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.
