Remote Shop Camera Selection for Prompt Customer Service
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing remote customer service systems fail to promptly attend to customers when matched shop clerks are unavailable, leading to customer inconvenience and potential loss of sales opportunities.
Innovation Solution
A remote customer service system that includes a server and cameras in shops, managing congestion and clerk availability, allowing prompt selection and communication with available clerks through user terminals.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a customer is matched with a shop clerk for remote service, then customer service can be provided, but the service cannot start promptly when the matched clerk is unavailable
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-calculates and stores index values for each camera based on current shop conditions (clerk availability, customer congestion) before a service request arrives. When a customer initiates remote service, the server can immediately retrieve and use these pre-calculated index values to select the most appropriate camera without delay, ensuring prompt service initiation while maintaining reliability.
2Reliability
If the system waits for clerk availability before connecting customers, then service quality is maintained, but sales opportunities are lost
Solution Approach 1:
The server continuously and preliminarily calculates index values reflecting real-time shop conditions including clerk availability and customer congestion levels. This pre-computation enables the system to immediately connect customers to the most appropriate available camera/clerk combination without waiting, thus capturing sales opportunities while maintaining service quality through intelligent selection based on pre-assessed conditions.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically updates index values based on changing shop conditions such as clerk availability and customer congestion. This dynamic adjustment allows the system to adapt to real-time situations, selecting the optimal camera for each customer request based on current conditions, thereby maintaining service quality while responding quickly to capture sales opportunities.
3Speed
If the system selects cameras based on simple availability, then connection speed is fast, but customer congestion and clerk workload are not optimized
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses index values that incorporate multiple parameters including customer congestion levels and clerk workload, transforming simple availability selection into a multi-parameter optimization problem. This allows fast connection establishment while simultaneously optimizing shop operation efficiency by distributing customers across cameras based on comprehensive conditions rather than simple availability alone.
Data Source
AI summary
A remote customer service system comprises: a server; and cameras that are placed in each of a plurality of shops and that are couplable to user terminals, the server: calculates, for each of the cameras, an index value based on a degree of congestion of customers and on the number of shop clerks included in the photographable area of the camera, the degree of congestion being based on the number of the physically visiting customers who are included in the photographable area of the camera and the number of user terminals that are coupled to the camera at present; and selects, based on the index value, one of the cameras that is to be coupled to the first user terminal, and remote communication is executed between the first user terminal and the selected one of the cameras.