Kiosks Are Here—Are You Ready?

For several years running there have been an average of more than 125 new self-service kiosks installed every day in North America, according to some estimates. Retailers who for years wondered if kiosks were right for their operations are increasingly answering yes.

Why is a new kiosk coming online approximately every 11 minutes? Because kiosks have proven to be highly effective tools for making customers happy and improving operations-88 percent of best-in-class operators improved customer satisfaction with kiosk systems, 63 percent improved customer conversion, and 100 percent reduced labor costs.1 Overall, retailers who implemented kiosks improved customer satisfaction by an average of 58 percent.

Although overall adoption is growing fast, the process for developing and rolling out kiosk systems for individual retailers is not. It typically takes at least a year for a kiosk project to go from planning to implementation. To maximize value, most kiosk applications should integrate with existing in-store systems. This takes time, because kiosk applications and development environments are often very different from legacy retail applications, and require different skill sets to develop.