Facebook and the Future of Beacon Technology in Retail
Microlocation technology, which provides the ability for a mobile app to tell exactly where someone is and respond accordingly, is one of the most interesting technical developments in the customer experience innovation space. Although the devices and protocols have been around for a number of years now, Apple’s formalisation of Bluetooth Low Energy beacons in 2013 led to a new wave of consumer facing apps that reacted to the real world in new and interesting ways.
There is a limiting factor, however. To engage with a customer using iBeacons in a retail setting the customer must have the retailer’s application installed on their phone. Furthermore, each app must independently request permission to access location — requests which may often be denied by privacy conscious users.
Apple has previously experi–mented with ways to use beacon technology to recommend mobile applications. App Suggestions debuted in iOS 8, and it places a faded out icon on the bottom left of the screen in areas defined by either geo-fences or the presence of an iBeacon. Unlike other approaches to this problem App Suggestions do not require the app to be installed, and can redirect to the App Store for apps the user does not currently have available (a caveat here is that apps that are not installed seem limited to geofences, which must be established by Apple and are not easily controlled by developers and retailers).
Apple Wallet (née Passbook) Passes can also be activated by the presence of a beacon, but unlike in the case of App Suggestions these passes do have to be installed on the device beforehand.
Enter Facebook
Facebook is one app that does have incredibly widespread adoption. The sheer usefulness and ubiquity of the social network makes the app one of the most popular on the App Store, despite privacy concerns. This enables Facebook to become a broker of sorts, enabling retailers to provide beacon powered microlocation services via the Facebook app — albeit in a very limited way (for now).
If there was fanfare with this announcement I missed it (it was announced almost exclusively in trade publications with no public press release), but Facebook has entered the beacon market, toting a fairly slick (Estimote lookalike) beacon that is integrated with their Place Tip functionality.
The effect is undeniably subtle, so forgive me if I got you too excited. The beacon activates a small notification at the top of the user’s news feed, which activates the Place Tips screen shown below.
From a retailer perspective you gain a quick way for customers to engage with your page (either via check-in, like or message). Being Facebook, there is also user generated content in the form of reviews and photos, plenty of incentive to keep your customer’s happy and engaged (nothing has changed there).
What I am excited about is the possibilities of where this could go next. Facebook also pushes a mobile app deep linking framework called App Links. While I can’t see any signs of integration with their beacon product just yet, enabling deep linking would open up a richer set of developer controlled, marketer designed functionality as well as an avenue for application discovery that is much less subtle and value-added that Apple’s default mechanism.
It’s early days yet but this is a space I will definitely be watching.
Footnote: A few years ago, Accenture Technology Labs put together a point of view around Context Retailing that is worth revisiting. Kelly and Brian have both since left but there’s plenty of us in the Digital Customer team who are happy to talk about this so if you’re interested, reach out!
