You know the saying about familiarity breeding contempt? We don’t know about that applying to kiosks (and we certainly hope it doesn’t). But replace ‘contempt’ with ‘complacency’, and we might have to concede you had a point.
Businesses are naturally cautious about new technology. No matter what the level of hype around it, when it comes to parting with hard-earned cash, business owners want to be sure they’re going to get a good return on their investment.
Many maintain that healthy level of scepticism. But, as solutions become more established and mainstream, for some, the caution starts to slip. They take widespread success as a kind of social proof. If it works for so many others, it surely will for us, too.
It’s this kind of complacency that we see in some quarters with kiosks. Self-service technology is now a hugely successful global market, kiosks and their many uses are very familiar. And that leads to some dropping their guard when it comes to kiosk purchases. There’s an assumption of success. Buy it, and the positive ROI will come.
We’ve talked to operators who seem genuinely surprised that buying a couple of kiosks and plugging them in hasn’t transformed their business. They must have chosen a bad model or got a duff device, they suggest.
What we gently explain is that nothing in business technology is that straightforward. Kiosks are great. But they are not a plug-and-play solution. They need to serve a clear business purpose. They need to integrate with your other digital systems. And most importantly of all, as we covered in this recent article, they need people to use them.
All of this takes careful planning. If you want to get the most from your investment in new kiosks, you of course need to do your due diligence on choosing the right model and format. But you also need to get the contextual factors right.
Here’s how to troubleshoot your next kiosk rollout before you even start.
1. Define what success looks like
There should always be a clear purpose to a kiosk purchase or upgrade. Starting with the problem you want kiosks to solve, whether that’s reducing queues, improving throughput or extending access to services, will help you choose the right type of kiosk and the right components and peripherals. It’s also important to set realistic targets. The benefits of self-service tend to accrue over time and you need to wait for adoption to bed in before expecting to see a strong ROI.
2. Choose the right location
One of the most common mistakes we see with kiosk rollouts is not giving enough thought to where they are located. Whatever you want customers to use kiosks for, they should be located where that need naturally arises and is most convenient. For example, few customers will walk right across a department store to look up information about a product they’ve just been looking at on the opposite side. To be effective, the information point needs to be right where they need it. Also consider factors like visibility, accessibility, lighting, glare and surrounding footfall. The busiest position is not necessarily the best if queues obstruct entrances or other services.
3. Test the interface with real users
There’s a very simple rule when it comes to customer adoption of self-service technology. If it’s not immediately intuitive and easy to use, people just won’t bother. We’ve seen more than a few kiosk rollouts founder on poor or confusing interface design. Components that aren’t necessary to complete the tasks in hand and just cause confusion. Touchscreens that are too small to navigate smoothly. The only way to get it right is to run pilots so your kiosks are tested by real users, not just developers or internal teams who already know the system. Watch where people hesitate, make mistakes or abandon the process, and make changes accordingly.
4. Stress-test payments
If you use kiosks for transactions, payments represent the single most important potential point of failure. For one, a failed payment means lost business. But it is also a source of immense frustration to customers. A failed payment can completely undo an otherwise smooth self-service experience, and make that customer resolve not to bother with self-checkout again (in your establishment, at least). It’s therefore essential to thoroughly test terminals, connectivity, payment integrations and all the methods customers expect to use, including contactless cards and mobile wallets. Make a point of testing with payment methods you know will be declined so you can also test how the system handles exceptions, including how it differentiates between user errors and suspected fraud, and the instructions it gives to both customers and staff.
5. Treat kiosks as part of a larger whole
Modern kiosks rarely work in isolation. Even when it looks like they are flying solo (think ticketing kiosks at train stations and other transport hubs, for example), they are nearly always connected to other digital systems, whether that’s payment processing infrastructure, retail POS, kitchen management systems in restaurants, or any number of other possibilities. To have the impact you want, kiosks have to fit into this wider digital ecosystem. They have to be compatible, they have to have a defined role, they have to be fully integrated.
A classic example is the rise in shrinkage through self-checkout systems in supermarkets, not just because of deliberate theft (arguably a lack of security integration in its own right), but because of things like poor listing of manual input items like fruit, vegetables and fresh baked goods. A customer can’t find what they are looking for, they substitute for something else, and suddenly there’s an error in the inventory database. Multiply that hundreds or thousands of times over, and before long you are seeing knock-on effects in stock availability, replenishment, and reordering.
Summary
In summary, investing in new kiosks is not something you can do on a whim. It takes careful planning to make a success of it. But at Acante, we never leave any customer to fend for themselves. We’re always here to share our expert knowledge and give advice. So if you’re thinking about your next kiosk purchase or upgrade, why not get in touch with our team and let us help you get started.
