Kiosks

In the last five years kiosks have become a well-recognized addition to a variety of service industries. Self-service kiosks have become ubiquitous for such activities as airport check-in, pay-at-the-pump, and retail checkout, in particular.

A number of successful self-service kiosk solutions are gaining popularity in several retail verticals, including large retailers with gift registries and product locators, and the quick-service restaurant industry with self-service ordering. In fact, installations of retail kiosks  were up 20 percent in North America in 2005 and experts estimate that figure will skyrocket to 69 percent by 2007.

Most of these kiosks are considered “first generation”, designed as informational appliances primarily to enhance the retail experience. Features such as a small footprint and sleek form maximize the appeal and adoption of these solutions.

As retail kiosks have become more common, consumers have begun to expect them to do more things in more places. For service industry retailers, the need to remain competitive by reducing costs or improving customer service are driving them to look at self-service applications such as walk-in bill payment, check cashing, and in-store credit card enrollment. Unfortunately, traditional kiosks have more often than not disappointed the consumer and the deployer.

But kiosk technology has continued to evolve, and a new generation of self-service appliances has emerged, known as transactional kiosks. These kiosks offer the same level of retail ergonomics and rich customer experience as traditional, “informational” kiosks, but also include ATM-like capabilities and reliability:

• Transactional kiosks are designed to optimize the customer experience.
• They are engineered with the same security and reliability as ATMs—safe and hardened for 24x7 availability.
• They are ergonomically suited for the retail environment, with a small footprint and easy-to-use, graphically pleasing user interfaces.

Transactional kiosks are built from the ground up to provision secure, distributed financial transactions in the most demanding retail environments and to deliver the goods on a 24/7, real-time, up-time basis. First-generation informational kiosks were not designed to provide this level of service.

Transactional kiosks are now beginning to proliferate in the market. First movers in retail and banking are taking advantage of the cost and time savings that transactional kiosks offer. A handful of applications have matured and are “ready for primetime.”