Article

In the UK, a kiosk program waits

The trial program for Your Guide, the UK postal service's information kiosks, has wrapped up. All that is left is a decision on its future, which should come in the fall.

April 29, 2002

The trial is over, now all that is left is a decision. Sometime this fall, Consignia -- the UK Post Office Group -- and the UK Government Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will decide on the future of Your Guide, Consignia's information services kiosk program.

Your Guide is part of a $394 million commitment by the UK Government to update the post office network over the next three years. The postal service currently has 18,000 branches and 43 million visitors per week.

The aim is to combine regional and central government needs to distribute information with a commercial element, thus enhancing customer service while generating revenue for the post office. While the solution -- an information kiosk -- sounded like a cut-and-dried solution, the process was complicated.

The information from the government comes from a number of departments, requiring a mass buy-in to the project. And while government involvement means the project is not solely about profit -- the DTI contributed $36.5 million of the $43.8 million spent on the project so far -- it still must prove its value. The idea is to reach people that do not have Internet access at home, a group the post office caters to. What the government will be looking at is whether it is the most cost-efficient way of reaching them.

Mike Dalton, Consignia director of external communications, is one person who believes in the value of the kiosk as a general information source.

"If you as a local district council spend X amount each year doing mail shots or publishing a newspaper you can reduce your costs by putting some of that information onto Your Guide," Dalton said.

Rolling Rolling Rolling

The trial started with a slow rollout on July 16, 2001, with the trial officially lasting from Sept. 14, 2001, through March 1. The trial took place in Leicestershire and Rutland, where 96 percent of the total population live within a mile of a post office, making it possible to reach the majority of people living in the region.

"(The area) is an almost perfect demographic cross-section of our nation," said Patricia Hewitt, Parliament member and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who noted that the region covers rural and urban areas.

The service was offered in 268 post offices across the county, though touchscreen kiosks were available in just 215 locations. The trial also included free phone lines with 20 help lines, leaflets, and an expert advice service in a small number of post offices.

"The touchscreen was obviously the sexiest part, so it got the most attention," Dalton said. "We wanted to cater for as wide an audience as possible, but also remaining aware that we have a targeted audience. The majority of people who go in to a post office are of a certain type, for example, the over 55s, busy parents picking up child benefit and job seekers."

Over 30 content providers supported the service with information, including the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Education and Skills, the Inland Revenue, Age Concern, and Multimap.com. In total, they provided more than 9,000 pages of information for the kiosks.

Since the trial ended, Consignia has released little information on user traffic and it will probably remain this way during the evaluation process. Between the start of the pilot and the end of January, the program registered 459,000 kiosk requests. The success of then kiosk compares to the 14,000 free phone calls made using the Your Guide free phone service.

Some of the most popular sections of Your Guide were the jobs and benefits sections. These section offered advice and information on employment opportunities and how to access UK benefits programs. Resham Singh, a customer at Wood Hill Post Office, said the information he received from the Your Guide kiosk allowed his parents to gain an extra $125 per week in benefits.

Customer satisfaction is a key to success in any pilot program. And it appears Consignia and the DTI achieved that. A survey of users carried out by Market and Opinion Research International showed that 86 percent of users surveyed were satisfied with the service.

Despite the positive survey results, DTI Media Relations Director Marcus De Ville refused to comment on the project's success or future prospects.

"The pilot is complete and we are going through a detailed evaluation project, which is due to completed in the summer," De Ville said.

An uncertain future

With the end of the trial on March 1, Your Guide became persona non gratain the UK postal community. Project officials pulled the kiosks in the belief that it would be hard to evaluate an ongoing project.

The future of Your Guide is uncertain at the moment. Dalton said even if the project gets the go ahead it may be renamed and reformatted. He was also uncertain who would take the lead role in the project. DTI owns the equipment, so Consignia would be starting from scratch if it went ahead with the project on its own, and Dalton refused to speculate on the cost of a national rollout by Consignia.

"Whether or not it is viable without the backing of the government agencies we're not sure at the moment," he said. "I'm sure the commercial companies would want some kind of government involvement, as it does encourage people to use Your Guide."

Consignia's own financial situation could also prevent the organization from developing Your Guide on its own. The post office is losing $2.2 million per day according to the Times of London and postal officials have admitted that as many as 30,000 employees from its worker base of 200,000 could lose their jobs this year.

But the test pilot's success has at least created one significant supporter in the UK Government in Hewitt, who praised its efficiency and clarity of purpose.

"I wish I could say that all government IT projects were designed with such a clear understanding of customer need and delivered within 7 ½ months, on time, and on budget as well," she said.