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It's all in the experience

There are two sides to the customer experience with self-service technology, and each can determine whether a user will ever try a kiosk again.

May 1, 2004

"Oh, that thing never works," said the sales clerk as she looked over at the bridal-registry kiosk placed next to her counter. "I'll have to look up the bride for you on my computer and print it out over there."

And so I waited, with my three children in tow. I waited in line first to ask why the kiosk wasn't working, then waited again for the saleswoman to finish with other customers so she would send my file to the printer. When I went over to get the printout, I was disappointed to see faded, blotchy printing that I could barely read. In the meantime, I told another woman, who kept pressing away on the touchscreen until her finger was hyperextended, that the kiosk was temporarily out of service. She huffed and went to the back of the line at the sales counter.

Contrast that experience with one I had at Chicago's Midway Airport, at the Southwest Airlines check-in. My first time to the airport after its remodeling, I was a little turned around. I must have looked lost, because a pleasant Southwest employee approached me and asked if she could help.

She asked if I had tried the new self check-in kiosks in the terminal. She then walked me over to the bank of kiosks, and talked me through the simple process. I was surprised just how easy it was to get that boarding pass while so many others were standing in line. And I've used the check-in kiosks ever since, with no problems.

These are the two sides of the consumer experience with self-service technology.

And each of these experiences could determine whether a user tries a kiosk again. I thought about my mom using the kiosk at the department store. She would have been intimidated to use the electronic gift registry as it was. Then if the technology didn't work, that would be it for her. She would never trust it again.

I thought about my dad while at Midway. He's the impatient one in the family. He hates to stand in line. And most times he's late to the airport as it is. He would just love to use those self-service kiosks because it would make the stressful task of airport check-ins so much better. And I can't wait to show them to him on our next trip to Midway.

I've met such smart people in this industry since joining NetWorld Alliance. And many of them have said that providing a positive user experience is tantamount to successful kiosk deployments. Sylvia Berens at Apunix told me customers just expect kiosks to work all the time. "It has to run, or it loses its value. Period." Doug Peter of St. Clair Interactive told me that getting people to use kiosks is "a philosophic challenge, not a technical one," so you have to get it right or you lose them.

Yes, most vendors have the engineering intelligence and business acumen to make great products. But what happens when those products get placed at a customer site?

Berens and others talk about the importance of remote-monitoring functionality so a vendor always knows what its kiosks are doing; when the database is down or when the paper roll is out. But how do they follow up on how well the employees at a customer site are supporting users? Is there some kind of training these employees can undergo so that they don't say, "Oh, that thing never works" to their customers?

Of course I will try that kiosk in the department store again. I'm a true believer in the power of self-service. I know that kiosks can help me get my objectives completed quickly without hassle. And as the new editor of KIOSKmarketplace, I have great interest in the success of our industry. But what about the average customer, my mom? She wouldn't be so understanding.