Lawrence Dvorchik has one foot in two worlds. As the general manager of the KioskCom Self Service Expo & The Digital Signage Show, he says the digital signage industry can benefit from the lessons learned by self-service. Find out why he thinks he shouldn't be excommunicated for comparing the two.

As I enter my 14th year of promoting the benefits of deploying self-service kiosks, and now digital signage, the phrase "the more things change, the more they stay the same" continues to resonate in my mind.
 
While the technologies and functions for each deployment continue to change and reach into new markets, there is a base component that remains the same — building from the past.  Regardless of where your program is set to launch or who your target is, researching and understanding the past successes and failures of the customer-facing technology (CFT) programs that preceded the new application continues to play a primary role in the deployment process.  
 

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Having been involved with many of these deployments from both the buyer's side and seller's side, it is very apparent that those who had a well-conceived strategy based on analyzing previous successes and failures experienced greater results than those who attempted to start from scratch. While there is nothing wrong with wanting to create a new direction or concept for your deployment, the core belief that a clear understanding of customer and employee behavior and trends serves as major strategic asset to ensuring your success the first time out, still holds true just as much today as it did 10 years ago.
 
Self-service and kiosk deployments studied preceding CFT initiatives — from ATMs to the Internet to early kiosks — as part of their development process. I believe that the Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) signage industry stands to gain significantly by following suit and learning from the trials and tribulations encountered by the kiosk and self-service industry.
 
Yes, I can hear professionals in the Digital OOH market now: "Sacrilege! Kiosks have nothing to do with digital signage! Don't even speak of it! Heretic! Traitor!" 
 
My reply to these individuals can be summed up in one word: Nonsense. 
 
It's nonsense that Digital OOH deployments should avoid building off of the lessons learned by other kiosk initiatives because kiosks are an interactive customer facing technology, just as Digital OOH is categorized as either an interactive (touch) or non-interactive (static/passive) customer-facing technology.
 
For 13 years I've been involved at all levels of the Customer-Facing Technology industry, dealing in everything from kiosks to Web sites to handhelds to digital signage. I've worked with thousands of deployers and purchasers, and just as many technology and service providers. I have conducted extensive research and industry analysis, and even demonstrated the benefits of these customer-facing technologies to professionals serving arenas in the mainstream universe, such as retail, hotels, travel, government, food service, etc. 
 
My work has brought a number of "hot button" DOOH issues to my attention, including:

• Securing funding and appropriate technology for the project.
• Gaining complete organizational support, from senior/executive level buy-off to employee acceptance.
• Improving the customer experience.
• Creating relevant and engaging content, and ensuring your content is presented in the right context.
• Providing ROI metrics to purchasers and advertisers.
• Increasing revenues with the deployment while reducing operational expenses.

I can say with full confidence that these same issues have been brought up within the kiosk industry as well. The only difference is that the kiosk market has discussed and analyzed these issues in great detail, and gone on to implement successful action plans to remedy the problems.
More importantly, the research and results are now used as the platform for many DOOH deployments.
 
A review of some recently published comments also highlight the belief that digital signage deployments and kiosks face similar issues — as do all customer-facing technology deployments:

1. "Consumers need the promise of relevant information if they are going to engage a kiosk” — Bill Lynch, Source Technologies. 
2.  "Whoever is championing the deployment of digital media must get buy-in from, and work in tandem with, IT." — ISM Retail.
3. "The goal with of integrating any systems with your digital media network should be consistency — removing pricing discrepancies or avoiding the advertisement of non-stocks, for instance." — Ken Goldberg, CEO, Real Digital Media (RDM).

Kiosks and digital signage share an incredible amount of analogous DNA, and are often deployed simultaneously. Organizations that embrace learning from the histories and actions have proven this point with their successes, and they have loudly proclaimed that events which encourage strategic discussions around multiple CFT deployments and promote interaction, analysis and knowledge-sharing have significantly helped them to quickly and efficiently launch and succeed with their CFT projects.