Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Tanning Salon Chain Adopts Fingerprint Biometrics for Customers and Staff

Digital Persona Press Release: Zoom Tan (Yahoo!)
Previously, Zoom Tan discovered that many of their members often come directly from the gym without their credit or debit cards, which limited their ability to make purchases at the tanning salon. To better serve their customers, Zoom Tan created ZoomPay, a biometrically-enabled software application that enables customers to keep their card information safely on file and purchase products with the touch of their finger.

"Biometric technology is a unique way to improve customer service," said Scott Bogdan, director of operations at Zoom Tan. "Our members love being able to make purchases without the burden of carrying around cash and credit cards. DigitalPersona's technology was incredibly easy to integrate into our application."

In addition to enabling more purchases by members, biometrics also significantly reduced fraud at Zoom Tan salons. Members were knowingly and unknowingly sharing their membership information with friends and relatives. Now, with fingerprint biometrics, only properly-registered members can sign-in for tanning sessions. In addition, Zoom Tan adopted biometrics for employee time and attendance management. This has enabled employees to accurately get credit for their shifts while preventing them from fraudulently clocking co-workers in and out.
This deployment has it all.

Cleverly adopted fingerprint biometrics can:
♦ Increase the security and privacy of customers
♦ Make it easier for customers to make purchases
♦ Bring rigor to the employer-employee relationship (time-and-attendance)
♦ Bring rigor to the business-customer relationship (membership-sharing)

Add these up for some good ROI.

Further in the PR, DigitalPersona exec. Jim Fulton mentions that by combining biometrics with their own custom and commercial applications retailers can boost revenues in similar ways.

Using our propriety middleware components, SecurLinx does the "combining" part mentioned above, linking biometric hardware to existing IT systems, and building semi-custom applications to deliver bottom-line results to the organization.