Emaar partners with Microsoft to deliver a five-star loyalty experience using Azure Cognitive Services

Operated by Emaar Properties and located in the heart of the prestigious Downtown Dubai, The Dubai Mall is the world's most-visited retail and entertainment destination. With more than 1,300 retail stores and 200 food and beverage outlets accommodated in an area larger than 200 soccer fields, it is already a triumph of engineering. Emaar is building on top of that engineering excellence using technology, with solutions ranging from the Internet of Things, smart sensor arrays, big data gathering and sophisticated analysis, next-generation customer relationship management, and cloud.

"One of our services designed to deliver distinctive customer experiences is a loyalty program that rewards points based on receipts scanned on visitors' mobile devices," starts Binoo Joseph, leading Emaar Technologies. "The earned points can be redeemed at participating brands including lifestyle hotels, gourmet restaurants, spa treatments, and Dubai's top class entertainment attractions." Thanks to a first-of-its-kind partnership with Emirates Airlines, the mall customers can also earn Skywards Miles as they spend. All they need is to register on The Dubai Mall app, link it to their Emirates Skywards account, and upload their receipts on the go.

The same solution has now been extended to Emaar’s own “U By Emaar” (UBE) loyalty program, covering the rest of the mall assets including Dubai Marina mall and community malls. The UBE mobile app offers the receipt scanning feature and receipts are processed through Azure Cognitive Services.

Turning raw data into customer engagement

To streamline the loyalty points collection, the visionary retailer has infused Azure Cognitive Services into receipt scanning with the help of its technology partner Data Semantics. The project is yet another stage of the company’s ambitious digital transformation journey set to empower employees, enhance customer engagement, and optimize service levels.

“Emaar is creating a differentiated and value-adding customer experience,” explains Stela Solar, Director of AI Solutions Sales and Strategy at Microsoft. “The ability to have store information at one’s fingertips, automating the loyalty points system, together with the IoT sensors around the property, truly hold an opportunity for personalized and seamless experiences that could attract many more loyal customers.”

The Azure-based solution scans and logs customer purchases efficiently, replacing tedious manual processing. "Formerly, the images of scanned receipts were sent to a third-party who would convert them into digital format and then send it back to us," explains Lijo Mathew Kankapadan, leading Emaar Malls technology program. Harnessing automation means that the mall visitors can now earn points more efficiently to enjoy benefits faster. In addition, the mobile app makes it easier for them to track loyalty points and eligibility for luxury rewards.

The transformation has enhanced customer engagement without affecting the company's day-to-day workflows. That's because the mall ran the pilot program in parallel to the manual process until the accuracy of the readings became satisfactory. "When we achieved beyond 80 percent of accuracy in the first two to three months, we switched seamlessly to the new platform," says Kankapadan. As a result, the app users were not even aware of the shift.

“Until now, more than one million receipts have been automatically scanned using Form Recognizer (part of Azure Cognitive Services), with accuracy exceeding 92 percent,” confirms Kankapadan. The mall has not only upgraded the customer experience but also generated significant cost savings. "We have reduced our month-on-month receipt processing costs by more than 50 percent," Kankapadan continues. “In addition, we have saved over 8,000 hours of manual work in the last six months,” he adds.

Inspiring long-term customer loyalty with cognitive retail

“At this moment both personalized customer experiences, as well as document process automation are highly adopted AI-powered scenarios with demonstrated ROI impacting customer acquisition, retention and cost savings,” Solar sums up the project.

Always prepared for what's ahead, Emaar plans to take automation further to advance its customer-centric vision. It is currently implementing the auto-approval process, where AI will replace manual verification of scanned receipts. End users will then be able to earn their points immediately, in near real-time.

Another benefit is that the staff can be more committed to better customer service. "We expect our employees to handle only about 10 percent of today's workload while the cognitive system does the rest. That will allow them to focus on more complex customer queries," details Binoo Joseph, leading Emaar Technologies.