News

Keeping a finger on the pulse

July 21, 2005

Any sensible business thrives on customer feedback. For years, Tuscon's International Wildlife Museum relied on paper opinion cards stacked by the exit.

This story and all the great free content on KioskMarketplace is supported by: Diatouch

"I didn't get much information from them," said Cindy Fields, sales and marketing manager for the museum. "We would pose a question like, `How did you enjoy your visit to the museum?' And people would say, `It was great.' And I'd compile them for a month and I'd get 15 `It was great's.'"

In early 2005, the museum installed a touchscreen kiosk with the help of DiaTouch Inc. that asks more than just "How did you enjoy your visit?" According to Fields, she is able to build a simple-yet-robust survey that touches on many aspects of the visitor experience.

"By installing a survey where I control the questions, as well as the flow of those questions, I grab specific information," she said. "I'm asking specific questions about specific exhibits."

Fields said that the survey kiosk has proven very useful, especially since there is a restaurant and gift shop on the premises in addition to the regular museum features.

"I'm able to do a matrix screen where people can rate things on a scale," she said. "It's nice to be able to author that survey yourself, (because once it's) up and running for a while, I can see where I need to add a question or take away a question to guide people through the survey most efficiently."

Fields

Touchscreen surveys allow targeted questions about customers' experiences.

said that in the past, she compiled information manually from the handwritten cards, and then photocopied that information to hand out to management. Now, detailed reports print out with just a few clicks of a mouse.

And, of course, the fact that the machine is much more inviting than a stack of index cards doesn't hurt, either.

"It looks really nice," Fields added. "It's a wooden kiosk, the colors are great, and it looks very attractive. Placement and the way it looks encourage people to stop and use it."

Gathering real, useful data

According to Elisabeth Scherer, spokesperson for DiaTouch, survey data can do more than just gauge customer satisfaction - it can open a retailer's eyes to some serious missed opportunities.

For instance, Scherer points out that a certain basketball team never marketed products to women in its gift shop. That shop, which fared poorly, was on the verge of closing.

"At about this time the club conducted a survey among their fans," she said. "Among many other things, it discovered that nearly 50 percent of the audience were women. A clever manager started to introduce items to the gift shop that were made for women and the gift shop started to thrive. Just one survey made all the difference."

Scherer said that a kiosk survey system has many benefits over its paper counterpart - speed, accuracy, ease of use and a streamlined process for everyone involved.

"It is not coincidence that the most successful companies are also the ones which are the heaviest users of research," she added.