25% of companies in a recent Aberdeen Group Inc., survey are using kiosks for various self-service applications today – but 42% expect to be adding kiosks within the next 18 months. Industry experts say the majority of kiosks in retail applications today are web-enabled, and with 40% of the companies surveyed seeing a key role of kiosks as facilitating cross-channel sales, attaching the right functionality to the kiosk is critical in driving return from the investment.
The Aberdeen Group survey, "Killer Kiosks: Reinventing the Customer Experience Through Self-Service,” examined the details of 260 companies` kiosk deployments. What’s in place at those deemed best in class in the report offers insights for retailers still in the planning stage with a kiosk purchase in their future. In the competitive assessment of the companies’ kiosk installations, ratings as best in class, average or laggard were determined by whether the kiosks reduced labor costs for the companies, lead to improvements in customer satisfaction and improved conversion rates.
For example, those kiosk projects rated best in class were more likely to offer functionality allowing customers to look up product information at the kiosk: 67% of the top-rated kiosk installations offered this capacity, compared to only 54% of the kiosk projects rated as average and only 32% of those rated as laggards.
Among kiosk deployments rated best in class, 73% offered the ability for remote troubleshooting and maintenance, compared to 50% of the average and 32% of the lowest rated kiosk instillation. Some other capabilities defining the most successful kiosk installations included touch screen technology at the user interface, found in 50% of the top-rated kiosk installations; an attached printer, found in 36% of the top-rated kiosks deployments, and the ability of kiosk software to detect and send an alert when an operational error occurs, found at 56% of the top projects.
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