Article

Measuring success isn't always about counting profits

Think kiosks are all about ROI? Think again. Here are five ways professionals measure kiosk program success that have nothing to do with cash transactions at the machine.

February 21, 2002

When Dave McClure wanted to overhaul his truck stop loyalty program, he decided to make kiosks the key component. To ensure the program's success, he carefully drafted his criteria.

"We were looking for a kiosk that could execute the program for us, that was going to be

Ways to measure kiosk success Saves labor Offers customer convenience Reduces error Reduces employee fraud Kiosk is popular: high usage Uptime Delivers intended service

durable, and take a pounding because it was going to be used by customers with no help from store employees," said McClure, director of marketing for El Paso-based Petro Stopping Centers,

Drivers use the Petro Passport loyalty program to accumulate points for fuel and other purchases. They can redeem their points for free meals at the truck stop's Iron Skillet restaurants, long distance phone time, showers, fuel, tires, gifts and other items.

While the kiosks are integral to the success of Passport program, the machines themselves don't rake in any cash. Therefore, return on investment (ROI) wasn't a concern.

"Because we're not actually selling anything from the kiosk, it's really hard to attribute any type of ROI factor for it," McClure said. "It was obviously a critical part in our loyalty program, and the loyalty program generated double-digit sales increases, so overall the program was very successful and achieved all its objectives."

As Petro's case points out, kiosk success is not always about ROI. Even in retail, there are more ways to measure the success of kiosk systems than covering the costs of deployment and operation through revenues.

Saving labor, adding convenience

One important advantage of a kiosk system in retail is that it can save labor. The efficiency of the system in taking responsibility away from employees is its measure of success. In addition, a system that takes care of customers 24/7 is worth the machine's weight in gold.

"We wanted the convenience of having it there 24 hours a day at the convenience of the customer, which you can't do with an employee," McClure said. "If you're relying on an employee to execute similar functions, they could do it, but you would have the driver always being told, `can you wait a minute, I'll get to you in a second, I have to ring up a sale first.' "

Not only are the kiosks always available to serve customers, but you don't have to pay them wages or benefits.

Reducing error

Kiosks don't make mistakes, so any expenses related to human error are removed from the kiosk system. Nor do kiosks steal.

"It (the kiosk) takes human error as well as human discretion out of the equation. With the program we've developed there's zero opportunity for employee fraud. We have a record of every transaction that occurs," McClure said.

Usage

Mike Smith, managing director of Australia and UK kiosk maker NeoProducts Ltd., said that for many kiosk applications usage is an important measure. One of Neo's current projects is a system for the Employment Service in the UK. The kiosks make government employment services available to the public. Usage plays an important role.

"They're obviously interested in total number of applications received on their database, increased throughput of users, satisfaction by users through market research reports," Smith said.

Uptime

No matter how important convenience and usage may be, unless the kiosks are working, the project can't be considered a success. Therefore, one of the most important criteria for measuring the success of a kiosk project is uptime.

According to Smith, a successful project should be constantly on. "That is a very, very important factor in kiosk evaluation, and indeed in kiosk design because you often see kiosks that aren't actually operational in places like airports and all that sort of thing where they've gone down."

Early on, McClure's Petro kiosks had reliability problems that threatened its loyalty program.

"A driver would come up and get a message on the screen that said `this kiosk temporarily out of service,' " McClure said. "Obviously, for a customer that is very frustrating."

The kiosk programming was adjusted and capabilities added to automatically reboot the machines.

While kiosks with blank screens or out of services messages can break a project, ultimately, they do more damage by hurting the reputation of the industry.

"I see that (down problems) as a huge problem for the kiosk industry as a whole," Smith warned. "The kiosk business has to get its act together."

Planning for success

Kiosks can represent a substantial investment for a company, anywhere from tens of thousands of dollars to millions. Since there are so many ways to measure success, it's important that kiosk users understand what they want to accomplish with their kiosk systems.

 "Go in with a clear objective in mind," McClure said. "Know what it is you're trying to accomplish with your kiosk, whether it's selling something, advertising something or providing a function."

Doing so, he said, "will help you make the right decisions along the line to get a kiosk program that works."

Putting it together

Ben Martinez, information technology project manager for the Regional Transportation District of Denver, developed a kiosk system used by commuters for route information, real time location of transportation, and other services. The RTD's kiosks give a good example of how a project can set good criteria for success. Martinez has six measures:

1. Does it fulfill a public need for information?
2. Do the kiosks allow the public to accomplish a task when they use them?
3. Are the kiosks in locations that are convenient for the public to use?
4. Are we providing the most information possible to the public?
5. Does the information on the kiosks have continuity with the rest of RTD information such as Web, paper pamphlets and customer phone support?
6. Are the kiosks reliable as far us uptime and maintenance issues?

Before deploying a kiosk project, a company must plan on how it will measure effectiveness. For many systems, in the retail sector as well as the public sector, ROI will not be the key issue. Instead, companies should look at the ways kiosks save labor, add convenience and reduce error and fraud. Other important factors to consider are customer use and system uptime.

These criteria will give companies reliable measurements. But measuring success isn't an exact science. At the end of the day, it may come down to requests for more machines.

"We are now receiving requests for our kiosks and do not have to sell the idea of a kiosk as much," Martinez said. "We currently have 38 deployed and have contracts for six more that ready for deployment. I have just ordered 14 more."