JP2005173763A - Customer information processing device and method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a customer information processing device capable of acquiring an image of a customer in the acquisition of customer information about the customer. <P>SOLUTION: This customer information processing device 10 comprises a shop terminal part 14 for acquiring the customer information about the customer, a monitoring camera 12 for photographing a predetermined monitoring space including the shop terminal part 14; a person area extraction part 18 for extracting the image of the customer serving as an object of information acquisition from the image captured by the monitoring camera 12; and a database part 20 for storing the customer information acquired by the shop terminal part 14 and the customer image extracted by the person area extraction part 18 in association with each other. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an apparatus for processing information related to a customer, and more particularly to a technique for handling customer image information.

  Conventionally, a questionnaire system using the Web and a system using a POS terminal are known as systems for collecting customer information such as customer attributes, preferences, or purchase history.

  When a system using a POS terminal calculates a price using the POS terminal, the customer's product purchase history is acquired by the POS terminal. At this time, the employee who handles the POS terminal can input attribute information of each customer such as sex and age, and collect information by associating the purchase history of the product with the attribute of the customer.

Further, Patent Document 1 discloses a system for conducting a questionnaire to customers using an information terminal such as a kiosk terminal in a store ("Kyosk" is a registered trademark) and a store terminal. This system is a marketing system that conducts market research through a network-connected terminal, and is configured by connecting a marketing means, a member terminal, a store terminal, and the like via a network. The marketing means has a survey content database that stores a questionnaire implementation method, survey targets, survey contents, and the like, and a member management database that stores member attributes such as occupation, sex, age, and address of the members. With this configuration, when a member uses a store terminal or a member terminal, the member attribute is searched from the member management database, and the survey object stored in the survey content database matches the member attribute. , Conduct a questionnaire for the member. The marketing system collects questionnaire results through the network.
JP 2002-41753 A (page 3, FIG. 1)

  However, any information that can be collected by the above-described system is only verbalized information. In addition, in a system that inputs customer attribute information to a POS terminal, customer-related input information depends on the subjectivity of individual employees, and customer information cannot be collected on a uniform basis.

  An object of this invention is to provide the customer information processing apparatus which can acquire more abundant customer information regarding a customer in view of the said situation.

  The customer information processing apparatus according to the present invention includes an information acquisition unit that acquires customer information related to a customer, an imaging unit that images a predetermined monitoring space including the information acquisition unit, and an image captured by the imaging unit. Customer image extraction means for extracting the image of the customer, and customer information storage means for storing the customer information acquired by the information acquisition means and the customer image extracted by the customer image extraction means in association with each other.

  With this configuration, the customer who provides information to the information acquisition unit is imaged in a predetermined monitoring space, so that the customer image can be extracted from the captured image. Therefore, the customer image can be acquired together with the customer information. Recently, in order to improve security, an imaging means for imaging a predetermined monitoring space is often provided in a store or a shopping street. ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the apparatus which can acquire a customer's image cheaply without providing new equipment can be comprised by diverting the image imaged by the imaging means provided for the security improvement. The “imaging means” is, for example, a surveillance camera. The “information acquisition unit” is, for example, a kiosk terminal, a bank ATM terminal, a POS terminal, or the like. When the information acquisition means is a terminal operated by a customer such as a kiosk terminal or a bank ATM terminal, an operation history by the customer can be acquired as customer information. It is also possible to display a questionnaire survey screen on a kiosk terminal or a bank ATM terminal, conduct a questionnaire, and obtain the questionnaire results. In the case of a customer operation type terminal such as a kiosk terminal or a bank ATM, the customer image extraction means extracts an image of a person who operates the information acquisition means as a customer image. When the information acquisition means is a POS terminal, the purchase history of products can be acquired as customer information. In the case of a clerk operation type terminal such as a POS terminal, the customer image extracting means extracts an image of a person facing the clerk as a customer image.

  The customer information processing apparatus of the present invention has a configuration in which the customer image extraction means extracts a customer face image from the captured image.

  With this configuration, a face image representing human characteristics can be acquired as a customer image. Further, by storing the acquired customer face image, the face image can be used for customer identification, and the accuracy of customer identification can be improved.

  Further, the customer information processing apparatus of the present invention provides customer image acquisition means for acquiring a customer image to be searched, and customer information associated with a customer image corresponding to the image acquired by the customer image acquisition means. Customer information search means for searching from the customer information storage means, and customer information output means for outputting the customer information searched by the customer information search means.

  With this configuration, it is possible to output customer information related to a search target customer, and for example, it is possible to provide information useful for serving customers. The “customer image acquisition means” can be realized by the same hardware as the imaging means. For example, a surveillance camera provided in a store can be used as “customer image acquisition means”. By extracting the customer image from the image captured by the monitoring camera, the customer image to be searched can be acquired.

  The customer information processing apparatus of the present invention has a configuration in which the customer information storage means is connected to the information acquisition means and the imaging means provided in each of a plurality of different monitoring spaces via a network. .

  With this configuration, customer information and customer images obtained in a plurality of different monitoring spaces can be stored in the customer information storage means. Further, for example, based on the customer image and customer information obtained in a certain monitoring space, it is possible to notify information about the customer when the customer appears in another monitoring space.

  The customer information processing method of the present invention includes an information acquisition step of acquiring customer information about a customer, and an imaging step of imaging a predetermined monitoring space including information acquisition means used for acquiring customer information in the information acquisition step; A customer image extraction step for extracting the customer image from the image captured in the imaging step, and the customer information acquired in the information acquisition step and the customer image extracted in the customer image extraction step in association with each other. Storing customer information.

  With this configuration, as with the customer information processing apparatus of the present invention, it is possible to acquire and store a customer image together with customer information. Various components of the customer information processing apparatus described above can be applied to the customer information processing method of the present invention.

  The program of the present invention is a program for processing information related to a customer, and an information acquisition step of acquiring customer information related to the customer in a computer, a captured image acquisition step of acquiring a captured image of a predetermined monitoring space, A customer image extraction step for extracting the customer image from the captured image acquired in the captured image acquisition step, customer information acquired in the information acquisition step, and a customer image extracted in the customer image extraction step. A customer information storing step of storing in association is executed.

  With this configuration, when the program is executed by a computer, a customer image can be acquired and stored together with customer information, as in the customer information processing apparatus of the present invention. Various components of the customer information processing apparatus described above can be applied to the program of the present invention.

  The present invention is excellent in that customer information and customer images can be acquired in association with each other by a configuration in which an image of a customer for which information acquisition is performed by the information acquisition unit is extracted from an image of a predetermined monitoring space captured by the imaging unit. Has an effect.

  Hereinafter, a customer information processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a customer information processing apparatus 10 according to the first embodiment. In the present embodiment, a customer information processing apparatus 10 that acquires customer information from an information terminal installed in a store will be described as an example. Examples of information terminals include multimedia terminals, bank ATM terminals, kiosk terminals or POS terminals. Information related to the customer is acquired from an operation history by the customer such as a multimedia terminal, a bank ATM terminal, a kiosk terminal, or a purchase history of a product input to the POS terminal.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the customer information processing apparatus 10 includes a monitoring camera 12 that captures an image of a predetermined monitoring space, a store terminal unit 14 that includes an information terminal that can acquire customer information provided in the store, and a monitoring camera. 12 and an information processing unit 28 for processing information acquired by the store terminal unit 14. The information processing unit 28 includes a video storage unit 16 that stores video captured by the monitoring camera 12, a person region extraction unit 18 that extracts a person region from the video stored in the video storage unit 16, and a person region extraction unit. A database unit 20 for storing information about a person extracted by 18 and information about a customer obtained by the store terminal unit 14, and a search unit 22 for searching for specific items from the storage information of the video storage unit 16 and the database unit 20. , A search condition input unit 24 that accepts input of search conditions, and a notification unit 26 that notifies the search result by the search unit 22.

  The monitoring camera 12 has a function of capturing an image of the monitoring space and sending the captured image to the image storage unit 16. The monitoring camera 12 is arranged at a place where the inside of the store can be imaged. Based on the video imaged by the monitoring camera 12, it is possible to grasp the movements and situations of people in the store or monitor the occurrence of events. Here, the customer information processing apparatus 10 has a plurality of monitoring cameras 12, but a plurality of monitoring cameras 12 are not necessarily required, and may be one. In addition, it is preferable that the surveillance camera 12 uses the normal surveillance camera previously installed in the store.

  FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a relationship between the monitoring camera 12 and the store terminal unit 14. As shown in FIG. 2, the store terminal unit 14 is installed in a monitoring space by the monitoring camera 12, and a person who operates the store terminal unit 14 by the monitoring camera 12 can be imaged. Here, since the operator of the store terminal unit 14 is imaged using a plurality of monitoring cameras 12, the influence of the height and posture of the operator of the store terminal unit 14 can be reduced.

  The person area extraction unit 18 has a function of extracting a person's video from the video stored in the video storage unit 16. The person area extraction unit 18 extracts both a human face image and a whole body image as a person image.

  The database unit 20 has a function of accumulating the video extracted by the person area extracting unit 18 and the customer information acquired by the store terminal unit 14. The customer information is stored in association with the video of the person who provided the customer information. As the customer video, the video extracted by the person area extraction unit 18 is used. The customer information is associated with the video of the customer as follows. First, the time when the store terminal unit 14 acquires customer information is obtained, and the information acquisition time is sent to the database unit 20 together with the customer information. The database unit 20 selects the video of the customer who is operating the store terminal unit 14 at the information acquisition time from the video of the person extracted by the person area extraction unit 18. Thereby, the customer who provided the customer information and the video of the customer can be linked.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram showing information stored in the database unit 20. The database unit 20 stores customer information about customers and videos of the customers. Here, information such as a customer list 31, a purchase item 32, a purchase amount 33, points 34, preference information 35, an age 36, and an occupation 37 is stored as customer information. The customer list 31 is information for identifying a customer, for example, a customer ID assigned to each customer. The customer video is associated with the customer list 31. The purchase item 32 and the purchase amount 33 are the product purchase history of the customer and can be acquired by, for example, a POS terminal. The points 34 are information such as service points given according to the purchase price by the customer, for example. The preference information 35, the age 36, and the occupation 37 are information relating to customer attributes, and can be acquired by, for example, a questionnaire for the customer.

  The video associated with the customer information is the person area video data 38 and the face area video data 39 extracted from the video storage unit 16. Since the human face is an important element for identifying a person, the person imaged by the surveillance camera 12 can be identified by storing the face image data. In addition, by storing video data of a person's whole body, it is possible to determine the person's occupation, age, personality, etc. from information such as the person's clothes, and it can be effectively utilized as marketing information. The database unit 20 may also store a video of a person who is not associated with customer information. That is, if an image is captured by the monitoring camera 12, a video of a person who has not input customer information from the store terminal unit 14 is also stored. With this video, for example, although the store terminal unit 14 has not been accessed, information regarding a person who frequently visits the store can be acquired, and it can be determined that the person is interested in the store. It is also possible to analyze the number of visitors to the store, the crowded time zone, and the customer base.

  The search unit 22 has a function of searching for a specific item from information stored in the database unit 20 or the video storage unit 16 based on a predetermined search condition. The search condition may be input by the search condition input unit 24 or may be input from the monitoring camera 12. The search unit 22 searches for customer information or customer images from the database unit 20, and searches the video storage unit 16 for videos in the surveillance space.

  When the search condition is input from the search condition input unit 24, for example, a condition related to a customer attribute such as age and occupation, or a condition related to a purchase history such as an amount of shopping in the past month is input. Thereby, the data stored in the database unit 20 can be analyzed based on the input conditions. The analysis result is notified to the analyst by the notification unit 26.

  When the search condition is input from the monitoring camera 12, first, the person area extraction unit 18 extracts the video of the store visitor from the video captured by the monitoring camera 12. The video of the visitor extracted here is the video of the customer to be searched. Then, the database unit 20 is searched for a video having a high similarity to the extracted video of the store visitor, and the customer information associated with the searched video is notified to the store clerk by the notification unit 26. Thereby, the store clerk can acquire the customer information regarding the customer, and can perform customer service based on the customer information. Further, when the video that matches the video of the visitor is not stored, it is possible to notify that this is the first visit.

  Next, the operation of the customer information processing apparatus 10 according to the first embodiment will be described.

  First, a person who enters the predetermined monitoring space is imaged by the monitoring camera 12, and the captured image is sent to the image storage unit 16. The video storage unit 16 stores the video sent from the surveillance camera 12. Subsequently, the person area extraction unit 18 extracts a human video from the video stored in the video storage unit 16. Then, the video extracted by the person area extraction unit 18 is stored in the database unit 20. During the operation of the surveillance camera, the operation from extracting the person's video from the video of the surveillance camera 12 and storing it in the database unit 20 is always executed. Thereby, the image | video of the person who entered the surveillance space can be accumulated as a database.

  When customer information is input by the store terminal unit 14 installed in the monitoring space, the input customer information is sent to the database unit 20 and stored in the database unit 20. At this time, the database unit 20 is also notified of information related to the time when the customer information is acquired. Then, the video of the person who operated the store terminal unit 14 at the acquisition time of the customer information is extracted from the video stored in the video storage unit 16, and the acquired customer information is stored in the database unit 20 in association with the customer video. . Through the above operation, the customer information and the customer video can be stored in association with each other.

  Next, an operation for using customer information and customer images stored in the database unit 20 will be described. First, from the video imaged by the monitoring camera 12, the video image of the person who has entered the monitoring space is extracted by the person area extraction unit 18. Subsequently, the customer information is searched from the database unit 20 using the extracted video of the person as a search condition. That is, the search unit 22 searches the database unit 20 for a video having a high degree of similarity with the extracted human video, and notifies the customer information associated with the searched video by the notification unit 26. When a video having a high similarity is not searched, the search unit 22 notifies the database unit 20 that the video has not been searched. Thereby, customer information of a person who has entered the monitoring space can be quickly grasped, and if there is no matching video information, it can be grasped that the person is the first person.

  When searching for information according to a search condition, first, the search condition input unit 24 receives input of the search condition. The search condition input here is, for example, a condition such as a customer attribute, a customer product purchase history, or a time zone to be referred to. The search unit 22 searches the database unit 20 or the video storage unit 16 based on the search condition input by the search condition input unit 24. When the search condition is a customer attribute or purchase history, the database section 20 searches for customer information and customer video that meet the search condition. If the search condition is a time zone to be referred to, the video in the monitoring space in that time zone is searched. And the search part 22 sends a search result to the notification part 26, and the notification part 26 notifies a search result. Note that the search condition described here or the search example by the search unit 22 is merely an example, and it is also possible to input another search condition or perform a search based on the input search condition.

  In the customer information processing apparatus 10 according to the first embodiment of this invention, the store terminal unit 14 is installed in a monitoring space imaged by the monitoring camera 12 and acquires customer information input by the store terminal unit 14. Thereby, the video of the customer who provides the customer information to the store terminal unit 14 can be extracted from the video of the monitoring camera 12, and the customer information and the video of the customer can be stored in association with each other.

  Further, the customer information processing apparatus 10 extracts the store visitor's video from the video of the monitoring camera 12, and searches the store visitor's customer information using the extracted store visitor's video as a search condition. As a result, it is possible to provide appropriate customer service based on customer information to customers.

  In addition, the customer information processing apparatus 10 stores the video of the person's face entering the monitoring space in the database unit 20. Thereby, the person who entered the monitoring space can be managed based on the facial image stored in the database unit 20, which can be used to improve security. It is also possible to analyze the age, gender, occupation, personality, etc. based on facial images and whole body images, which can be used for marketing purposes.

  Furthermore, if a configuration is adopted in which information related to a monitoring space captured by the monitoring camera 12 and a video of a person entering the monitoring space are stored in association with each other, for example, a customer base for each corner such as a sports equipment corner or a toy corner Can also be analyzed from video information.

  FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating the customer information processing apparatus 10 according to the second embodiment. The customer information processing apparatus 10 according to the second embodiment has the same basic configuration as the customer information processing apparatus 10 according to the first embodiment, but is provided with a plurality of monitoring cameras 12 and a shop terminal unit 14. The store side device 42 and the host side device 44 that manages the store side device 42 are connected by a network 40.

  The monitoring camera 12 installed in each store side device 42 has a function of capturing an image of the monitoring space and transmitting the captured image to the host side device 44 through the network 40. Further, the store terminal unit 14 has a function of acquiring customer information related to the customer and transmitting the acquired customer information to the host side device 44. Thereby, the customer information and the customer video obtained in each store side device 42 are transmitted to the host side device 44, and the customer information and the customer video can be associated with each other and stored in the database unit 20 of the host side device 44. .

  The customer information processing apparatus 10 of the second embodiment spans between stores in addition to the same effect as the customer information processing apparatus 10 of the first embodiment in which customer information and customer video can be stored in association with each other. The effect that customer information can be shared is also obtained.

  Moreover, the customer information of the person imaged with the monitoring camera 12 can also be notified similarly to the customer information processing apparatus 10 of 1st Embodiment. That is, the video imaged by the monitoring camera 12 of the store side device 42 is transmitted to the host side device 44, the host side device 44 extracts a human video from the transmitted video, and the similarity to the extracted video is high. Search for customer images. Then, the retrieved customer information is notified to the store-side device 42 that is the transmission source of the captured video. Thereby, the customer information of the visitor can be grasped by the store side device 42. In the second embodiment, a customer who has never visited the store can receive notification of the customer information if the customer information is stored in the host side device 44.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating the customer information processing apparatus 10 according to the third embodiment. The customer information processing apparatus 10 according to the third embodiment has the same basic configuration as the customer information processing apparatus 10 according to the second embodiment, except that an external database 46 is connected to the network 40. Different.

  In the third embodiment, the host side device 44 has a function of referring to the external database 46 through the network 40. Here, it is assumed that the external database 46 is a database in which images of faces of violent crimes and wanted crimes are stored.

  The customer information processing apparatus 10 according to the third embodiment operates as follows. The search unit 22 searches the database unit 20 using the video of the wanted crime obtained from the external database 46 as a search condition, and searches the database for a video having a high similarity to the wanted crime. When a video with a high degree of similarity is searched, the notification unit 26 notifies the video together with information on the store side device 42 where the video is captured, information on the time when the video was captured, and the like. The notification destination by the notification unit 26 is, for example, a police station that has jurisdiction over the place where the store-side device 42 is installed.

  The customer information processing apparatus 10 of the third embodiment is useful for criminal investigations in addition to the same effects as the customer information processing apparatus 10 of the first embodiment in which customer information and customer images can be stored in association with each other. There is an effect that can be.

  In addition, by connecting to the external database 46 storing the video of the requester instead of the external database 46 of the wanted crime, it is possible to notify when a person whose whereabouts are unknown appears.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a configuration of the program 50 according to the fourth embodiment of this invention. The program 50 of the fourth embodiment includes a captured video acquisition module 52, a customer information acquisition module 54, a video storage module 56, a person area extraction module 58, a customer information storage module 60, a search module 62, A search condition input module 64 and a notification module 66 are provided.

  The captured image acquisition module 52 has a function of causing the computer to acquire captured images of a predetermined monitoring space by executing the program 50 on the computer. When the computer has a camera, the present invention also includes causing the computer to image the monitoring space. The customer information acquisition module 54 has a function of causing the computer to acquire customer information by executing the program 50 on the computer. The video storage module 56 has a function of storing the captured video in the computer by executing the program 50 on the computer. The person area extraction module 58 has a function of causing the computer to extract a person's video from the stored video by executing the program 50 on the computer. The customer information storage module 60 has a function of storing the extracted human video and customer information in association with each other by executing the program 50 on a computer. The search module 62 has a function of searching for a specific item based on a predetermined search condition from customer information stored in the computer by executing the program 50 by the computer. The search condition input module 64 has a function of causing the computer to accept input of search conditions by executing the program 50 on the computer. The notification module 66 has a function of causing the computer to notify the search result by executing the program 50 on the computer.

  By executing the program 50 having this configuration on a computer, the customer information processing apparatus 10 according to the first embodiment can be realized, and customer information and customer images can be stored in association with each other.

  As described above, the present invention associates customer information and a customer image with a configuration in which an image of a customer that is an object of information acquisition by an information acquisition unit is extracted from an image of a predetermined monitoring space captured by the imaging unit. It is useful for a customer information processing apparatus or the like that obtains information related to customers.

The figure which shows the structure of the customer information processing apparatus of 1st Embodiment The figure which shows the relationship between a surveillance camera and a store terminal part The figure which shows the example of the data stored in the database part The figure which shows the structure of the customer information processing apparatus of 2nd Embodiment The figure which shows the structure of the customer information processing apparatus of 3rd Embodiment The figure which shows the structure of the program of 4th Embodiment

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Customer information processing apparatus 12 Surveillance camera 14 Shop terminal part 16 Image | video storage part 18 Person area extraction part 20 Database part 22 Search part 24 Search condition input part 26 Notification part

Claims (8)

Information acquisition means for acquiring customer information about the customer;
Imaging means for imaging a predetermined monitoring space including the information acquisition means;
Customer image extraction means for extracting the customer image from the image taken by the imaging means;
Customer information storage means for storing the customer information acquired by the information acquisition means and the customer image extracted by the customer image extraction means in association with each other;
A customer information processing apparatus comprising: The customer information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the customer image extraction unit extracts a customer face image from the captured image. Customer image acquisition means for acquiring images of customers to be searched;
Customer information search means for searching customer information associated with the customer image corresponding to the image acquired by the customer image acquisition means from the customer information storage means;
Customer information output means for outputting customer information searched by the customer information search means;
The customer information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: The customer according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the customer information storage means is connected to the information acquisition means and the imaging means provided in each of a plurality of different monitoring spaces via a network. Information processing device. An information acquisition step for acquiring customer information about the customer;
An imaging step of imaging a predetermined monitoring space including information acquisition means used for acquiring customer information in the information acquisition step;
A customer image extraction step of extracting the customer image from the image captured in the imaging step;
A customer information storage step of storing the customer information acquired in the information acquisition step in association with the customer image extracted in the customer image extraction step;
A customer information processing method comprising: 6. The customer information processing method according to claim 5, wherein in the customer image extraction step, a customer face image is extracted from the captured image. A customer image acquisition step for acquiring a customer image to be searched;
A customer information retrieval step for retrieving customer information associated with the customer image corresponding to the image acquired in the customer image acquisition step from the customer information stored in the customer information storage step;
A customer information output step for outputting the customer information searched in the customer information search step;
The customer information processing method according to claim 5 or 6, further comprising: A program for processing information about customers, on a computer,
An information acquisition step for acquiring customer information about the customer;
A captured image acquisition step of acquiring a captured image of a predetermined monitoring space;
A customer image extraction step for extracting the customer image from the captured image acquired in the captured image acquisition step;
A customer information storage step of storing the customer information acquired in the information acquisition step in association with the customer image extracted in the customer image extraction step;
A program characterized by having executed.

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