Article

Tips for buying a successful kiosk system

Interested in buying a kiosk system? These tips from Borders bookstore, KIS and Montegonet can help companies avoid common pitfalls.

February 21, 2002

When national book retailer Borders Group Inc. decided in 1999 to add more than 1,000 kiosks to its stores to give customers easy access to all its inventory, the company performed some solid research and planning to get the kiosk system it wanted. Borders eventually chose Kiosk Information Systems Inc. (KIS) of Broomfield, Colo. to manufacture the machines.

Borders' experience shows how important planning is to ensure a successful kiosk rollout. Kiosk vendors agree.

Make a plan, Stan

Borders needed a versatile kiosk system, one that could track book titles for customers in a wide array of formats, and search for their availability. As a result, Borders project supervisor Kate Harding said the company planned meticulously.

"It ended up being a two-phase project," Harding said. "We did a pilot program to see what we liked about kiosks and what we didn't like. Once we did this, we wrote up a pretty standard RFP (request for proposal) and had detailed discussions with about a half-dozen different vendors to make sure we purchased a high-quality unit."

The pilot, conducted in 1999, consisted of 10 kiosks in two stores. Harding said that the pilot showed Borders ways to increase the convenience of the machines.

"Our initial design did not contain space to set a purse or merchandise or a trash can," she said. "Little things, but these features can make a customer's visit to our kiosk a far more pleasant experience."

Borders was also able to adjust the appearance of the kiosk and better understand how the machines integrated into the store environment.

"It was very important to us that the kiosk's appearance was a good fit with our store environment; at the same time it needed to be obvious enough that a customer could readily locate the kiosk," she said.

By sweating all the details, Borders got the kind of machine it wanted, with PCs, printers, keyboards, trackballs, and credit-card readers built in. It meets the needs of customers and staff who operate and maintain them.

"Design features to meet the staff's needs are components with low failure rates and that are readily accessible if they do fail or require maintenance. For example, we selected a highly-reliable thermal printer and designed the kiosk so that the printer can be easily refilled with large rolls of paper. Extra rolls can even be stored inside the kiosk," Harding explained.

Think large, Marge

Pete Snyder, a former Naval procurement officer who now is vice president of sales and marketing for KIS, said he uses a four-step method in working with potential kiosk buyers. The same questions can be a helpful guide for kiosk buyers. His four steps are:

• What kind of kiosk do you want to install?
• Who will install it, the buyer or a professional installation company?
• How will it be maintained?
• How much are you willing to pay?

These steps encourage kiosk buyers to think beyond the kiosk, into a larger budgetary picture of installation and maintenance.

Learn the trade, Jade

Tim Kearns, director of marketing for Portsmouth, R.I.-based kiosk manufacturer MontegoNet, said many customers approach him without a good sense of what kiosks are or how they can help.

"There are definitely a lot of people who start off knowing nothing about kiosks," Kearns said. "They call and say, `I've never worked with kiosks and before,' and laugh. I try to give people time and explain the various factors that go into buying kiosks."

Kearns said it is important to develop an understanding of why companies are considering kiosks.

"One key thing is to figure out what your objective is," Kearns advised potential kiosk buyers. "The people that have the hardest problems are the ones that come to us and say, `We want to do something with kiosks, but we're really not quite sure what to do with them.' They've just heard it's good to have one at their retail stores or lobbies."

As part of the planning process, kiosk buyers should spend some time figuring out what their customers want.

 "You need to get a sense of what they're trying to do and who their audience is," Kearns said.

Maintain, Wayne

Snyder's third question, "How will it be maintained?" is one that customers often overlook. As Borders discovered, maintenance issues are often more complex than expected.

Harding said that in contrast to the company's in-house computer system, which is relatively easy to maintain, the kiosks can be something of a problem child.

"Maintenance is tough, from the standpoint of replacement parts, that kind of thing. We expected it to be a challenge because we maintain a lot of PCs out there," she said. "But with kiosks there are some different conditions. You've got to swap components in and out, you've got to maintain the paper.

Swapping components, such as peripheral devices, isn't as easy as with a PC.

"If a keyboard fails on a PC, you just go out and replace it with another keyboard. But if one fails on a kiosk, then you've got to replace it with the same exact keyboard," Harding added.

Not just retail, Gail

Snyder has experience with government as well as retail projects. He has learned that when government is involved, flexibility diminishes.

"The procurement process is a little different," Snyder said. "First of all someone has a need, so they write a specifications document saying what they need. The need is usually expressed in a very generic form: `I need a keyboard, I need a printer,' etc."

Snyder said that he wished government buyers would make their specifications more detailed, otherwise they are not that useful.

"You need to go back and ask them very specific questions," Snyder said of his experience bidding on military kiosks.

Often, the person who chooses a bidder has not been involved with the project, or may not be familiar with kiosks at all, he said.

"The guy who is buying a kiosk bought rugs yesterday and is buying light bulbs tomorrow. All the things that should mean something mean nothing. They go for the low bidder," Snyder said.

Who ya gonna call, Paul?

All the planning in the world for a kiosk system, no matter how detailed, won't help if the kiosk maker can't deliver. This may be the most crucial step in buying a successful kiosk system.

"We wanted an organization that could bring in the lessons they'd learned on the design and manufacture-deployment of kiosks," said Borders' Harding. "We recognized it would be a really expensive undertaking and we tried to go about it in as responsible a way as possible."