Month: October 2009

We’re happy to announce our recent success at the Retail System Awards 2009.

Just last night at the prestigious awards ceremony at the Ballroom in the Grosvenor House Hotel, London, we won the ‘Best use of Technology in the Hospitality and Leisure Sector’ for our Cineworld Xen X5 kiosks.

Against the other impressive shortlisted companies, Reward, Pure 360 and Torex, we shone through with the award-winning Xen X5 Cineworld kiosk range.

The award recognised how the innovative Xen 5 kiosk had achieved business growth for Cineworld. With consumer expectations central to this category win, the judges were looking for a winner that employed effective and efficient technology; this was clearly seen in our kiosks.

The story: In 2008, Cineworld contacted us in a bid to automate the whole registration process of its Unlimited Film Programme with an eco-friendly kiosk solution. Membership to the programme entitles visitors to watch any film, any day, any time at any Cineworld Cinema from just £13.50 per month.

Cineworld rolled out our easy-to-use, self service Xen X5 kiosks that customers use to register without staff assistance. Wannabe members of the programme simply sign up by entering their details into the kiosk; an A4 receipt with a photo of the member on is then printed out which they can use as identification until their membership card arrives in the post.

The kiosks currently operate in 27 cinema sites including, Glasgow, West India Queys and Cheltenham and will be in most of Cineworld’s 75 UK sites.

In just 6 months the kiosks saved Cineworld in excess of 1,000 staff hours and increased new members by 100 per week, resulting in the number of Unlimited sign ups being increased by 10 per cent.

For more information about the Cineworld kiosks, and how a kiosk can improve your business, contact us today.

Every local church around the globe want to reach out to people and watch their congregation grow.

To fulfil this dream many are starting to realise that people nowadays require more ways to connect with them. And the route of this growth stems from the integration of technology finding new and innovative ways to greet, inform, entertain, educate and grow the congregation whether new or old.

And digital kiosks have been sign posted as the way forward.

Kiosks are interactive systems available for public use and can be used in a wide range of different ways. Already, churches use kiosks for event registration, children's check-in, e-giving and as digital information and direction stands, similar to those found in shopping stores.

With the technology being straight forward and running off dedicated hardware, churches do not have to worry about hiring a computer expert to run them. All the information, both to and from the kiosk is sent over a standard network allowing content changes to be made from virtually anywhere, through a password-protected Internet connection.

And the digital kiosks are so easy to use. People are able to interact with the information on the screen, print out name badges, tickets and event information without having to ask for help from staff or volunteers.

However, churches have found that having volunteers nearby is helpful for engaging in conversation once a person has finished using the digital kiosk.

And the kiosks can be outfitted with electronic card readers as an e-giving solution, or barcode readers for quick-scanning check-in or event registration.

One church took the world of kiosks a step further and installed giving kiosks in their lobby, which saw giving double. And every church that followed suit saw a large increase in donations, which many put down to the anonymity provided for people who feel uncomfortable making their donations public.

The bonus of this e-giving service is that it frees the time of staff members and volunteers to work on other jobs within the church.

Kiosks can come at different costs depending on the style, size and software you want, however the amount of facilities and services a kiosk can provide soon makes you realise that they eventually pay for themselves.

For more information about kiosk systems visit Protouch today.

The health care industry has come on leaps and bounds of the past few years with the implementation of kiosks and hi-tech systems to improve the efficiency and quality of service the health system provides.

Doctor's surgeries have installed touch screen kiosks to reduce the waiting time at the reception desk so staff can concentrate on other tasks in and around the surgery.

And in Boston an electronic 'doctor kiosk' is under development at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) to improve the way the health care system works in America.

The self service kiosk promises to increase efficiency both inside and outside the physician office setting by gathering basic information from patients, such as the patients medical history, weight, pulse, blood pressure, and blood tests for glucose and cholesterol, and directing that information to a physician prior to an office visit. 

It will also be able to function as a virtual health concierge for managing chronic illness, prompting the patient to answer a series of important health questions such as 'did you take your meds today.'

The whole process of investing money into health care technology is to increase the efficiency of the health care system and the patient health care process.

Many patients, however fret about the lack of doctor-patient time they will receive if a lot of their time in doctor's surgeries and hospitals is spent in front of a screen.

One of the consistent problems with the continuity of care is the lack of resources and time that doctors spend with their patients after being diagnosed.

So although kiosks may ease the weight off staff when it comes to the mundane tasks of obtaining information and filing data, the care of patients should not be replaced by kiosk systems unless they receive offer better after care than what they have now.

Kiosks in the healthcare industry must make patients feel more connected to their health information-not less so. If patients feel that the increase of technology replaces their time with their GP rather than supplementing it, they will most likely reject it outright.

Yet these kiosks are designed to reduce the amount of paperwork a GP has to go through allowing them to be more efficient with their patient and spend more time talking than writing notes.

Nurses are there to assist the doctor and many often take up the mundane tasks the doctor does not have the time to fulfill.

However nurses are often overburdened with a whole host of work and their valuable skills are not used enough. They are trained in the medical profession and spend most of their time doing paperwork, which could be easily sorted with the help of a kiosk.

The kiosk can help collect patient data and allow the nurse to assist the doctor in anyway possible so the patient feels fully catered for and looked after while in their local surgery.

For a kiosk to work in the health care industry, it needs to do the job intended and try and not take over the initial job of doctors and nurses, and instead assist them in doing their job with ease and efficiency.