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KioskCom 2006 award winners: KIOSK Information Systems

KIOSK Information Systems was the big winner at the fifth annual KioskCom Excellence Awards, taking home a total of six accolades. Three of those awards went to a tax-payment system designed for a Tennessee government agency.

June 4, 2006 by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

This is the second in a series of articles on the winners of the 2006 KioskCom Excellence Awards. The author is also editor of SelfServiceWorld.com.

The annual KioskCom Excellence Awards were handed out April 10 in Las Vegas. For the second year, former CNN anchor Bob Losure announced the winners and presented the trophies. Nanonation sponsored the awards.

Awards in 12 categories plus three special awards were presented.

New name, same high standard

This year's KioskCom was a big show for the company formerly known as KIS. The Louisville, Colo.-based firm, North America's largest kiosk provider, used the tradeshow as the venue for launching its new brand identity, KIOSK Information Systems.

"Our corporate name is now synonymous with our product, and there's absolutely no question about what we produce," said Rick Malone, chief executive officer.

And that new name kept being called out on awards night, a grand total of six times. KIOSK shared a first-place award for Best Kiosk Deployment for Travel, Hospitality with Netkey for their Swift Workforce HR kiosk; KIOSK also garnered runner-up in the same category for its rental kiosk for Alamo Car Rental. And company president Richard Malone received the award for Kiosk Industry Leader of the Year - Supplier.

The other three awards were for one application, a tax collection kiosk for Memphis, Tenn.'s Shelby County Trustee. The device was runner-up in the categories for best transactional kiosk, best financial services kiosk, and best other kiosk deployment.

The machine is deployed at four branches in the Shelby County Trustee system, allowing citizens to research and pay real estate and personal property taxes.

"Historically, we have staffed permanent and seasonal branches at seven locations," said Debra Gates, chief accounting officer for Shelby County Trustee. "Volume of activity at these locations had increased to a point that Trustee employees were struggling to provide satisfactory service to the taxpayers."

No job too small

Karla Guarino, senior accounts manager for KIOSK, said the quantity needed was small enough to merit using an off-the-shelf model as a starting point.

"We customized our best-selling Thinman model, and they were very pleased with the component integration as well as ease in servicing, and the overall cost was very attractive," she said.

Gates said she and a colleague first met the KIOSK staff at KioskCom in 2004, and were drawn to them because they were willing to do custom work on such a small project. "They helped us research the marketplace to determine the best, most cost-efficient devices that would meet our specialized needs," she said. "They were responsive and timely throughout our dealings with them."

Guarino said the toughest aspect of dealing with a government entity for such a project is the uncertainty of financial support in subsequent years, since budgets are constantly being wrangled and re-negotiated. As a consequence, she said, the timeframe from concept to completion can be a few years.

"However, once applications like a bill-payment kiosk gain field experience through compiled data on cost savings and efficiencies, as well as software and hardware reliability, this will pave the way for other government entities to order a system without having to go through as much red tape in the future," she said.

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