RFID to Improve Customer Service

  • Article

I just read an interesting blogpost by Jose Feromoso about Hollola in Finland and how they use RFID to provide a great shopping experience. Sensors pick up the RFID as soon as a product is taken off the shelf. Screens in the fitting room bring up the items that you have in your hand as soon as you enter. As you're trying things on, recommended items that match it come up on the screen, with color and availability information. The Store Associates are alerted on their Tablets as soon as you pick one of the suggestions and they can bring it to you. Read the blog at: https://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/12/european-clothi.html

Read about how Microsoft can help you with RFID: https://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/rfid.aspx 

Microsoft is addressing this critical area by providing a comprehensive RFID platform, Microsoft BizTalk RFID, to enable RFID-based applications across various business contexts. BizTalk RFID consists of a runtime engine, tools, and components to develop, deploy, and manage RFID solutions. Although the tag-and-ship mandates (putting an RFID label on a case just before it is shipped from a supplier's facility to a retailer's facility) of major retailers might be the most common scenario, several other scenarios are gaining momentum. These include:

  • Asset tracking
  • Inventory visibility
  • Point-of-sale analytics
  • Pedigree tracking
  • Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS)
  • Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) compliance

BizTalk RFID architecture is designed to help software developers and device-provider developers easily develop and deploy RFID solutions of varying degrees of complexity. It is integrated with the Microsoft Windows Server System and is supported on the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP operating systems.

One of the important features of BizTalk RFID is that it can effectively interface with a broad range of software and hardware components from independent software vendors (ISVs) and independent hardware vendors (IHVs) to build enterprise applications. BizTalk RFID is an open platform that many IHVs, ISVs, and system integrators use.