Patent ID: 8254625

Claim:
A method of service management comprising: (a) providing a radiative sensor positioned to observe an area of interest; (b) electronically acquiring from the radiative sensor at least one frame of data of the area of interest; (c) electronically processing said acquired frame of data to determine the presence or absence of at least one object in the area of interest; (d) based on determining the absence of the object in the area of interest in step (c), electronically causing a human detectable alert to be generated in response to also electronically detecting a presence of another object in another area of interest, wherein the other object in the other area of interest is electronically detected via the radiative sensor or another radiative sensor, and wherein: the area of interest is a service counter; the object is a service person; the other object is a patron; and the alert is generated when the service person is absent and the patron is present.