About FC
Football Club Barcelona (FCB) is a professional football club, based in Barcelona, Spain. It is the second most valuable sports team in the world worth $3.56 billion, and the world’s second richest football club in terms of revenue, with an annual turnover of €560.8 million.
FCB is one of the most widely supported teams in the world and attracts a huge population towards its branded merchandise at its worldwide retail stores.
FC Botiga Megastore is the best place in Spain to find branded football kits, clothing, accessories, fan gear and more from the Barça team.
About FCB Megastore
FC Botiga Megastore displays the world-famous kits and official gadgets in 2,100 sq. m space that is directly connected to the FCB Museum and the history of the best team in the world. Innovative and equipped with advanced and interactive technology, the Megastore presents an overwhelming Barça experience to the football club’s fans.
Along with the football club’s standardized merchandise in stock, the Megastore allows customers to customize products with their desired shoelaces, buttons, or club crest and even provides the option of getting a desired name and number printed on the shirts. Presenting a unique and personalized Barca shopping experience, the Megastore attracts large shopping crowds on a daily basis that result in queues at the cash counters of the store.
Problem
Due to considerable customer flow at the store, customers had to wait in long queues for their turn at the cash counters, and it took longer than usual to make the payment for the purchased items. Summer is the peak season for the store, when the customer traffic and waiting times are at their maximum.
In order to optimize customer flow in the store and ensure a hassle free queuing experience with minimized waiting times, the store’s management needed an innovative, custom-designed queue management and digital signage solution and contacted Wavetec to present a solution for the customer journey management challenges at the triple-story store and its checkout area.
Solution
Wavetec’s Customer Experience Specialists and its consulting partner company ITAB UK made several visits to the store to gauge the customer journey at the store, analyze the waiting times, queuing patterns, and customer flow.
The Megastore has three floors. The basement has the brand merchandise, the ground floor has FCB’s branded player T-shirts, and the first floor has a variety of sports gadgets.
The visits and a thorough assessment of the store helped to develop an effective approach to the challenges faced by the store. Wavetec suggested a linear queuing approach and proposed its turn-key linear queuing solution UNO-Q to FCB Megastore.
HOW IT WORKS:
Linear queuing works on the concept of electronic call forwarding (ECF) that results in a fast and fair wait management process. The ECF solution was installed in the basement and on the ground floor to deal with the massive customer footfall.
Ground floor:
At the entrance of the Ground floor there are two digital in-queue merchandising screens – Donatello Linea, which are 55” LCDs hanging from the ceiling and are embedded with a Media Player to run Donatello Suite – a full fledge CMS for digital Signage from Wavetec.
Donatello Linea screens alert customers about cashier zones available on the floor and also show estimated waiting times.
The Checkout area is divided into five rows, and each row is assigned an alphabet – B A R C A. Each of the five rows has six cash counters, thus in total there are 30 cash counters on the ground floor.
Each row has a numbered LCD display which blinks and changes color from red to blue when there is an open counter in that row. There’s one central screen in the counter area that displays “Please wait here” and blinks when a teller presses the Calling button to call the next customer.
When a customer enters the row, he or she locates the open counter and is served swiftly. This single queue – multiple counter call forwarding system is running smoothly and enabling the management of the store to efficiently organize and manage the customer flow at the ground floor.
Basement
At the entrance of the basement, there is a Donatello Linea screen to alert customers about cashier zone on the floor and show estimated waiting times.
There is a 10 counter system in the basement with a central LCD screen, and digital Position Display Units at each counter.
When a cash counter is free, cashier presses a wireless call forwarding button; the central screen shows the number of the open counter and the PDU’s show arrows pointing towards the open counter to direct customers in the single line queue towards the right counter.
Integration And Advances Features
- People counting cameras are strategically installed at FCB Megastore to record the number of customers entering and exiting a queue, and their waiting times. The linear queuing solution is seamlessly integrated with those cameras which send customer journey information to Wavetec’s database; that information is then displayed on Donatello Linea screens to give customers an idea of the estimated waiting times.
- The central LCD shows row numbers which have an open counter, and separate LCDs are installed for each row so it is easy for customers to locate the row and go to the open counter.
- Wavetec has provided live reports and dashboard to the store’s management which show information about average service time, average waiting time, peak serving hours This information brings transparency and helps the management understand customer flow, keep track of the waiting trends, and efficiently organize, engage and measure various aspects of their customers’ overall journey.
- The management of FCB Megastore is really pleased with the solution. The Manager for Cash zones is exceedingly satisfied with the system and how it has made it easier for cashiers to call the next customer and streamlined queues.
Wavetec consultants diligently trained the store’s staff to introduce them to the system and demonstrate its functionality, usage and features. The linear queuing system is user-friendly and intuitive enabling the store’s staff to understand and manage it effectively.
About Wavetec
Wavetec is a multinational technology company offering an ecosystem of solutions for the improvement of customer journey and flow at service areas, meeting clients’ needs in organizing the influx of people, guaranteeing a valuable engagement experience, and obtaining relevant indicators to improve business results.
The Wavetec Customer Experience Solutions are located in different regions with applications in various areas and industries such as hospitals, retail and banks. Some examples of the technology can be found at Eroski, Barclays, KCB, Emirates Airlines, Interbank, Tesco and Samsung.
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