Now kiosks are everywhere—for ticket purchase at movie theaters, airport check ins, wayfinding in malls, dispensing sanitizers in department stores, self-ordering in restaurants, dispensing drugs in pharmacies, offering secure parcel lockers in stores for customers who buy online but prefer to pick up in person (BOPIS), employee logging in and out of shifts, screening body temperature, and many more.
The popularity of kiosks has skyrocketed during the pandemic as retailers look for ways to provide the service customers expect in a socially distanced, low-touch environment.
Simply put, kiosks offer an efficient way to reduce person-to-person contact and improve a business process. Kiosks are already helping businesses get back to work and go about their everyday activities safely, quickly, and with greater transparency and visibility. Kiosks indeed increase business convenience. That's a big deal, as every consumer looks for convenience and are more likely to choose a retailer based on it.
Retailers need to have a solid strategy to execute a successful kiosk deployment—from finding the right technology to finding the right partner—and a well thought out kiosk experience for their customers and employees.
As technology evolves and the business case becomes even stronger, we will see rapid growth in this space.
We hope you will enjoy reading this special edition on Kiosks as much as we did putting it together.
Happy reading.
John Mathews
editor@retail-today.com
Self-Service Kiosks: Driving In-Store Experience
