Using signage to save time

The digital signage system installed removes the need for entrepreneurs and business leaders to wait in line, enables remote meeting room reservations, provides up-to-date business information, and offers helpful advice and information on demand via interactive touchpoints.
 
The ACC aims to provide first-class facilities to its members who use it for information, advice and assistance across a broad range of areas, including starting new businesses, importing and exporting, terminations and transfers, and legal and regulatory matters.
 
Businesspeople who use the ACC’s facilities are often time-poor and need accurate information quickly to inform their business decisions. Previously, the ACC’s office resembled that of a traditional bank. It had counters and a queuing system so that, regardless of the nature of the enquiry, visitors were required to wait in line, speak to a representative at a counter and then either receive immediate assistance over the counter or wait for a specialist to become available.

In early 2008, a planned building refit provided the opportunity to review the process by which the ACC conducted itself with its time-poor visitors. A ‘people-first’ system was conceived that uses digital media to completely remove the need for physical queues. This was delivered across three core channels:

• A broadcast channel delivering way-finding, “next customer” and core ACC information.
• A meeting room reservation and notification channel.
• An interactive channel providing on-demand information to waiting visitors.

 
Visitors to ACC are now able to view large-format plasma screens throughout the site that are designed to inform and assist, including displaying the time and location of meetings, providing live business news through RSS newsfeeds, offering legal and regulatory guidance, and providing information on upcoming seminars, events and tutorials.
 
If a visitor wishes to meet with a business advisor, visitors are provided a unique assigned number. When the “next customer” number is called via an audio prompt, it also appears on the network’s screens whereupon the visitor is instructed to rendezvous with an advisor at one of three meeting points, and from there they proceed to a private meeting room. Because number changes are clearly identifiable both visually and through a discrete but identifiable audio prompt, there is no opportunity for any visitor to miss their number being called.
 
By utilizing screen media in this process, visitors can relax and browse the amenities in the facilities. They can read relevant literature about the ACC, use an interactive touchpoint to research a particular question, check e-mail, surf the Internet on workstations located throughout the site, grab a cup of coffee or catch up with colleagues. In doing so, waiting time becomes productive time in an environment more akin to a lounge than an office.
 
The basis for the creation of this integrated system is called ‘Dynamic Viewpoint to meet’, or DVP2meet, a proprietary software created by Hulskamp to link ACC’s legacy queuing system (NemoQ) to Scala in such a way that it provides automatic content updates to screens in real time. The same system also powers the meeting room booking and notification channel.

Meeting rooms can be booked in advance using ACC’s online automated booking system (Prequest), which has also been integrated with Scala by Hulskamp’s DVP2meet system. The meeting organiser can add additional information to the booking’s public notification option, which will appear on a screen outside the meeting room at the meeting’s scheduled time, even if it is booked weeks in advance.
 
If visitors are attending ACC to gather information and conduct research, in addition to traditional brochures and reference texts, Hulskamp installed 26in interactive plasma screens across the site that provide a range of interactive content