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The key to keeping the kiosk industry moving forward

December 7, 2011 by Michael Ionescu — President, Ionescu Technologies

I was in two different hotels this past month talking to managers, and they both had recently adopted a growing interactive concierge program. One of the managers said he didn't like it as much as expected, because the content wasn't very updated and there were only a handful of restaurants listed.

The other hotel had the same system except it was stuck on a loading screen and was not working. No one at the front desk was sure how to fix it.

No matter where deployed, I believe it is both the responsibility of the client and the responsibility of the provider to do their best to ensure that the kiosk units have an "always on" functionality, because having poorly executed units are not just bad for one company, it's bad for the entire kiosk industry.

What do I mean by "always on?" Internet connectivity has become such a ubiquitous capability that every kiosk that exists in the public space should always be connected to some central backend management system that can monitor the health of the kiosk.

Backend management systems can do lots of wonderful things. They can monitor whether a kiosk is down or has printer jams or touchscreen related issues. If the system goes down, depending on how robust the backend system is, many of these issues can be fixed remotely. If the computer crashes, sometimes a remote signal can be sent to the machine to restart it. Sometimes the touchscreen might have trouble working and needs to be reset, another fix that can be done remotely.

Unfortunately, printer jams and replacements need to be done on site, but a back end management system can still send alerts to right people, so these problems are minimal.

It really is of the utmost importance that kiosks be as error free as possible, because a kiosk audience is a mobile audience that will judge your kiosk within the first 10 seconds of using it. If it's slow, nonoperational or just plain bad to use, then those people will have a negative impression of kiosks the next time they see any kind of kiosk. Sometimes, some of those people who walk by are potential clients who might want kiosks for their own business. If they see a non-working kiosk, then you've just lost a potential client. Not only have you lost a potential client, but the entire kiosk industry has lost a potential client.

Just to give you an idea of how important passerby traffic is, most of my current and newer clients called me after seeing kiosks in the field. If my kiosks were stuck on a loading screen instead of working then I can guarantee you that they would not have called me, and chances are they would have forgotten about purchasing kiosks for at least another year from any company. As a growing industry we can't afford to put a bad foot forward.

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