UWB to Help Sales Staff Fish for Leads

According to Ubisense, what sets its system apart from other RTLS offerings is the combined use of two algorithms—one that calculates the time difference of arrival for a signal at two different RFID readers, and another that calculates the angle of arrival for the signal. This allows the system to pinpoint the location of a tag to within 1 foot. Other location systems use one of these two location methods, but by using both, Ubisense says it needs fewer readers than others using only the time-difference algorithm.

"Ubisense has opened up a whole new way for us to serve exhibitors," says Gilvar, adding that Fish is excited to deploy the Ubisense system. The firm will determine where it will use the Ubisense technology, and where it will use the Axcess RFID system, on a case-by-case basis, he says. Gilvar does not envision ever using both systems at the same event, as that would necessitate issuing two different active tags to attendees. The Ubisense technology, however, could be used to gather the general traffic-flow data and conference –session-attendance information event organizers require.

For the exhibitor application in February, Ubisense software will feed tag-ID and location information—e.g., tag XYZ in booth 123—into software Fish is developing to correlate the tag ID with the attendee's profile and send that information to salespeople in the booth. Staff members in the booth will then be able to use PC tablets to determine who is in the booth at a given time. Once they make contact with a specific attendee, they will also be able to log their conversation details into a file to which they can later refer for post-show correspondences with that person.

On the exhibit floor, Gilvar explains, salespeople have difficulty knowing how to target pitches to attendees until they ask a number of questions and learn what interests that person. Having this information up front, in the form of the attendee's profile, a salesperson will be able to target their pitch more quickly and effectively, says Gilvar. "A salesperson might sell the same product to managers, CEOs and others within a company, but they might have different ways of approaching each of those types of people," he says.