News

Jiffy Lube tries Web-enabled kiosks

April 1, 2002

RALEIGH, N.C. & BRANFORD, Conn. - Customers waiting for an oil change or other services at Jiffy Lube®locations in North Carolina may find something new to occupy their time.

Autopulse, Inc., a technology company that provides automotive services, has selected Netkey, Inc., a kiosk software provider, to create special Web-enabled kiosks to educate consumers about automotive products and services such as recommended maintenance scheduling, blue book values, auto insurance costs and more.

Autopulse is currently testing Netkey-powered kiosks in seven Jiffy Lube locations in North Carolina. The companies expect to rollout kiosks at 200 locations by the second and third quarters of 2001. Announcements of additional locations may come later in the year.

Consumers can use the kiosks to access news, weather, sports and financial information from CNN, Weather.com and Bloomberg.com. Users can also retrieve and send personal e-mail through Hot Mail, Yahoo and AOL. Each kiosk will also be able to solicit electronic customer feedback regarding products and services.

The Autopulse-Netkey kiosk system will allow customers to shop on a variety of retail sites that have a revenue share agreement with Autopulse. E-tailers include Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Columbia House, CDNOW.com, Tower Records, Sharper Image, Wine.com, GiftBasket.com, Brookstone, The Museum Store, Hershey's Gift Shop, Tupperware, Cooking.com, Garden.com, The Gap, L.L. Bean, Land's End and Brooks Brothers.

In the near future, participating retailers will receive Internet-based employee training modules to provide in-store training using the installed kiosks.