Free weekly demonstrations. Register for a demo

Why You Should Automate Your Tally Counter

April 6, 2020

The latest COVID-19 safety-regulations have left business owners on the hunt for a solution to count and limit how many customers are in their stores.

automated tally counter

Essential businesses like grocery stores, pharmacies and home improvement centers in many states are required to limit customers in a store, enforcing social-distancing rules and preventing the spread of the Coronavirus. Business owners may be searching for a tally counter for door attendants to keep track of customers entering and exiting. At SenSource, we’ve been in the business of counting people for over 18 years and have some insights on why an automated counting solution is the better investment.

1. Manual Hand Counting is Inconsistent

When we started in 2002, many of our prospective customers, especially libraries, museums and amusement parks, sought us out to replace their tally counter methods. In recent years churches have made the same realization – manual hand counting is inconsistent.

In any crowded scenario, there will be human-error with hand counting. Especially when you consider day-to-day comparisons where different people are tasked with collecting the data. No two attendants will tally occupancy in exactly the same manner, without distraction, for an entire shift. Accuracy diminishes further when multiple people are simultaneously hand counting at multiple entrances in the same building.

In addition, the disparity is even greater when you compare occupancy data from multiple locations, such as a grocery store chain.  

Using people counting sensors, an automated occupancy solution maintains consistent accuracy across all of your locations. For buildings with multiple entrances, our system combines the data for a complete, real-time view of occupancy.

2. A Tally Counter Shows a Snapshot, Not a Historical Analysis

With any manual data collection, it’s a multi-step process to collect the data, then record it, then analyze and share. Regulations around COVID-19 safety measures change rapidly and no business owner has time to manually create compliancy reports.

With an automated occupancy sensor, you’ll receive the real-time data to display at the store-level, as well as an admin portal to monitor and report the compliance of all the stores in your chain within minutes.

3. A Tally Counter Cannot Improve Customer Experience

Our amusement park customers are highly in tune to customer experience and rely on our people counting sensors to showcase estimated ride wait time. Studies have shown that customers are more pleased with their experience in a queue if the appropriate expectation is set.

While there are too many variables to showcase an expected wait time in a grocery queue, customers will still feel satisfaction seeing a display reflect customers entering and exiting, knowing they are incrementally getting closer to the front of the line. Not to mention the level of fairness as a display holds an attendant accountable to permitting the correct number of people in at a time.

Automated Occupancy Monitoring

Your tally counter search stops here. Continue on to learn more about how an automated occupancy monitoring solution works – Automated Occupancy Solution.