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WANTED: Proven self-service

October 26, 2004

This story and all the great free content on Kiosk Marketplace is supported by: St. Clair Interactive Communications, Inc.

After more than 470 self-service products and 22 years in the business, Doug Peter, CEO of St. Clair Interactive, has identified three general types of retailers.

The first type believes that store employees are taking good care of their store customers. But Peter wonders about the 31percent of the population that wants to "do it themselves." He also wonders about communication when approximately 18 percent of retail employees do not use English as their first language. And don't get Peter started on the service capability of part-time employees.

The second type of retailer has a "build it and they will come" attitude and builds fancy Web sites to be viewed in the store on touchscreens. According to Peter, the Web sites often lack support, offer no return on investment, have poor interfaces and, too often, show blank screens. Perhaps worst of all, for all their bells and whistles these kiosks garner little user acceptance.

The third type of retailer is Peter's favorite, the retailer who admits, "We need a strategy for self-service." Thankfully, Peter sees the number of these retailers growing.

Three Types of Retailers 1. Those who believe employees are enough. 2. Those who deploy kiosks with too many frills, not enough robustness. 3. Those who get it right.

He urges those in the other categories to develop a strategy for self-service success by asking, "How do you know when you've reached your goal when you don't know where you are going?"

Keys to self-service strategy

Retailers must recognize customer behavior as it is and know what customer behavior needs to be changed. Think customer-centric. Retailers should ask, "How will self-service benefit my customers?" Next, they should consider and make the most of business gains from self-service. It's only then that retailers should begin considering technical specifications and partnering opportunities.

Once a self-service strategy is in place, retailers will typically start looking for the ROI. According to Peter, retailers need to consider several items when evaluating their ROI. These include multiple applications on consistent platforms, robust hardware and software, and an effective merchandising program.

Retailers should also look for real-time data integration with key store systems such as POS and catalog. Peter suggests measuring every aspect of a self-service offering. And perhaps most importantly, retailers should have an ongoing commitment to trial, measurement and evolution of those offerings.

Peter cautions against taking a patchwork quilt approach. Too often various departments, such as marketing, IT or operations move an application into the store without coordination. The result is that each solution has a different owner and a different look and feel to the customers. What should be seamless is instead confusing.

"Retailers need self-service and that self-service has to be very, very good to be very, very profitable," he said.