Beacon technology – improving airport customer experience

The customer service experience went through a fundamental change thanks to Beacon technology. The beacon devices are an indoor proximity system which transmit a signal using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). When a BLE-enabled device, for example a smartphone, moves in the range of the beacon’s signal it can trigger an action, such as displaying a relevant message on the phone (promotional coupons when one enters a specific zone like stores or airport lounges), directing people to an area of interest in a city or musem, or even providing more information on specific items (a painting in a museum).

While the beacons bring benefits in many areas, we will focus now on the improvements in airport customer experience, an area where a lot of progress has been done, but a lot of further investment is needed to discover and take full advantage of this technology.

Some airline companies and airports, like KLM in Schiphol, United in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, Denver etc, Virgin in Heathrow etc are already using beacons and see the benefits and the future potential of the technology, such as:

1) Passenger location – if a passenger is late for a flight, he can be tracked in the airport by getting the information from the nearest beacon.

2) Triggering mobile boarding passes – beacons can be placed at check-in, baggage drop off, passport control or boarding gates and can be used to pull mobile boarding passes on the display on a passenger’s smartphone

3) Getting around the airport – when it comes to big airports, it is very difficult to find your way in them. Moreover, if a passenger is late for a flight or has a very short connecting flight, the situation becomes even more critical. Beacons could provide a more precise and lower cost way for airport apps to guide passengers around the terminal and find the correct gate

4) Baggage reclaim – a beacon could give the passengers all the information regarding their baggage, like what belt they will arrive and how much they need to wait for it.

5) Promotions at airport stores – beacon can send messages telling passengers to redeem coupons, earn points or pick-up duty free items before going to the gate

If there was any doubt about whether beacons have a long-term future, the launch of Google’s Eddystone and the widespread support for the technology, plus excitement about the potential it offers, is evidence enough that beacons are here to stay.

The full potential of beacons, and the impact they can have on day-to-day operations and the passenger experience, is yet to be realised, but one thing seems certain: airlines and airports should be building beacons into their strategies now to ensure they are well placed to exploit a multitude of benefits.