Merging Physical and Virtual Worlds: Leveraging the Internet of Things for Improved Customer Experiences
Even with the best personal assistants on mobile phones, such as Siri and Google Now, information access is limited to virtual information (calendar, email, etc.) and coarse physical location. The lack of integration of information from other sources means that it is currently not possible to link online activity such as shopping for mortgages, investigating investment opportunities, and PNC mobile app usage to information about visits to a bank, and places within the bank where customers spend time. Here we propose to link these disparate sources of information together, to make suggestions to customers about financial opportunities, and to help banks and bank employees provide more personalized customer experiences.In particular, we proposeto explore the use of beacons (Internet-of-Things technologies) within a bank and in its proximity to identify when a bank customer is near a bank, and where the customer is within the bank. In addition, we will prototype and evaluate a mobile phone “banking” app that uses information about customers’ location, use of the app, financially-related searches made from the mobile platform to improve the in-person and remote banking customer experience.
