Many a time have I been left remonstrating with the self-service check-out, as it tells me, for the fourth time, of an unauthorised item in the bagging area. We all know that feeling of despair as you curse your luck and ask yourself why you are the one that’s been lumbered with the trolley with the wonky wheel. And of course the frustration as you visit the isle to pick up a jar of your favourite breakfast spread, only to find that it’s been moved to an altogether different part of the shop.
Now however, US giant Walmart are planning to get a headstart on dealing with customer complaints by introducing facial recognition technology to try and predict which customers’ tempers are nearing top-blowing levels.
The multinational retail corporation is using the technology to analyse the facial expressions of customers that are queueing at the checkouts to identify who looks satisfied and who appears to be on the verge of lodging a complaint. That way the shop can send a member of staff to deal with the customer before they even register a complaint.
The patent filed by Walmart stated that: ‘It is easier to retain existing customers than acquire new ones through advertising. Often, if customer service is inadequate, this fact will not appear in data available to management until many customers have been lost. With so much competition, a customer will often simply go elsewhere rather than take the time to make a complaint.’
Walmart has also hinted that the technology could also be used to analyse customers’ purchasing behaviour linked to facial expressions.