Commentary

Self-Service Innovation Summit reveals unattended technologies gaining traction

Technology veteran Sabina Osorio, marketing director at Worldnet Payments, offers her insights on the Self-Service Innovation Summit, where she found opportunities for offering customer experiences that are personalized, timely and inclusive of all customer types, abilities and preferences.

Paul Reddy, center, welcomes Bill Widis and Sabina Osorio to the UST exhibit at the Self-Service Innovation Summit.

December 28, 2021 by Alex McCandless — SVP, Marketing, Worldnet Payments

It's hard to believe that just a couple weeks ago we were on the sunny shores of Hollywood, Florida for the first in-person edition of the Self-Service Innovation Summit. As leaders in unattended payments, there was no way we could miss out on the opportunity to reach hundreds of industry leaders at the forefront of self-service technology.

We got to witness and demo the kiosks and unattended checkout experiences that are redefining a sector that's finally getting the spotlight it's always deserved.

In today's world, brands are laser-focused on meeting customers where they are. That means offering a variety of purchasing touchpoints, like self-serve kiosks, in addition to online and traditional retail options. This unlocks opportunities to craft engaging experiences that are personalized, timely and truly inclusive of all customer types, abilities and preferences.

Kelsey Hall of McDonald's describes the need to support all customers.

McDonald's continues to lead

Take McDonald's for example. They built and are rolling out a best-in-class self-ordering kiosk that is accessible for people who are blind or who have low vision. Kelsey Hall, senior product manager for global digital accessibility at McDonald's, in a "lunch and learn" session, shared how extensive customer research and "inclusive design" best practices allowed them to create an audio experience that made their self-ordering kiosk accessible to all.

"If your customer research data doesn't include disabled people, then it's not valid," Hall said.

She stressed the importance of accessibility as a foundational element to the product, technology and solution design of the future.

She's not about passing the baton either; she wants us all to get educated and advocate for the disabled just as we would for any one of our other customer cohorts. Inclusive design and solution building means that everyone is considered and given a voice at the table.

PepsiCo leverages UI screens

Other brands like PepsiCo are seeing self-serve as an opportunity to build deeper relationships with their consumers. Adrienne Lin, who is on the foodservice marketing team at PepsiCo, shared during one panel session how they leverage prime real-estate on kiosks with UI screens to deliver demographically targeted ads, promotional offers and giveaways.

Adrienne Lin of PepsiCo describes how the company leverages kiosks to target ads to customers. She is flanked at left by Eric Lamb, Vistar Media'; Derek Myers, Advana; Donnie Helms, Pursuant Health and Brendan Carr, Crane Medianet.

Now brands can quickly push ads out at scale while also getting the benefits of rich data. For example, they can see how people are interacting with the screen and get information that allows them to dynamically adjust and make decisions on the fly.

PepsiCo also uses kiosks at specific locations as testing environments where they can try out new products and get instant learnings. Ultimately, they're simply trying to serve their customers better to get more traffic back to each location.

In the same session, Brendan Carr, who oversees new business development at Crane Medianet, shared that unattended digital screens have a greater dwell time of anywhere from 10-15 seconds. By increasing dwell time you can increase the overall spend per guest while boosting engagement — ensuring happy customers who will be back.

AMC Theatres cashes in on nostalgia

We all know how the pandemic forced movie theaters to temporarily close. During a panel on omnichannel integration, Hank Green, vice president of food and beverage at AMC Theatres, said that while they were well-positioned from a ticketing perspective, they had not done the same for popcorn and soda. They used the downtime to innovate and reinvent their unattended customer experience for food and beverage.

Now, as theaters begin to welcome guests back to their seats, they're realizing that customers are craving the nostalgia brought on by a night at the movies. With nostalgia in mind, they're building inclusive experiences for customers who want a completely contactless, self-service experience as well as those who want to speak to a staff member. For AMC it's about creating consistency acro¬ss their brands and meeting their customers where they are, where they want to be and with any method they choose to pay.

Computer vision marries self-serve kiosks

UST presented its computer vision enabled self-checkout kiosk that allows a frictionless shopping experience.

We got to meet with our partners at UST on the exhibit floor who teamed up with Kiosk Information Systems to perfect their computer vision self-checkout kiosk solution. You simply place your items on the self-checkout kiosk; items are identified via camera vision and displayed on the kiosk screen where you can choose from multiple payment options, including QR code.

Vision self-checkout advances unattended automation and provides both cost and operational efficiencies — with accuracy and consumer safety at its core.

We ended the year strong with the Self-Service Innovation Summit! The two days flew by and served up tons of self-service learnings for me and the Worldnet team. Unattended technologies are gaining mainstream traction and changing consumer behaviors have led to completely new experiences that are pushing the bounds of traditional payment solutions.

Photos courtesy of Worldnet.

About Alex McCandless

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Sabina Osorio is the Marketing Director at Worldnet Payments, an integrated payments gateway that specializes in self-service. She's a marketing leader with 10+ years of experience in content marketing, branding, and events.

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