Article
Self-service: the best of 2006
DVD rental, hospitality devices rank high in our year-end expert roundtable.
January 1, 2007 by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance
Replacing the calendar is always exciting — 12 new months of possibilities, 365 blank slates full of potential. It also traditionally is an occasion to look back at what worked in the previous year.
We asked five self-service industry analysts to weigh in on the best use of self-service they saw in 2006. Although they vary in specifics, the solutions mentioned all have one thing in common: They aim to improve the experience of the customer, whether through speed, convenience or better access to information.
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If I had to pick the best use of self-service at the moment, I would have to go with DVD rental kiosks. While not new, I think the potential is tremendous. There are many companies out there vying for a slice of this market and they've all been helped by the successful Redbox deployments. These kiosks are perfect for high-traffic, high-frequency locations such as grocery stores, restaurants, Laundromats, apartment complexes, college campuses and airports. I think these kiosks really will hit their stride in 2007 and could become nearly as ubiquitous as the photo kiosk.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, my family and I spent time at Disneyland. I went for the research opportunity, and my family, of course, went for fun. My question was how the renowned Disney experience has embraced self-service technologies. Well, there still aren't any kiosks that can sell you passes for the park. And entry to the park still requires a human ticket checker. The Hall of Innovations has a couple of displays that might be classified as kiosks, if we stretch the definition a bit. But where Disney has invested in self-service is in a small part of their rational brand experience: the FastPass.
FastPass is a service Disneyland offers guests that enables guests to "reserve" a time for a ride. With this reservation, you get to go to the front of the line. It turns a 50-minute wait into a five-minute wait. To facilitate the FastPass allocation process, Disneyland has banks of six self-service kiosks near rides offering this feature. The kiosk scans your Disneyland pass, and then spits out a reservation ticket indicating the time of your reservation: simple, effective and easy-to-use. And, to prevent guests from hogging FastPasses, the system limits the number of FastPasses you can have at any one time. The FastPass system offers guests a choice, and that's what I see as a core value of self-service technologies.
Recently I found myself with a need for a room in downtown Chicago on short notice. Everything was booked except the historic Congress hotel on Michigan. Although the hotel had seen better days, they have a great location. Without rebuilding the hotel, management is limited to providing the best service possible. I found that great service in the form of a kiosk.
Upon arrival I was greeted by a kiosk adjacent to the front desk. I found it surprising there were not long lines of people at either the kiosk or the front desk. I went up to the kiosk and checked in and had my room key dispensed in less than one minute. Not only did the speed and functionality of the kiosk provide queue-busting advantages, it also freed up the receptionist to focus on more important guest matters.
Last year was a great year for kiosk deployments in the United States; 2007 and beyond promise even greater successes. Although many deployments were not break-through installations, two come to mind as being quite significant.
Redbox, the joint venture between McDonald's and Coinstar has moved well beyond the few hundred in fast-food restaurants. Through the retail alliances Coinstar already has in place thanks to its thousands of coin-counting machines, the Redbox units are now being installed in hundreds of supermarkets. Customers love the ability to rent new DVD releases for only $1.00 per night.
Pro-Tech has started to install outdoor ordering stations at Subway stores. When we asked customers what they thought of this unit, everyone said the same thing: they loved it. Some even drove great distances, passing several other Subway locations, in order to use the kiosk. Young parents appreciate the fact that they can order their food — exactly to their specifications — without having to take the kids out of their car seats and bring them inside.
The rest of the world shows promise in kiosk deployments as well, but not nearly to the extent witnessed here at home.
Loca Moda is working to bring together three self-service channels: kiosks, cell phones and the Web. As consumer adoption of all of these channels increases, convergence is inevitable and Loca Moda is proving this. Through interactive billboards and games they are connecting consumers in public with those sitting at home in private — finally bringing social computing into social environments.
About James Bickers
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