Article

Crossing Borders to kiosk excellence

Making product access easier for customers at the Borders bookstore chain brought KIS kudos at the 2002 Interactive Kiosk Excellence Awards.

May 20, 2002

(Editor's note: In March, the inaugural Interactive Kiosk Excellence Awards were handed out at the Rosen Center in Orlando, Fla. The awards, sponsored by KioskCom, honored kiosk excellence in six different categories, including software, enclosure designs, and applications. This is the second in six profiles covering the winners in each category.)

When Borders Books needed help in developing a quick, easy-to-use product information access system for its customers, it opted to go the kiosk route.

It also opted to be prepared. The planning for what would become Borders' Title Sleuth kiosk took more than two years. It included an extensive request-for-proposal process that resulted in responses from nearly a dozen vendors, each of whom was interviewed.

"Our business has become increasingly competitive. Many of our customers have very limited time to browse and shop, so we needed to provide them with easy access to title and other information, in a setting they would know is for their use," said Kate Harding, Borders director of product sourcing systems. "This is our first real effort at providing electronic access for our customers and our first major use of kiosks. Once we made the decision to go that route, we wanted a company that could best produce what we needed."

When it was all over, the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based book-company, with 370 domestic and 20 international outlets, selected Broomfield, Colo.-based Kiosk Information Systems Inc. (KIS), to fill the order.

"This project represents a big investment for us, so we were pretty careful who we selected," said Harding. "We wanted someone with strong design experience and equally strong manufacturing experience. We were determined to get the best overall manufacturer we could find and we wanted someone who would work with us from beginning to end. KIS met all of our needs."

And the project worked. For its part, Borders got what it needed and planned for. As for KIS, it earned an Interactive Kiosk Excellence Award this March at the KioskCom exhibition and trade show in Orlando, Fla., winning in the Most Innovative Kiosk Enclosure category.

Heading for the Borders

In selecting KIS, Borders chose a kiosk industry veteran. Rick Malone, KIS president, started the company in 1993. Privately owned, KIS designs and manufacturers kiosks, public Internet stations, and other electronic terminals.

The Borders Title Sleuth kiosk allows customers to access information on books and CDs and their in-store availability.

With a client base that includes IBM, Unisys, Disney, McDonald's, Mercedes Benz, U.S. West and Lockheed Martin, as well as numerous government agencies and universities, KIS brought a variety of experience to the table. The company would have to tap into that reservoir of knowledge in creating a new system for Borders.

"We were looking for a user-friendly system, something that was easy to navigate and something that made user interface as simple as possible. What we needed was a system that allowed the user to get to the information without going through a lot of steps," Harding said.

To be certain they were getting what they needed, Borders carried out a pilot program, placing KIS kiosks in three Michigan stores. What Borders and KIS learned resulted in a system that was even easier to use, allowing a customer a variety of search options, including author and title.

"It's very quick and very easy to use," Harding said. "It takes less than a minute to get the information and we believe customers are using it more frequently."

In the end, Borders purchased 1,000 of the units at a cost of nearly $4 million.

"It's a large order for this industry, period," said Pete Snyder, KIS vice president for sales. "A good-sized contract might be for 200 to 300 units and we probably see 10 or 15 of those. But the Borders-sized order is few and far between."

For KIS, the biggest challenge was designing and manufacturing 1,000 units in four months, then allowing for shipment in staged intervals. That was made a bit easier, according to Guarino, when Borders agreed to accept KIS' design process and did not analyze any conceptual renderings. The final product was a black-based, curved kiosk featuring a keyboard and embedded monitor.

"We didn't have to come in with renderings that weren't reflective of a real product," she said. "What we did was come in with a proven design process that we knew was going to work for them. It's our customer development process, that includes tasks and responsibilities, that we abide by."

Volume, volume, volume

Borders keeps between two and five kiosks in each stores, depending on store size and sales volume. Most outlets have three kiosks apiece. The kiosks are located along major traffic pathways, where they are easy to see. Ceiling-hung signage helps guide customers to the kiosks.

Harding said her bosses had several design priorities they needed addressed.

"We needed a visual look that integrated well into our stores," she said, "It also had to be eye catching and appealing to our customers."

How have customers responded? "It's been very positive," Harding said. "They appreciate the service and some have even made suggestions for change."

"We knew going in that it had to be user friendly and that it had to quickly provide the information," said Karla Guarino, KIS director of sales and marketing. "It also had to be very inviting to walk up to and what we've provided is all of that."

As for ease of use, Guarino insisted it couldn't be any easier.

"You step in. There is a keyboard and a track ball. You roll it, point and click, type in what you're looking for, and hit enter," she said. "It's simple, especially for someone without a lot of computer type experience."

While Borders has no immediate plan to place the kiosks in its international outlets, Harding did not rule out the possibility of doing so in the future.

Everybody wins

With the Interactive Kiosk Excellence Awards being handed out for the first time this year, KIS' success gives the company a historical footnote in the kiosk industry.

But Snyder said the award paid off in more tangible ways, as KIS landed orders from Disney and McDonald's following the ceremony.

"We are delighted to have won," said Snyder. "It recognizes and honors our design and production capabilities. When you receive an award for a project as large as Borders, there is a message sent to the marketplace. It says we're legit."