Category: Industry News

If kiosk success was like a recipe, what would be the perfect ingredients?

A student competition to find new and exciting ideas for a sensational kiosk took place last month at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, United States.

The contest, dubbed Whiteboard Challenge by Coinstar, involved several teams that presented kiosk concepts to a panel of university professors and Coinstar executives.

The winning team DrugBox was crowned the victors as they were judged on the kiosk idea, business case and presentation.

Their drug-dispensing kiosk came top and won the $6,000 prize money. Runner up entrants was awarded $3,000 and $1,000.

Gregg Kaplan, president and chief operating officer of Coinstar, said: “We were delighted with the level of creativity and depth of thinking that the students brought forward.

“We believe there are countless untapped ideas in the automated retail space, and with anticipated self-service retail transactions expected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2013, we want to continue fostering new ideas.”

DrugBox, the winning kiosk initiative, was designed by David Schottland, Sheila Schottland, and Raphael Tse which involved a self-service kiosk that would be pre-stocked with non-vital, high-demand, prescription drugs.

Advantages to the unit included;

– Speed, convenience and discretion. Traditional long waiting lines at pharmacies will be a thing of the past as well as embarrassing situations with personal information.

– Help fill scripts and answer drug-interaction questions.

– Speed up the payment process with insurance providers and remind people to refill or pick up prescriptions.

– Substantial revenue opportunity as the US prescription drug market in 2009 was roughly $300 billion.

– Bettering patients would cut the overall cost of health care in the country.

Desired locations the kiosks could be deployed are said to be 24-hour convenience stores, petrol stations and office parks.

The challenge’s runner up ideas consisted of a kiosk that brings together buyers and sellers of used merchandise and an energy-drink kiosk.

Find new and exciting kiosk ideas at Protouch; Europe’s number one manufacturer and distributor of Touch screen technology.

Present times are hard economically and consumers are constantly looking out for the best deals, discounts and ways of saving cash in their back pockets.

This means if they can spend less at one store they are more likely to change shops and go there; affecting their customer loyalty with their current brand.

It is because of these cost-cutting methods that it can prove hard for a company to hold down its customers and increase profits, therefore see a return on investment.

Ultimately, a kiosk can help to build your consumer loyalty and attract those with the potential to be best customers.

Particularly coupon dispensing units are key to save shoppers money as they offer vouchers to use in-store.

The success of these touch screens are exampled at Food Lion supermarkets, in America.

A shopper enters a store, scans their personal card at the kiosk and within seconds they receive a personalised coupon based on their household’s shopping history.

The token expires on the day they are issued, providing additional impulse to redeem.

The customers are expending more tokens than ever since the grocery chain deployed coupon-dispensing kiosks inside the stores across states.

 

The kiosks, part of the chain’s MVP Savings Center campaign which launched last year, have resulted in a much higher coupon redemption rate, up to five times, amongst consumers when compared to other traditional distribution channels.

David Palmer, Food Lion Director of Customer Relationship Management and Interactive Marketing, said: “In these difficult economic times, Food Lion is committed to providing our customers with the lowest prices on the best brands.”

 

Based on the positive outcomes, the firm are now expanding the service to other store locations and money-saving kiosks can also be found at other Food Lion stores operating under the names of Bloom and Harveys Hometown.

 

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.