As retail businesses and consumers anxiously wait for the lock down restrictions to be eased up or lifted completely, everyone knows that it will not be business as usual. The B2C shopping and service experiences must now operate under the new constraints of social distancing.

For example, as per the ‘Unlock 1.0’ guidelines issued by Government of India, restaurants will be allowed to reopen with a limit of not more than 50% of the seating capacity.

Similarly, The Maharashtra government has issued a notification to reopen salons and beauty parlours in the State under its ‘Mission Begin Again Phase IV’. According to the notification, salons and beauty parlours will be allowed to function with prior appointment only. As a result, retail businesses, small and large alike needs an appointment booking system for it’s customers.

An easy to setup shop by appointment platform

COVID-19 has brought two major shifts in customer behaviour: the reluctance to shop in a crowded store and increased propensity towards digital. Considering this, the highest priority of any retail business is to boost customers confidence is to activate measures for ensuring that there are not too many people into the store at the same time. Make sure customers can maintain a safe distance as advised by health authorities.

This article primarily focuses on how retail businesses can quickly launch and easy shop by appointment experience for it’s customers using Genie.bot.

What is Genie?

Genie is a WhatsApp first omni-channel chat bot offering “Shop by Appointment” for business continuity in times of COVID-19. Genie’s mission is to help retail businesses reopen in this difficult times and help them get back on their feet by offering an easy to adapt and economical appointment platform for their customers.

Why Genie

For Business

1. Regulate and managed flow of customers inside and outside premises to ensure social distancing.
2. Create environment of comfort and safety for customers and staff.
3. Customise schedule, appointment quota and walk-in quota on a store-by-store basis.
4. Offer contact less checking in and out by using QR codes or One Time Password (OTP)
5. Contact tracing
6. Real-time tracking of customers inside the store and in walk-in queues.

For Customers

1. Pre-book shopping appointment and avoid long wait outside the stores.
2. Easy to use WhatsApp based appointment system — no need to install any application.
3. Find businesses by name or category using natural language chat interface.
4. Instant confirmation of bookings.
5. Join real-time virtual queues for walk-in.
6. Contact less store check-in and check-out using QR Codes or One Time Password (OTP).
7. Monitor store capacity in real-time.

How does it work for businesses

A retail business can sign up by visiting genie.bot/business website. As a part of the sign up process, business needs to upload documents in support of business name and address verification. Once verified, it’s a 3 step process

1. Define stores/ branches by providing the location and capacity.
2. For each store/branch, configure schedule by entering opening and closing time.
3. Optionally, configure any upcoming holidays and breaks when you don’t want to accept any appointments

Voila! — Your business is ready to accept shopping/service appointments from it’s customers. Based on the information provided, Genie will auto-generate appointment slots for your customers. Through the console, you can check the bookings in real-time and access various reports.

Click here to register your business on Genie

Customer’s journey

Customer’s journey on Genie is enabled by a powerful machine learning (ML) driven Natural Language Processing (NLP) framework.

For a customer, finding a business and booking an appointment is as simple as chatting on WhatsApp. A customer can get started by saying “Hi” to Genie on the following WhatsApp number:

1. +91 70 450 10000 (India and Rest of the world)
2. +27 61 061 2020 (South Africa)

After completing a one time registration process, customers can find or discover business using natural language as follows:

• Find me the nearest restaurants
• Book me an appointment at veg world
• I want to buy vegetables
• Where can I buy groceries
• Book fitness world appointment
• I need a hair cut

After finding a business, customer can choose a suitable time slot generated by Genie and get instant confirmation of their appointment. The QR code / OTP can be provided at the front desk for contact less checking in and checking out.

Genie will also send a reminder to the customer 2 hours before the appointment time. Customer can also manage their appointments by saying:

• Show me my appointments
• Cancel my appointment

ABOUT GRAY MATRIX:

Founded in 2003, Gray Matrix offers innovative digital solutions in the global market. To deal with COVID-19 situation we have various smart contact less solutions to ensure business continuity. Some of such initiatives are Helpify, iVital Health Smart Thermometer, COVID Bands, and humanoid robots. Our RPA and Robotic Workforce offerings are always available to protect your employees and customers through these times and implement various business cases.

For more details visit www.graymatrix.com and genie.bot