Integration firms need to prepare for clients who will be looking for innovative ways to implement digital signage to communicate everything from CDC guidelines to capacity limits.
As integration companies battle through a COVID-19-depleted market, there is much uncertainty about what the future of the integration industry holds. One feeling, however, has been consistent throughout NSCA’s countless conversations with integration firm leaders: Even when the integration market enters its reboot and recovery phase, the “new normal,” as it’s often called, will be different. Integration firm leaders must prepare to lead a different type of company under different work circumstances and address their customers’ changing needs.
NSCA’s “Future of the Integration Business” series offers insight from NSCA members and industry professionals to shed light on what the future holds. Find the continually updated series here.
Whether it supports communication from leadership to staff, allows building owners to update tenants, or shares a retail store’s new offerings with customers, digital signage has become a mission-critical technology amid COVID-19.
Its inherent ability to support social distancing through remote control/management and sharing messages from afar is bringing digital signage to the forefront of communication strategies.
Updates change every day in regard to quarantine measures and business openings/closings. Today’s digital signage technology plays a unique role in facilitating, informing, and even virus prevention: It can disseminate important health and safety content in real time to keep employees, visitors, and customers constantly informed and safe.
Although many of these ideas can be carried across multiple markets, here are a few ways digital signage is being used to communicate in various verticals …
Healthcare Environments
Interactive wayfinding and digital signage are now using voice activation or QR code scanning to direct visitors and patients to their destinations, enhancing social distancing by eliminating the need for human interaction.
They’re also sharing updated messages about visitor requirements, information about where to go if you forgot to bring a mask with you, and even gratitude for essential workers.
In some cases, we’ve also seen digital signage feature calming content like nature videos, artwork, and inspirational quotes to provide some encouragement to passersby.
Retail Environments
Digital signage can provide real-time reports on occupancy levels, wait times, and even product availability at retail sites.
By displaying information or sending it to users’ phones, digital signage can help patrons can stay away from long lines due to capacity limits, avoid entering a store that doesn’t have what they need, or stay updated on business hours/reopening plans. It can also remind customers of social distancing and mask rules, point customers to checkout lines with shorter wait times, or promote new services such as delivery, online ordering, or curbside pick-up.
Workplaces
When it comes to corporate environments, digital signage is being used to share information about occupancy levels, CDC guidelines, how long to wash your hands, how to properly account for social distancing, how to properly wear and sanitize a mask, and even updated policies regarding in-person meetings or steps to follow when using a shared device, such as a printer.
Digital signage can also display information about conference room schedules and provide directions on reserving space for a videoconference or socially distanced meeting.
Restaurants
Digital signage is being used in bars and restaurants to display food and beverage options, eliminating the need for shared menus to be provided and then collected each time a table turns over.
How do you expect to implement digital signage for your clients? How will integrators’ roles in supporting digital signage change? Email NSCA Director of Industry Outreach Tom LeBlanc at tleblanc@nsca.org to share your thoughts.