squawk surveys - understanding beacons - white paper

Understanding Beacons The market research perspective

(c) Squawk Surveys

© 2015 Squawk Surveys Inc. USA

Table of contents

Beacons

Why should researchers care

Technical details

Adoption of the technology

Research feasibility

Research applications

Case study

About Squawk Surveys


Beacons

A beacon is a tiny battery-powered device which

can be fixed to a wall or any physical object. It

transmits a Bluetooth Low Energy signal that

carries the beacon’s unique ID as far as 50 meters.

When a compatible smartphone receives the signal

it derives the distance to the beacon from the signal

strength. The app doesn’t have to be active,

triggering actions can be performed in the

background.

An app can be programmed to trigger a number of

beacon-specific actions upon detecting this signal:

push notifications, position fixes, and so on.

Kontakt.io Smart

Beacon

Estimote Beacons


Why should researchers care

The two most obvious research applications

of the beacon technology are:

1. In-store footprinting

2. Post-transaction surveys


Technical details

It takes a smartphone The functionality of beacon-enabled indoor

location systems may vary depending on the

smartphone hardware and the OS version. It

requires Bluetooth 4.0 and above, which has to

be enabled by the user. The phone needs to be

running iOS 7 or later, or Android 4.4 or later.

Beacon vs GPS GPS can be very accurate outdoors but

is virtually useless indoors: on the store level,

e.g. in a mall or in the aisle of a store.

Unfortunately, this is precisely where most

interactions happen that have tangible market

research value, at least for brick and mortar

businesses.

It takes an app In order to receive relevant indoor location data

and push notifications, the phone has to have a

corresponding beacon- enabled app installed.

Range and accuracy A typical effective transmission range of

a beacon is limited approximately to 50 meters

(150 ft). On the phone side, the algorithms

calculate proximity, rather than exact distance:

far, near (<15 ft. approx.), or immediate (<1-3 ft.

approx.)


Technical details

Walls and other objects Physical objects including walls, shelves, and

even human bodies can dramatically impact

beacon signal propagation and, consequently,

beacon proximity readings. Beacon allocation

has to be planned separately for each venue,

depending on the store layout and research

goals. Large stores and malls with complex

layouts may require additional on-site

calibration.

Outdoor usage Beacons may also make sense in certain

outdoor scenarios, like open air events and

restaurant drive-throughs. A good example to

look at is Touch Beacons from Kontakt.

Battery Beacons have to be autonomous by design, so

most manufacturers promise years of use on a

single battery. Realistically, you can expect

about a year on one battery, depending on the

battery size and settings.

Security Although beacons only transmit, not receive

information, they nonetheless bear certain

security risks. For example, they are susceptible

to cloning, facilitating spoofing attacks. To

mitigate these risks, some manufacturers are

developing complex algorithms that enable fleet

wide ID swapping between remotely

configurable beacons.


Technical details

Installation While planning indoor beacon coverage may

require certain skills, a deep understanding of

both the technology and the research

objectives, installing them is much easier. All

you need is a plan, a number of beacons, and

some double-sided tape. This is something

regular retail personnel are definitely capable of

figuring out. The beacons should come pre-

configured, with unique IDs set up.

Fleet management Installation is just the first step of the process.

Since beacons are supposed to help achieve a

wide range of research and marketing

objectives, a need may arise to reconfigure

them by changing their identifying parameters.

There should be a way to track their status,

presence, and battery charge, and there’s no

way all that can be done manually when there’s

a large-scale, distributed system. Certain

beacon suppliers, e.g. Kontakt, offer so called

Cloud Beacons that can be remotely configured

and monitored via WiFi.

Kontakt.io

Cloud Beacon


Adoption of the technology

If you favourite store or coffeeshop app asks

your permission to be aware of your visits, how

would you react?

An app from your favourite store knows

immediately when you step into the store and

sends you a message with a promo or a

shopping hint. What’s your reaction?

US consumers are wary about being tracked, but they are more willing (60%) to cooperate when the

benefits of stores tracking them are tangible. Full results.

60%

https://surveys.survata.com/#!/public/497731ada52747d1a0f804dccc3caaac/in-store-tracking


Research feasibility

You need both and an overlap between them:

1. Potential respondent reach

2. Venue reach

Reach of venues

At $20 to 25 per unit, beacons are affordable and readily available from a

number of vendors. Depending on the venue and research task you will likely

need from 1 to 10 beacons per venue, unless we’re talking about a huge

department store.


Respondent reach


Research applications

Post-transaction surveys Brick and mortar businesses are the most

obvious beneficiaries of the new beacon

technology. Beacons are meant to marry

physical and digital worlds, this is how mobile

research can go really local enabling market

researchers to tie survey data to real world

transactions. Beacons can be used for more

than feedback studies, for example:

• NPS and customer experience studies.

• Purchase occasion based segmentation.

• Customer profile dynamics.

In-store footprinting The technology gives enough precision to track

events at department, aisle or, to some extent,

even shelf or cashier level. This gives

researchers in-depth understanding of customer

in-store behavior:

• Dwell time.

• In-store footfall pattern analysis

• Queueing time tracking.

Mystery shoppers If pre-recruited respondents are equipped with a

beacon-enabled app researchers can not only

verify that visits really happened and

automatically track in-store behaviour but also

tie respondent tasks to specific in- store events

thus making visit flow more natural and

improving data quality.


Case study “Quick service restaurant”

Research objectives • Track customer satisfaction and queuing time

performance chainwide.

• Better understand customers via transactional

moment-of-experience surveys.

How the respondents are reached • A QSR branded app.

Beacon allocation plan • At least one beacon per venue to track visits and

trigger transactional surveys.

• One beacon per entry/exit point (including drive-

through) and per cashier to track queuing time. Research Scenario • A short transactional survey (2 to 3 questions on

customer experience, profiling or U&A —

possibly alternating) is triggered immediately

after the visit is completed, and is available for

the next 24 hours. If the survey is not taken, a

reminder is automatically triggered later that day

to increase response rates.

• The sample is targeted by visit frequency

(tracked) and weighted to basic demographics

(asked just once). Frequency capping is in place

so that not to overwhelm the customers.

Results • Satisfaction and profiling data is updated weekly

and available on an interactive dashboard. U&A

surveys are analysed on an ad-hoc basis.

• Greater sample size is achieved compared to

traditional on the receipt surveys due to higher

response rate. Cost per interview is kept low.


Case study “Department store”

Research objectives • Track customer satisfaction performance

chainwide.

• Better understand shopping behaviour by

matching survey answers with real footfall, down

to department level.

Beacon allocation plan • One beacon per entry/exit point to track visits,

measure dwell time and trigger transactional

surveys.

• One beacon per department to supplement

survey data with granular footfall data.

Research Scenario • A short 5-10 question long transactional survey

is triggered immediately after the visit is

completed and is available for the next 24 hours.

If not taken a reminder is automatically triggered

in the evening to increase response rates.

Results • Satisfaction and profiling data is updated weekly

and available on an interactive dashboard. U&A

surveys are analysed on an ad-hoc basis.

• Greater sample size is achieved compared to

traditional on the receipt surveys due to higher

response rate. Cost per interview is kept low.

How the respondents are reached • A combination of a branded app and a 3rd party

shopping app.

Squawk Surveys

Squawk Surveys is a mobile touchpoint specially tailored to the needs of market

researchers. It delivers targeted and engaging survey invitations to your

respondents based on their where-when-what context.

Learn more:

www.squawksurveys.com

[email protected]

+1 347 510 8646

Squawk Surveys

squawk surveys - understanding beacons - white paper

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