Month: February 2011

Small villages and towns in any country tend to be close-knit, together and act as a big family as opposed to neighbours.

Other towns can get this sense of community, friendship and intimacy too simply by deploying a kiosk.

The content of a touch screen can encourage rural economic development, a sense of pride, community ownership and accomplishment.

How can it do this? Well a kiosk can have multiple functions and purposes and of these, it includes information provision.

A community unit can hold info such as town history, memorabilia, photos of past events, records of church groups and public organisations.

Furthermore, citizens can be unified by information on local stores, old school report cards, diaries and notable people that were born there that may have gone on to stardom or fame.

This is exampled in Pictou County, Novia Scotia, Canada.

There the Pictou Regional Development Agency is installing several communal kiosks across the country over the new few months and they are asking for public assistance in determining the content.

The kiosks, which are to be deployed in the communities Blue Mountain, Durham, Kenzieville, Lismore, River John, Merigomish and Barney’s River, have been established to modernise the sleepy towns, create self-importance and delight from being born there and serve to educate the visitor on information and research of the area, as well as encourage exploration.

The public are being asked to send in old school photos, information on the old shops and establishments such as the mills, and any material on important well-known persons.

Install a Kiosk in your local town or village and share the experience in delving into the past, to enjoy the future.

It can be a distressing time when you put a loved one in a care home.

Obviously you want the very best for them which means you want the home to be clean, professional and have qualified staff to look after your relative with the utmost care.

It can be a challenge though when it comes to providing information for both patients and their family members. Moreover, when visitors make appointments to look around the premises or come to see a friend.

Touch screen technology in the form of a kiosk being deployed can help. Care home kiosks are quite unique in the market but this proves how versatile the technology is.

Installing one in your care home at the reception desk will give all people access to information 24 hours a day, easing your staff of administration duties and therefore giving them more time to care for the patients.

They also enable informative videos and campus messages to be shown so the staff can easily communicate with all occupants and their relations, as evident in a care home in West Virginia, America.

The Augsburg Lutheran Home and Village, a Continuing Care Retirement Community in Baltimore County, Maryland has deployed digital signage and touchscreen technology.

The touchscreen interface provides residents, visitors and employees with an interactive means for delivering educational videos, staff videos, religious videos and various site messages.

The kiosks currently provide over 62 design pages of content for viewing with ‘temporary’ marketing pages designed specifically for use when managers take the kiosks on the road for marketing events.

Further benefits of kiosks in care homes include;

– GP examinations. A kiosk in a nursing home managed by GP practises enables regular check-ups on patients.

– Current information for the elderly. Help and support the aging by offering the latest up-to-date news and material, for example laws that affect them.

– Socialising portal. The kiosk can include info on local clubs, meetings or groups to help the resident’s meet new people, make friends and enjoy a past-time hobby.

– Aid staff and visitors. Information can be uploaded to the kiosks such as what room the resident is living in, or checking-in process to speed up the whole ordeal. Regular family members can just scan their name in and can avoid filling out all their details every single trip.

Rather than asking where your relative is in case they have changed rooms you can simply search the kiosk. Clearly privacy issues will have to be controlled.

 

Kiosks are the most fitting solution to reduce customer waiting time and put the power and control in the consumer’s hands.

Until now, the fast food industry is one of the quick service sectors that haven’t really adopted kiosk systems.

The whole concept started out in 2006 when Subway, McDonald's, Burger King and Arby's started trying out the kiosks systems which allowed customers to place and pay for orders via the units.

While they have attempted to add kiosks here and there, there has not been as massive explosion on the kiosk side as many of us had anticipated in the UK.

We previously wrote about New York’s John F Kennedy and La Guardia airports installing kiosks that offer meal orders from its participating restaurants. The launched initiative allows you to order your meal deal on an iPad.

While this is a progression in touch screen technology, you can still only order your chicken sandwich from self-ordering kiosks in McDonald’s if you live in Europe.

Most of McDonald's kiosks are located in France, where the concept was initially launched. But good news seems to be on the horizon.

Agnes Vadnai, Director of European communications at McDonald's Europe, said: “However, self-order kiosks are now being deployed also in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal, UK and the Netherlands, with additional plans for roll-out in further markets in 2011 and beyond.” No plans have been made in America.

The concept of kiosks in fast food restaurants is that you can order and pay for your meal without the help from employees; freeing them of time to do more important tasks like make the food.

With more time to make the food, it will be made quicker so therefore customer waiting times will reduce and profits will soar.

Why is the trend just catching on? In a study in 2011 on the self-service industry which surveyed more than 200 business leaders, 21 per cent said they were planning to deploy self-service options in restaurants.

This is due to the fact that consumers are embracing self-service technology more now than ever before. Many prefer self-service face to face interaction because of its privacy, accuracy and personalisation and the desire is growing.

Findings published in a 2010 survey revealed that more than half of all respondents polled that they would be more likely to choose a quick-service restaurant (QSR) that offered self-service technology for ordering food.

And further results showed that nearly half of the participants said they’d walked away from a QSR due to long waiting lines.

Benefits include;

– Control of ordering process leads to better accuracy

– Single point of administration and reporting, hassle-free.

– Management costs are low, integration is easier than ever.

– New product placement exposes variety of menu and increases sales.

 

Today's best solutions are fully integrated with point of sale, menu boards, online ordering and smartphone ordering.

For drive-thru restaurants, self-service kiosks for the window that can move up or down depending on the height of your car is suffice.

The functionality of a kiosk is vital when it comes to enhancing customer experience and increasing profits.

By deploying a unit in your business you can reap cost and time saving benefits that will give you a great return on your investment.

What’s more, by integrating several applications into one kiosk, you can find even greater efficiency while also opening up multiple revenue streams that were not being accessed beforehand. In effect multiple applications can save money and provide better services for customers.

For example, many retailers have simple price-scanning kiosks but these can be enhanced with additional functions such as ordering, payment, way-finding, loyalty account maintenance, and gift card purchases.

Of course you don’t want to overdo the number of functions. The kiosk must remain simple and user-friendly so that a consumer is more likely to want to use it.  Grouped functions on a kiosk should complement each other and not confuse the user; generally automated services are there to improve manual processes that already take place.

It’s not just about service either; your hardware costs can also be cut by combining several applications into one kiosk. Obviously having separate machines has more capital expenditure, so instead of deploying multiple kiosks in your business which would cost more for maintenance, installation and repair work, you can reduce the number of units and therefore cut spending in half.

Fundamentally consolidating services and maintenance on to a single device gives greater efficiency and added revenue streams.

So, advantages of multi-functions include;

– Cost savings on manual processes, staff and hardware

– Greater productivity through automated, grouped services

– Time savings for staff that don’t need to carry out processes by hand

– Added revenue streams leading to an increase in profits

So install a multifunction Touch screen kiosk in your business today, with Protouch.

Kiddicare,as pictured above, is our best example – it does product look up, ordering, payment, collection, delivery and cross and up selling.