Self service kiosks have grown from a niche product into an essential product for many businesses over the last decade, with major brands in industries such as food service and retail investing heavily in interactive kiosks for taking orders, providing faster service and communicating information.

A quick study of the benefits of kiosks explains why the trend has grown so rapidly. From reducing costs to providing a higher standard of service for customers, interactive kiosks have numerous benefits for both business users and customers alike.

If you run a business that’s built around customer interaction, kiosks – particularly customized kiosks from a high quality kiosk manufacturer – this can help you generate more revenue while reducing the amount you spend to run your business on a daily basis.

Below, we’ve listed the four most important benefits of using kiosks for your business, from reducing staffing costs to providing more power to your customers.

Increase efficiency and serve more customers in less time

One of the biggest advantages of interactive kiosks is that they allow your business to become far more efficient than it would be otherwise.

When used effectively, kiosks can significantly reduce the amount of time your customers need to learn more about your products and service, find specific information, place orders and go from “browsing” mode to “buying” mode.

Since kiosks are designed for specific tasks, such as accepting orders or processing credit card applications, they deliver fast and effective service in a fraction of the amount of time required to complete each task manually, helping you run a more efficient and effective business.

Reduce the cost of running your business

Not only can custom kiosks make your business more efficient from a time perspective — they can also create major savings and cost reductions that allow you to run your business far more efficiently from a financial standpoint.

Because kiosks are inexpensive to maintain and operate, they allow you to provide services at a significantly lower cost than a typical wage or salary. This also makes kiosks cost effective for a variety of tasks that simply aren’t affordable due to minimum wages and salary regulations.

Finally, because kiosks are so efficient, they can be used strategically to help you manage and run your business more effectively than before, all with fewer staff members and fewer ongoing costs.

Give customers a better shopping experience

When used correctly, kiosks aren’t an inconvenience for customers — in fact, they’re quite the opposite. An effectively used and well-designed kiosk can create a better shopping experience for customers than a traditional employee, especially in certain industries.

In retail, kiosks can provide helpful product-specific information across an inventory of hundreds or thousands of products, with details that are impossible for employees to memorize quick and easy to access.

In food service, kiosks let customers verify orders before they’re delivered to the kitchen and add custom requests on a level that isn’t possible otherwise. In both cases, customers enjoy higher quality service without any increase (and potentially with a reduction) in the cost of goods.

Free up your staff to focus on more important tasks

Kiosks not only allow you to run your business more efficiently with fewer employees — they also let your existing employees focus on the most important aspects of your business as other tasks are automated and optimized.

In the food service world, brands like Panera Bread have used kiosks to automate large parts of the ordering process, allowing more employees to spend their time helping customers within the restaurant itself.

Kiosks are also widely used in retail to automate some aspects of the checkout process, freeing up a larger number of employees to work within the store to help customers and provide a high quality experience.

 

Over the last decade, self-service kiosks have grown in popularity, with brands in a wide variety of industries switching to kiosks for tasks such as providing information, taking customer orders and allowing faster service.

Kiosks offer a number of benefits for both businesses and customers. For businesses, they’re a way to reduce labor costs while improving the efficiency of service, helping customers get what they need faster, easier and more effectively.

For customers, kiosks provide a way to discover information and purchase products without the inefficiencies of traditional customer service. Kiosks also allow for a level of customization that’s often impossible the “old fashioned” way.

One of the most interesting realities of the huge growth in the popularity of kiosks is that they’re being used in a variety of industries, from hospitality to retail. Below, we’ve highlighted three of the industries that are using kiosks most effectively, along with specific kiosk-focused brands.

Food Service Kiosks

Fast food and casual dining brands have been some of the biggest advocates of kiosks, largely in response to rising wages and demands for fast, efficient service from customers. Brands like McDonald’s, which traditionally rely on service staff, are increasingly turning to kiosks.

Last year, McDonald’s announced that it would begin to use interactive kiosks at all of its 14,000 locations across the United States. The fast food giant also plans to add table service, with staff tasked with bringing order to customers at their tables instead of requiring food to be picked up.

In this way, the introduction of kiosks into the fast food industry has helped customers. Not only is it easier to order than ever — customers also receive table service similar to what they’d get at a more expensive traditional restaurant.

Other restaurant brands, such as Panera Bread, have also started using kiosks to take orders from customers. The company implemented kiosks on a mass scale in 2015 as part of a brand “reinvention” process, allowing for more employees within each location.

Retail Kiosks

Kiosks aren’t just a hot topic in the food service industry — they’re also becoming increasingly popular for retailers. From big-box stores to small retail chains, many of the country’s biggest retail brands are investing heavily in kiosks and service-focused automation.

Walmart, for example, recently started testing in-person pickup kiosks at one of its locations in Oklahoma City. The retail kiosk allows customers to order their groceries online and pick them up at any time of day, saving shoppers from having to browse their store manually.

Retail giant Target has also tested kiosks in many of its stores. In 2013, the big-box retail chain added iPad kiosks to the baby departments of many of its stores, giving customers the ability to quickly and easily access information on specific products.

Kiosks for Hospitality and Tourism

Over the last few years, self-service kiosks have started to become a more common sight in the hospitality and tourism industry. A Tunisian luxury hotel, Hotel La Cigale, became one of the first hotel brands to embrace automation when it added a “reception” kiosk to its front desk area.

Hotels, offices and other businesses that traditionally have reception staff have benefited from the rise of kiosk manufacturers producing reception and service kiosks — interactive kiosks that can answer common customer questions, provide directions and grant access to guests.