Abstract:
Correctly staffing retail settings is a challenge. While calendar based staffing decisions, such as increasing staffing for a holiday sale, may provide high-level staffing recommendations. The activities of customers may be monitored to provide a more granular staffing allocation. Customers who, for example, spend a certain duration of time within one portion of the retail setting may be determined to indicate a need for assistance and a staff member of the retail setting allocated to assist the customer or customers within an area with a spike in customer activity. Similarly, customers who indicate a desire to purchase an item requiring certain staff skills (e.g., verify customer identity, complete legal documents, lift heavy items, etc.) may be detected and an appropriate staff member allocated. As a result, the customer may receive assistance from staff members having the required skills to complete their purchase.

Description:
FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE 
       [0001]    The present disclosure is generally directed toward allocating staff to service customers in a retail setting. 
       BACKGROUND 
       [0002]    Retail establishments today often use a combination of automated and live services to efficiently serve their customers. In current systems, a manager has to collect information from a contact center floor using a customer management system (“CMS”) or other management system, collect information from a kiosk and other automated services, and even more information from a store floor. Deciding how many people need to be manning each station and/or taking escalations in all parts of the business is not an easy tasks. 
         [0003]    Statistical analysis and reporting in contact centers are relatively well-defined. For instance, there are a great number of Key Performance Indicators (“KPIs”) that are used to measure site and employee performance. There is also operational statistics and analytics. For instance, an enterprise generally knows how well it is performing based on sales, average revenue per transaction, labor costs, etc. 
         [0004]    Retail establishments commonly use work force optimization (“WFO”), a method that helps businesses balance efficiency and effectiveness by using the contact center as a strategic resource. Analytics-driven WFO allows organizations to capture, analyze, and act on information to improve performance, interactions, and processes. However, even with such sophisticated techniques, problems remain. 
       SUMMARY 
       [0005]    It is with respect to the above issues and other problems that the embodiments presented herein were contemplated. Described with respect to certain embodiments herein, is the ability for a retail establishment to combine locally gathered statistics with operational statistics to gain a better understanding of how well a business is operating in real-time and over an extended period of time. 
         [0006]    Despite operational efficiencies that exist today, certain areas are not covered and, therefore, not rolled-up into WFO to provide a real-time, accurate automatic assessment and prediction model. Disclosed with respect to certain embodiments, are systems and methods operable to roll-up local, automatic, and remote services into operational information to provide automatic immediate staffing estimates and long-term projections, referred to as preferred staffing profiles. 
         [0007]    To provide a full and accurate automatic model and reporting system that can be used for staffing, the certain aspects disclosed are operable to know the length of queues, number of customers served, number of customer abandons, the average customer service time required, as well as local (i.e., in-store) clerk statistics combined with kiosk statistics and contact center statistics for calculating total staffing required. The staffing is done with analytics to provide accuracy, incorporating staffing of clerks, central staff, and management. 
         [0008]    Certain processes disclosed monitor key aspects that impact the level of service customers receive. By using all the media and information from a location, a profile of the normalized metric levels is generated with optional manual intervention to accommodate key outlier situations. During monitoring, data are recorded and as certain thresholds are achieved, notifications may go out to one or more employees. Reports generated can assist future staffing and operational budget needs. 
         [0009]    As a benefit, certain conditions may be detected and managed accordingly: 
         [0010]    1. Temporarily too busy detected; redistribution of existing staff (i.e., long queue at register 4). 
         [0011]    2. Shift or near-term busy detected; notification to managers for shift management/adjustment (i.e., traffic is higher than normal today). 
         [0012]    3. Holiday or special occasion busy detected; year over year comparisons, staffing profile suggestions. 
         [0013]    In one embodiment, video cameras and badges equipped with RFID (and/or other monitoring/observing tools) are used to monitor and report on line waiting time, abandons, successful sales, etc., and are fed back into overall WFO statistics for the company. One benefit of such an embodiment is to provide the appropriate aggregation, identification, and distribution of resources in all sectors in real-time. 
         [0014]    RFID may additionally be used to accurately predict the customer wait time based on the number of items and the complexity of items to be purchased, where some customers have many items (longer processing time), others have only a single item (shorter processing time), and others may have one or two complex items (medium processing time). The system can utilize volume, location, number of customers and skills of resource/number of resources to accurately predict wait time and provide notification if other and/or additional resources are needed (i.e., alert for more cashiers when more than 3 people in line are purchasing 5 or more items). 
         [0015]    Embodiments also include a system with the functionality to coach and/or provide feedback to the resources based on current observations, as well as identify current anomalies and possible solutions. A user interface is provided for the manager to receive alerts, make immediate and near-term adjustments, and to run forecasts and reports. 
         [0016]    Once the data is collected, it may be stored in a database or other data repository. The stored and/or live data may be used to generate staffing statistics and predictive needs based on events, times, and the like for one or more local retail outlets. It is anticipated that individual retail outlets may generate and store staffing statistics at a central storage location. These centrally stored statistics may be combined and analyzed for patterns to determine operational statistics associated with staffing levels. 
         [0017]    In one embodiment, a method is disclosed, comprising: monitoring, by machine-based detection equipment, a retail setting and one or more customers therein; comparing, by a microprocessor, an activity comprising at least a duration of time spent by the one or more customers within a first portion of the retail setting to a current staff allocation; and based on the comparison step, determining that adjusting the current staff allocation would place the retail setting in a more ideal state, notifying a resource allocation manager to apply a staffing allocation adjustment. 
         [0018]    In another embodiment, a system is disclosed, comprising: a first sensor; a microprocessor; and a staffing allocation manager; and wherein the first sensor is operable to monitor a first portion of a retail setting and one or more customers therein; wherein the microprocessor is operable to compare an activity comprising at least a duration of time spent by the one or more customers within the first portion of the retail setting to a current staff allocation; and wherein the processor, based on the comparison step, determining that adjusting the current staff allocation would place the retail setting in a more ideal state, notifying the resource allocation manager to apply a staffing allocation adjustment. 
         [0019]    In another embodiment, a non-transitory computer readable medium is disclosed with instructions thereon, that when read by a computer, cause the computer to perform: monitoring, by machine-based detection equipment, a retail setting and one or more customers therein; comparing, by a microprocessor, an activity comprising at least a duration of time spent by the one or more customers within a first portion of the retail setting to a current staff allocation; and based on the comparison step, determining that adjusting the current staff allocation would place the retail setting in a more ideal state, notifying a resource allocation manager to apply a staffing allocation adjustment. 
         [0020]    The phrases “at least one,” “one or more,” and “and/or” are open-ended expressions that are both conjunctive and disjunctive in operation. For example, each of the expressions “at least one of A, B and C,” “at least one of A, B, or C,” “one or more of A, B, and C,” “one or more of A, B, or C” and “A, B, and/or C” means A alone, B alone, C alone, A and B together, A and C together, B and C together, or A, B and C together. 
         [0021]    The term “a” or “an” entity refers to one or more of that entity. As such, the terms “a” (or “an”), “one or more” and “at least one” can be used interchangeably herein. It is also to be noted that the terms “comprising,” “including,” and “having” can be used interchangeably. 
         [0022]    The term “automatic” and variations thereof, as used herein, refers to any process or operation done without material human input when the process or operation is performed. However, a process or operation can be automatic, even though performance of the process or operation uses material or immaterial human input, if the input is received before performance of the process or operation. Human input is deemed to be material if such input influences how the process or operation will be performed. Human input that consents to the performance of the process or operation is not deemed to be “material.” 
         [0023]    The term “computer-readable medium” as used herein refers to any tangible storage that participates in providing instructions to a processor for execution. Such a medium may take many forms, including but not limited to, non-volatile media, volatile media, and transmission media. Non-volatile media includes, for example, NVRAM, or magnetic or optical disks. Volatile media includes dynamic memory, such as main memory. Common forms of computer-readable media include, for example, a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, or any other magnetic medium, magneto-optical medium, a CD-ROM, any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any other physical medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM, and EPROM, a FLASH-EPROM, a solid state medium like a memory card, any other memory chip or cartridge, or any other medium from which a computer can read. When the computer-readable media is configured as a database, it is to be understood that the database may be any type of database, such as relational, hierarchical, object-oriented, and/or the like. Accordingly, the disclosure is considered to include a tangible storage medium and prior art-recognized equivalents and successor media, in which the software implementations of the present disclosure are stored. 
         [0024]    The terms “determine,” “calculate,” and “compute,” and variations thereof, as used herein, are used interchangeably and include any type of methodology, process, mathematical operation or technique. 
         [0025]    The term “module” as used herein refers to any known or later developed hardware, software, firmware, artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic, or combination of hardware and software that is capable of performing the functionality associated with that element. Also, while the disclosure is described in terms of exemplary embodiments, it should be appreciated that other aspects of the disclosure can be separately claimed. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0026]    The present disclosure is described in conjunction with the appended figures: 
           [0027]      FIG. 1  depicts a system in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure; 
           [0028]      FIG. 2  depicts customers purchasing items in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure; 
           [0029]      FIG. 3  depicts a retail setting in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure; and 
           [0030]      FIG. 4  depicts a process  400  in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0031]    The ensuing description provides embodiments only, and is not intended to limit the scope, applicability, or configuration of the claims. Rather, the ensuing description will provide those skilled in the art with an enabling description for implementing the embodiments. It being understood that various changes may be made in the function and arrangement of elements without departing from the spirit and scope of the appended claims. 
         [0032]    The identification in the description of element numbers without a subelement identifier, when a subelement identifiers exist in the figures, when used in the plural, is intended to reference any two or more elements with a like element number. A similar usage in the singular, is intended to reference any one of the elements with the like element number. Any explicit usage to the contrary or further qualification shall take precedent. 
         [0033]    The exemplary systems and methods of this disclosure will also be described in relation to analysis software, modules, and associated analysis hardware. However, to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present disclosure, the following description omits well-known structures, components and devices that may be shown in block diagram form, and are well known, or are otherwise summarized. 
         [0034]    For purposes of explanation, numerous details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present disclosure. It should be appreciated, however, that the present disclosure may be practiced in a variety of ways beyond the specific details set forth herein. 
         [0035]    With reference now to  FIG. 1 , system  100  will be described for allocating staff  124  in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. Retail setting  120  contains a number of portions  102 . With respect to certain embodiments disclosed herein, the activity of customer  104 , which may represent a single individual, two or more individuals shopping as a unit, and/or a plurality of individuals and/or units, is used to provide a more immediate staffing allocation feedback to enable retail setting  120  to operate in a more ideal state as compared to without such staffing allocation. Staffing allocation may initially be set by a WFO program operating on sever  118  and/or another system. 
         [0036]    The actions of customer  104  in a particular portion  120  may be used to allocate staff  124  in the same portion  120  or a different portion  120 . Portion  102  may be the entirety of a sales floor, a portion of a larger retail setting (e.g., department, section, more autonomous departments, such as a floral shop or pharmacy within a grocery store, etc.), and/or a non-sales floor area accessible by customers (e.g., parking lot, doorway, corridor, and/or other approach/departure/waiting area, etc.). Portion  102  may include an areas not intended for access to customers may also be included, such as may be used to notify security personnel or other personnel of an anomalous situation. 
         [0037]    In one embodiment, portion  102  is monitored by at least one device  106 . Device  106  is operable to detect the presence of a person, which may identify only that a person is or is not present (e.g., pressure mat  106 B), distinguish between the person being customer  104  or staff member(s)  124 , (e.g., pressure mat  106 B detecting a person, however, WiFi badge (not shown) worn by staff member(s)  124  is detected in the area and, therefore, the person on pressure mat  106 B is likely not customer  104 ), or identify the specific customer  104  (e.g., receiver  114  detects a radio signal from a device (not shown) carried by a specific customer  104 . 
         [0038]    Devices  106  may include microphone  106 A, pressure mat  106 B, camera  106 C, radio frequency identification (“RFID”) tag  106 D, receiver  114 , or other sensing device. Devices  106  may themselves, or via other systems, process signals received to identify or better identify customer  104  (e.g., facial recognition software, footstep analysis, speech recognition, etc.). Receiver  114  may be configured to receive signals from RFID tag  106 D and/or signals from transmitting devices associated with customers (e.g., cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. enabled devices). The location of item  110 , and customer  104  having selected item  110 , may be determined via RFID tag  106 D associated with item  110 . As a result of devices  106 , the location of customer  104  may be determined. Additional technology may be employed, such as image tracking software or other means to identify a specific customer  104  or to at least distinguish between one customer  104  and another customer  104  and they move throughout retail setting  120  and/or one or more of portions  102 . 
         [0039]    Portion  102  and/or devices  106  therein utilize communication link  116  to connect to processing equipment, such as server  118 . Communications link  116  may be one or more of a wired and wireless network, such as Ethernet, Internet, cellular network, fiber optic, WiFi, infrared, and/or other communications technology to enable one or more of devices  122  and/or wired/wireless, cellular/etc. In one embodiment, server  118  determines when the actions of customer  104  have, or will, place one or more portion  102  in a state that is less than ideal. 
         [0040]    What is and is not ideal is a matter of design choice as the operation of one portion  102  be different from another portion  102  and/or the events, such as time, holiday, season, or other event may cause the optimum state of a single portion  102  to vary. It should be noted that embodiments described herein may achieve an ideal state for one or more portions  102  and/or retail setting  120 , however it will often be the case that only a more ideal state is possible. For example, if an unexpected rush of customers  104  flood the store, twenty additional staff members  124  may be needed to return to an ideal state. However, if only ten staff members  124  are on-site or otherwise eligible to assist the new customers  104 , then “more ideal” state would be the adding of at least one staff member  124 , as compared to status quo, and an even more ideal state is adding as many as possible. WFO systems may be incorporated to, for example, notify on-call staff members  124  not currently working to report, if the influx of customers  104  is predicted to last longer than an estimated time for on-call staff members  124  to become available. 
         [0041]    For example, if portion  102  is an area including custom tailored clothing, the operators of portion  102  may determine that an ideal state is a customer-to-staff ratio of one-to-one, as fitting custom clothing often requires the dedicated services of staff member  124  for a period of time. In contrast, if portion  102  is an area including books or other reading material, the operators may strive to maintain a much lower, and therefore cost effective, ratio of customers to staff to allow customers to browse items at a more leisurely pace and without interruptions, but still be available find assistance if desired. Therefore, the ideal state may be a customer-to-staff ratio of ten-to-one. If server  118  determines that retail setting  120  is not in, or will not be in, an ideal state, server  118  may utilize network  116  to communicate with agent devices  122 . Agent devices  122  may include, tablet computer  122 A, smartphone  122 B, laptop  122 C, marquee, audible message generator, tactile message generator, computer display, and/or other device operable to receive messages and present messages to staff members  124 . One or more of staff members  124  may be managerial staff, who upon receiving a notification, select other staff members  124  to provide the service that would place portion  102  in a more ideal state. 
         [0042]    In one embodiment, customer  104  has placed item  110  into a shopping cart. Item  110 , via RFID tag  106 D in communication with receiver  114 , has communicated with server  118  that it is in motion and indicative of a likely purchase by customer  104 . Item  110 , along with a number of other items, may indicate a volume of anticipated purchases that exceeds the current capacity of the cashiering staff. Server  118  then determines that the wait time for customers to make their purchases is longer than a threshold amount (e.g., portion  102  is about to enter a less than ideal state). Accordingly, server  118  causes a notification to be sent to allocate additional cashiering staff, such as by signaling device  122 A to notify staff member  124 A to report to a cashiering station. 
         [0043]    In other embodiment, item  110  may be a high-value item requiring purchase approval of a manager, for example staff member  124 B. Accordingly, device  124 B is signaled to present a notification and cause staff member  124 B to report to the checkout area or otherwise anticipate approving the purchase of item  110 . 
         [0044]    The determination that item  110  is about to be purchased, or otherwise require the activity of a resource, may be determined by direct measurement (e.g., associated RFID tag  106 D is in motion, as described above), or indirectly. For example, portion  102  may have twenty individual customers  104 . Historical observations may indicate that two of those twenty customers  104  are within portion  102  to purchase, at least, one of item  110 . Similarly, historical evidence may show that a certain percentage of customers  104  who select item  110  for purchase, fail to complete the purchase (e.g., abandonment). Accordingly, the prospect of a likely purchase of item  110  may be factored to account for indirect measurement and/or abandonment estimates, as well as direct measurement. 
         [0045]    In another embodiment, the timing of the notification is determined, in part, by an estimation of when customer  104  and/or item  110  will place portion  102  in the less than ideal state. For example, if item  110  is a heavy item requiring additional staff  124  to lift in order for customer  104  to complete the purchase of item  110 , knowing when the additional staff  124  is needed may be determined by estimating historical behavior of prior customers  104  and/or by direct measurement of customer  104  having selected item  110 . Continuing the example, customer  104  may have selected item  110 , a heavy item, from a distant location in portion  102 , whereby customer  104  may take a minimum of several minutes to enqueue for checkout to complete the purchase of item  110 . As several minutes will be required for the purchase of item  110  to impact portion  102 , if such an impact would place retail setting in a less than ideal state, server  118  may either delay notification of staff member(s)  124  or notify staff member(s)  124  with a message that their services will be required at a future time. The location of the additional staff member(s)  124  may also be considered. For example, if the additional staff member(s)  124  are stationed fifteen seconds away then they can be notified much later than if they are in a different building several minutes away. 
         [0046]    The allocation of staff members  124  is variously embodied. Staff members  124  may have one or more skills or attributes that may determine which one or more staff members  124  is selected for a particular purpose and/or excluded for another purpose. In another example, when item  110  is determined to be, or about to be, purchased and cashiering staff is determined to be below a threshold value, staff member  124 A is notified. However, if staff members  124  is currently unavailable (e.g., helping another customer) or has attributes (e.g., knowledge of a certain product, ability to lift heavy items, language skills, etc.) that are currently in demand, then they may be excluded from notification. For example, staff member  124 C is fluent in German and currently engaged with customer  104  who is only conversational in German. Therefore, staff member  124 C, who may also be an expert in a certain product line may be omitted for selection in favor of another staff member, even with less expertise in the certain product line, if assisting customer  104  would be interrupted. In contrast if more than one staff members  124  are fluent in German, then staff member  124 C may be notified to help with a heavy item selected by another customer and staff member  124 A notified to relieve staff member  124  and assist the German-speaking customer. 
         [0047]    In another embodiment, sever  118  may determine that portion  102  is over allocated with staff members  124  and assign, via their respective devices  122  and/or devices  122  of their management, to perform other duties (e.g., “Inventory stockroom shelf #10,” “Begin placing signage for tomorrow&#39;s sale,” “Stop cashiering and report to your manager,” etc.). 
         [0048]    With reference now to  FIG. 2 , customers  104  purchasing items will be described in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure.  FIG. 2  illustrates several embodiments of events detected by sensing devices  106  and processed by server  118 , whereby the state of portion  102  may be determined to be in a non-ideal state and staff members  124  reallocated to mitigate the non-ideal state. 
         [0049]    In one embodiment, customer  104 A has selected item  204  for purchase, such as by picking up item  204  and placing item  204  into shopping cart  202 . Customer  104 A and/or item  204  may have no special attributes known or suspected. However, the volume of activity in portion  102  and/or retail setting  120  may cause the presence of customer  104 A and/or item  204  may be determined by server  118  as placing portion  102  and/or retail setting  120  into a less than ideal state. Accordingly, staff member(s)  124  are notified to respond and place, or mitigate the deviation from, portion  102  and/or retail setting  120  in the more ideal state. 
         [0050]    In another embodiment, customer  104 B has selected a large volume of items  208 , such as by placing them in cart  206 . The determination of the volume may be provided by optical analysis of a signal from camera  106 C, data from pressure mat  106 B, a plurality of signals from a number of RFID tags  106 D, and/or other sensing means. Accordingly, server  118  may determine that portion  102  and/or retail setting  120  may be placed in a less than ideal state, such as by the time required to process the purchase of each of items  208 , and possibly other items associated with other customers, representing an unacceptably long delay to customer  104 B and/or other customers. Accordingly staff member(s)  124  may be notified to respond accordingly. 
         [0051]    In another embodiment, customer  104 C has selected items  212  which require special handling. Special handling may include one or more of legal requirements (e.g., verify the age of customer  104 B for the purchase of alcohol), additional step (e.g., retrieve an actual item, such as when items  212  include an indicia of a pseudoephedrine product and the product itself must be retrieved by staff member  124 , complete product registration/warranty information, etc.), authority (e.g., manager&#39;s approval is required), special handling (e.g., heavy, fragile, special packaging, etc.), or other activity that may cause portion  102  and/or retail setting  120  to be in less than an ideal state. 
         [0052]    In another embodiment, customer  104 D has selected items  216  for purchase by placing them into cart  214 . Customer  104 D may have been explicitly identified, or otherwise known, to have attribute  218 . Attribute  218  may represent an atypical demand on staff resources and cause server  118  to allocate/de-allocate staff members  124  accordingly. For example, customer  104 D may have been previously identified via radio signal from a personal device (e.g., smartphone, Bluetooth enabled device, etc.) and, such as by receiver  114  detecting the same radio signal, identified as talkative or otherwise requiring additional attention from staff. Accordingly, server  118  may allocate additional staff  124 , staff with a special attribute (e.g., fluent in American Sign Language), and/or a specific staff member (e.g.,  124 A who may have assisted customer  104 D during their previous visit to portion  102 ) to assist customer  104 D. 
         [0053]    With reference now to  FIG. 3 , retail setting  300  will be described in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. Retail setting  300  comprises portions  302 ,  304 ,  306 ,  308 ,  310  and checkout  312 ,  314 . Customer  316  is monitored, such as by systems and methods described with respect to  FIG. 1 , and determined to have traversed the various portions of retail setting  300 , represented by path  320 . 
         [0054]    In one embodiment, customer  316  is determined to have spent a length of time in each of five portions  302 ,  304 ,  306 ,  308 ,  310 , which may include a zero, or effectively zero, length of time, as illustrated with respect to portion  304 . Having a zero, or effectively zero, length of time may be indicative of customer  316  passing through or next to portion  304  at a rate generally known to indicate traversal of the portion with little to no interaction with any items therein. 
         [0055]    In one embodiment, the length of time customer  316  spends in ones of portions  308 ,  306 ,  302 , and  310  may be indicative of items, or categories of items, customer  316  intends to purchase. For example, historical records may indicate that past customers who starts in children&#39;s clothing (portion  308 ) and moves to women&#39;s clothing (portion  306 ), will have selected four items for purchase. In another example, historical records may indicate that past customers who spend fifteen to twenty minute in children&#39;s clothing (portion  308 ) select three items for purchase and past customers who spend two or more hours in women&#39;s clothing (portion  306 ) select one item that requires custom tailoring. Accordingly, customer  316 , following path  320 , alone or in combination with other customers (not shown) may indicate an increase in demand for checkout services beyond the previously determined acceptable capacity of checkout  1  ( 312 ) operating alone and, accordingly, would place retail setting  300  in a less than ideal state. Upon determining that customer  316  being known, or estimated, to have selected a quantity of items that place retail setting  300  in a less than ideal setting, a processor, such as one running on server  118 , may cause one or more of staff members  124  to be allocated to open and/or maintain checkout  2  ( 314 ). Similarly, staff members  124  associated with tailoring may be notified to report to portion  306 , as customer  316  is likely to require tailoring services that are unavailable and/or over allocated, and by doing so, prevent portion  306  from entering a less than ideal state or placing it in a more ideal state if it has already departed therefrom. 
         [0056]    In another embodiment, upon customer  316  completing the purchase of their selected items, retail setting  300  may again be in a less than ideal state, such as when the demand for cashiers to operate checkouts  1  and  2  ( 312 ,  314 ) drops to the point whereby closing one of checkouts  1  or  2  ( 312 ,  314 ) will be a more ideal state, such as one were staff members  124  are allocated to tasks other than operating checkouts. 
         [0057]    In another embodiment, additional customer services may be provided to anticipate the needs of customer  316 . Path  320  takes customer  316  through children&#39;s clothing (portion  308 ), women&#39;s clothing (portion  306 ), and shoes (portion  302 ). Based on historical records and/or specific items selected by customer  316 , it may be determined that customer  316  is selecting a complete wardrobe for a formal event. Upon customer entering or approaching accessories (portion  310 ) a staff member  124  may be notified who can help select items that complement items selected in other portions (e.g.,  306 ,  302 ). In another embodiment, a staff member  124  may be notified that customer  320  may have children, as predicted by time spent in children&#39;s clothing (portion  308 ) and/or inputs from sensing devices  106 . Staff member(s)  124  may be notified accordingly and, for example, meet customer  316  in accessories (portion  310 ) with a shopping cart to accommodate items known or suspected to be carried by customer  316  and/or items to curry favor with children (e.g., toys, snacks, etc.). In another embodiment, customer  316  may be known or suspected of selecting a high-value item from a prior portion (e.g.,  308 ,  306 ,  302 ). Accordingly, staff member(s)  124  having expertise and/or authority to sell upscale accessories may be notified such that they may meet customer  316  in the accessories (portion  310 ) with the ability to provide the services likely desired by customer  316 . 
         [0058]    In another embodiment, customer  316  may spend an amount of time in portion  302  that is generally associated with someone looking for a particular item. Furthermore, sensing devices  106  may determine that customer  316  did not select any item within portion  302 . Customer  320  may then move to portion  310  whereby automatically or at the request of customer  316 , at least one of staff members  124  is requested to assist customer  316 . The specific staff member  124  that is selected may be determined based on expertise in portion  302 —from where customer  316  did not select an item. As a benefit, a customer who appears not to find an acceptable item in a first portion, and then goes to a second portion, may be assisted with someone with expertise in the first portion. For example, a customer who has spent a significant amount of time in a plumbing section, but has not selected an item, and moves to the electrical section, may be assisted by a staff member with plumbing expertise. As a benefit, the customer may be assisted in locating a sought after plumbing item. 
         [0059]    With reference now to  FIG. 4 , process  400  will be described in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. In one embodiment, step  402  monitors at least one customer in a retail setting. Step  404  determines, such as be sensing devices  106  in communication with server  118 , at least the length of time one or more customers spends in at least a portion of the retail setting. 
         [0060]    Step  406  then determines if, based on comparing step  404 , a staffing allocation adjustment should be made to place the retail setting in a more ideal state. If no, processing may continue back to step  402 . If yes, processing continues to step  408  whereby staffing allocation adjustments are implemented, such as by notifying at least one of staff members  124  via device  122 . Processing may then return to step  402 . 
         [0061]    In the foregoing description, for the purposes of illustration, methods were described in a particular order. It should be appreciated that in alternate embodiments, the methods may be performed in a different order than that described. It should also be appreciated that the methods described above may be performed by hardware components or may be embodied in sequences of machine-executable instructions, which may be used to cause a machine, such as a general-purpose or special-purpose processor (GPU or CPU) or logic circuits programmed with the instructions to perform the methods (FPGA). These machine-executable instructions may be stored on one or more machine readable mediums, such as CD-ROMs or other type of optical disks, floppy diskettes, ROMs, RAMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, flash memory, or other types of machine-readable mediums suitable for storing electronic instructions. Alternatively, the methods may be performed by a combination of hardware and software. 
         [0062]    Specific details were given in the description to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments. However, it will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that the embodiments may be practiced without these specific details. For example, circuits may be shown in block diagrams in order not to obscure the embodiments in unnecessary detail. In other instances, well-known circuits, processes, algorithms, structures, and techniques may be shown without unnecessary detail in order to avoid obscuring the embodiments. 
         [0063]    Also, it is noted that the embodiments were described as a process which is depicted as a flowchart, a flow diagram, a data flow diagram, a structure diagram, or a block diagram. Although a flowchart may describe the operations as a sequential process, many of the operations can be performed in parallel or concurrently. In addition, the order of the operations may be re-arranged. A process is terminated when its operations are completed, but could have additional steps not included in the figure. A process may correspond to a method, a function, a procedure, a subroutine, a subprogram, etc. When a process corresponds to a function, its termination corresponds to a return of the function to the calling function or the main function. 
         [0064]    Furthermore, embodiments may be implemented by hardware, software, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware description languages, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, firmware, middleware or microcode, the program code or code segments to perform the necessary tasks may be stored in a machine readable medium such as storage medium. A processor(s) may perform the necessary tasks. A code segment may represent a procedure, a function, a subprogram, a program, a routine, a subroutine, a module, a software package, a class, or any combination of instructions, data structures, or program statements. A code segment may be coupled to another code segment or a hardware circuit by passing and/or receiving information, data, arguments, parameters, or memory contents. Information, arguments, parameters, data, etc. may be passed, forwarded, or transmitted via any suitable means including memory sharing, message passing, token passing, network transmission, etc. 
         [0065]    While illustrative embodiments of the disclosure have been described in detail herein, it is to be understood that the inventive concepts may be otherwise variously embodied and employed, and that the appended claims are intended to be construed to include such variations, except as limited by the prior art.