STRATEGIC PARTNERS
Speakers at KioskCom's Retail show in San Diego spoke to the potential for the kiosk industry, while warning that technology must be customer-friendly for retail applications to succeed.
February 27, 2002
SAN DIEGO - Kiosks can enhance a customer's retailing shopping experience, but only if the customer is comfortable with the technology. That was the theme on the second day of the KioskCom Retail show at the Hilton San Diego Resort on Oct. 24.
Indiana University professor Ray Burke and kiosk industry consultant Francie Mendelsohn both spoke of the industry's potential in the retail world. Meanwhile, several speakers from the commercial sector shared their experiences with kiosks.
Mendelsohn, whose consulting firm Summit Research Associates recently released the second edition of its Kiosk Industry Sector Report - Retail, spoke on the subject "Retail Kiosks - Bright Light on the Horizon." She said retailers have not been discouraged from considering kiosk projects by recent economic downturns.
"Projects are not being cancelled," Mendelsohn said. "Some are being rolled back, but projects are going on."
Mendelsohn offered a series of design and content suggestions for retailers considering kiosks. She strongly suggested offering content that was easy for customers to use.
"They're not going to cut you slack if they find it to difficult, too confusing, too slow," she said. "If you don't give them what they want, there's a chance that not only will they not use it, they'll tell other people. It's like going to a restaurant where the food's lousy and the soup is cold. You're going to tell your friends not to eat there."
Burke, director of IU's Customer Interface Lab, said companies considering kiosk projects must ask if the project will enhance the consumer's retail experience. He showcased several technologies that did not achieve that goal and failed, including The Checkout Channel, a company committed to providing news feeds to grocery store checkout lines. The company folded after four years in 1993 because shoppers rejected the technology.
"If the consumer sees a technology it doesn't understand, it will either ignore it or assume it's going to be used against them," Burke said.
Looking over the kiosk landscape, Mendelsohn and Burke both agreed that the failure of Internet companies such as eToys.com and Pets.com showed why traditional business operations offer the greatest potential for successful kiosk programs.
"Travel and tourism - in the past year those kinds of kiosks have become more popular," Mendelsohn said. "In the last year we've also been pleased with the resurgence of health-care kiosks."
Added Burke: "Merchants in electronic environments are different from merchants that are in store. The companies that have had success (with kiosks) were catalog companies that were able to take their catalogs on-line."
Two companies that have enjoyed success with kiosk projects are outdoors sporting goods retailer Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) and truck stop company TravelCenters of America.
REI launched its kiosk program in 1998, rolling out 48 in-store kiosks. The company, which has 60 retail locations, added 11 more kiosks during 1999 and 2000 and another two this year. Recent rollouts have featured sleeker kiosk designs with stronger branding.
Jennifer Solmssen, REI operations administrator, said the program works because employees know how to use them to enhance the customer experience.
"Training has been paramount and continues to be paramount for us," Solmssen said. "If you roll out kiosks and don't explain to employees how to interact with them, you're setting them up."
TravelCenters unveiled its Road King Club program at 160 locations nationally in September of 2000 without a pilot program.
"We had set a marketing date with a national advertising project planned," said Dave Hanzal, TravelCenters project manager. "That date didn't move, so we had to slide everything into place."
A rewards program, the Road King Club awards free showers and gift certificates to truckers based on the amount of fuel they purchase. Hanzal said 399,853 drivers were signed up for the program after a year. Each kiosk, on average, prints out 61 rewards coupons daily.
Hanzal said the company used a software development kit to quickly ramp up the kiosk. A frame relay network allows the kiosks to be updated from a central database.
The day's final speaker, Blockbuster Inc. human resources project manager Sonya Mitchell, explained how the video-DVD rental company developed a kiosk program to accept job applications. The kiosk program eliminates a layer of paperwork and is an effective way to screen out inadequate applicants before the interview process begins, she said.
Mitchell was one of several scheduled speakers who were not able to make the show because of restricted travel budgets; she spoke to attendees through a conference line. Scheduled speakers from Virgin Entertainment Group (lay offs), Borders Stores (travel), and WHSmith PLC (travel) were forced to cancel from the agenda. As a result, the conference will conclude on Oct. 25 an hour earlier than originally scheduled.
