programs can utilise digital platforms for a number of key benefits including; keeping key health and wellbeing messages front of mind, celebrating team member successes to foster a positive working environment, reminding teams about health and wellbeing activities or events, and integrating different content to break up the constant work focus.

Interactive Mapping

Site based workers are often exposed to changing environments and need to understand scheduling, upcoming works, crossover of trades, permit information and project progress. Utilising touch screen technology, interactive mapping would allow supervisors on site to deliver their pre-start information with visual cues and then have ongoing access to that information throughout the day. Utilising digital site maps would provide supervisors to continually update information and have it on hand for ongoing communications.

CV Media & Signage have had exposure and experience in delivering digital safety signs and have the capability and capacity to cater solutions in accordance with your company’s needs.

As featured on Digital Signage Connections.

Walking into a quick-service restaurant these days often means seeing a row of digital displays behind the counter, as LCD screens rapidly replace static back-lit posters.

With an estimated 50 to 70 percent of QSR sales occurring in the drive-thru, taking digital menu boards outdoors is the next logical evolution for the industry. A report by Futuresource Consulting in 2014 suggested that only 1 percent of the potential market for outdoor displays had so far been tapped.

As a reminder of why the drive-thru is important, much of Australia’s eastern seaboard recently copped an unseasonal lashing from the weather gods. As the rain pelted down, the number of drive-thru QSR customers surged as they avoided the drenching that comes from the 100-meter parking lot dash.

Making it easy

The drive-thru customer experience is all about speed and convenience. Having the right menu and message at the right time is important. In the past, business owners had two choices: Display all menu items — breakfast, lunch and dinner — on the one menu board all day long, or use two-sided menu boards that could be flipped during the day. Talk about overwhelming the customer.

The National Restaurant Association’s 2015 Industry Forecast showed 41 percent of the critical 18- to 34-year-old target demographic says technology is an important factor when they choose a restaurant, and the next age bracket — 35 to 44 years — wasn’t far behind at 39 percent. The NRA’s research found that technology improves speed and convenience for consumers. Are drive-thrus and technology the perfect combo meal then?

Let’s go through a handful of the top reasons outdoor digital displays go hand in hand with drive-thrus.

• Enhance customer experience through content
  Digital menus can be adjusted and scheduled to change according to the time of day. For example, a breakfast menu can be scheduled to only appear between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m., being replaced by the all-day promotion for the remainder of the day. It can also offer greater flexibility for promotions and help unclutter visually busy menu boards, which can accelerate order-taking and improve order accuracy.

• Less printing. More marketing.
  A simple price change or menu switch-out for static menu boards would take businesses weeks due to the graphic design time, approvals, printing and shipping. Going digital allows updates to be made in a matter of minutes, including being able to be responsive to the market conditions. Digital also allows for centralized control, with no need for the head office to rely on franchises to changeover static signage.

• Increase sales
  Digital signs can respond to orders as they are placed, so upselling can be an automatic, simple process. The screen can display complimentary items as the order begins to be inputted into the point-of-sale system. A high-resolution screen also allows businesses to tempt customers with eye-catching images of the menu.

Is digital up to the challenge?

But how will outdoor digital displays withstand the vagaries of unpredictable weather, I hear you ask? Rain, snow, heat and cold have for a long time made leaving digital screens out in the elements (i.e.., a drive-thru lane) a costly, complicated and unpredictable proposition. However, the barriers that limited how digital screens could be used outdoors and in direct sunlight have been tackled, making it possible to place high-impact, dynamic messaging in front of customers in nearly any situation.

Outdoor digital displays are now been designed to work flawlessly, for years, despite extreme high and low temperatures, heat from full days of direct sunlight, rain, frost, dirt, dust and fumes, to unpredictable things like power spikes and vandalism. Most notable is the Samsung OH series, which has all the engineering and design needed for ultra-bright, high-reliability, high-durability displays.

The digital edge

QSRs that embrace the opportunity to engage their customers through digital will not only outperform their competitors but will also differentiate themselves from other operators who have not changed the way they do drive-thru business for decades. By combining the influential capabilities of digital menu technology with outdoor digital displays, QSRs can drive sales increases, improve the speed of service and create happier, and hence, more loyal customers.

Is now the right time for you to install outdoor digital displays?

Featured on DigitalSignageToday.

Digital technology is driving rapid change in the car-parking industry — electric cars, driverless cars, car sharing, app-based searching, booking, digital payment systems — the list could go on. The two key areas where digital technology is changing the car-parking industry landscape are the use of Big Data and the use of digital screens to enhance the customer experience.

Big Data

The development of Big Data has provoked great expectations for those who manage parking facilities. In plain terms, Big Data collates data from different sources to reveal patterns and trends associated with human behavior. This data can then be used to help create personalized and engaging digital signage customer experiences. The car-parking industry is data-rich, comprising integral data points, such as payment transactions, occupancy data, sensor data, length-of-stay data and more.

Making use of Big Data and analytics can help parking managers to optimize pricing and parking availability based on factors such as the weather, special events or flight schedules for airport parking. Potential takeaways from data could be to create a dynamic pricing strategy — similar to Uber — based on demand and even offer promotions to attract customers.

Digital screens

The parking facility is often the first touch point for the customer journey but can frequently be overlooked in terms of the overall customer experience. The use of digital signage within parking facilities can not only inform customers of parking-related information, but also display safety and journey information as well as providing timely and targeted promotional messages from nearby retailers or businesses.

Integrated approach

Let’s go through a few ways parking companies can use digital technology to improve the customer experience;

• Book online — An online reservation system allows for a more streamlined customer experience as visitors can pre-book a parking space to reduce the hassle of driving and searching. Companies can collect data through this system by requesting general, vehicle and payment details.
• License-plate recognition — If the customer has registered and pre-booked a space online, the car can be recognized via license-plate recognition, allowing quick entry. If payment details have been registered, the parking costs can be calculated and charged to the customer’s account on exit. This is much easier than having to remember to pay before making their way back to the car.
• Digital parking signs — Located at the entry of parking facilities, digital parking signs can integrate with license-plate recognition software. Once data has been gathered about a customer, the digital sign can display customized and tailored content. This content can include welcome messages, pricing information, available parking spots, car wash and valet specials, and promotional messages from nearby retailers or businesses.
  To help manage supply and demand, parking operators can also quickly and easily adjust parking prices. With a traditional, static parking sign, a price change would entail a minimum two-week turnaround time with approvals, printing and shipping. Digital parking signs allow parking managers to alter pricing within minutes due to cloud-based content management systems.
• Digital video walls — Digital video walls can be based anywhere and everywhere within a park facility. Similar to digital parking signs, these can be linked to license-plate recognition software, allowing video walls to be used for directions — if the customer has an allocated parking spot — or relevant promotional messages.

The Brisbane Airport Corporation in Brisbane, Australia is a great example of innovative parking facility management. The company began their digital disruption with an installation of a video wall above the parking pay machines. Accessible through a cloud-based content management system, BAC can instantly update or schedule content, ensuring no promotional opportunity is overlooked. Digital parking signs have also been installed at the entry and exit of the state-of-the-art AIRPARK allowing the ability to dynamically manage pricing changes and promote parking specials.

Digital technology is a critical enabler in creating the seamless end-to-end experience that customers now expect. Enhancing the parking experience with the clever use of digital technology will help parking operators attract new customers, grow market share and increase revenue. Most importantly, though, digital integration into the delivery of parking services will help generate data and customer insights, allowing parking operators to proactively manage and improve the customer experience.

Featured on DigitalSignageToday.