Shopping experience and customer behavior have certainly changed since the pandemic. Customers no longer prefer to enter a store, grab products, and leave. Instead, modern-day customers anticipate a personalized shopping experience.
To meet this demand, retailers are turning towards interactive self-service kiosks. If you are a retailer wondering if an interactive retail kiosk is for you, then this post will give you insight into the advantages and disadvantages of an interactive kiosk.
How Interactive Kiosks work
An interactive self-service kiosk is a hardware device that integrates with software to help you improve the customer experience while automating the sales completion process. In simpler terms, it is a touch screen device that allows your customers to engage with your sales POS and complete the checkout process.
This self-service technology in the retail store allows users to access products, services, and information. According to Statista, compared to 2021, the worldwide sales using interactive self-service kiosks will double by 2028. Therefore, interactive kiosk machines are the future of sales in retail.
What Are the Advantages of Self-Service Kiosks?
There has been a rise in demand for interactive self-service kiosks recently. Improved customer experience is the biggest reason for this trend. However, there are other added advantages of using an interactive kiosk in your retail settings.
Improved Sales
Installing touch screen self-service kiosks in stores can boost sales for the retailer. The cloud-based connectivity allows you to develop inventive and new revenue generation streams that result in increased profits.
Many shoppers do not always know what product they wish to buy. Intelligent interactive retail kiosks such as GRUBBRR kiosks can learn from customers’ behavior and recommend upsells to your customers.
You can even pitch an upsell without sounding too salesy by displaying discounts, special offers, and bundled deals. This will entice your customers into indulging in spending a little bit more before they leave. Research suggests that a customer spends more when they order from a self-service kiosk than when ordering from a cashier.
Learning from Customers’ Behavior Analysis
Modern interactive kiosk technology comes with AI integration that saves data and learns from it by running a complete analysis of your customers’ behavior. This automated thorough analytics report allows you to gain insight into your best-selling items and focus on offering the best deals to your customers. This can also help you make informed decisions and predict future demands.
Contactless Payment
The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in an era of social distancing and contactless payment systems. Therefore, using an interactive kiosk machine is an ideal solution for retail stores. Long queues and having to deal with a cashier may force the customers to put the item back and order online or switch to a store than offers contactless payment options.
An interactive retail kiosk is a digital solution that enables your customer to complete in-store transactions without requiring interaction with a cashier or store staff.
Promotes Customers’ Engagement
Do not underestimate the persuasiveness of an interactive self-service kiosk. This device has a stopping power that will engage your customers to stop and engage in exploring options literally.
Furthermore, most interactive self-service kiosks integrate e-commerce and barcode scanning options that provide a fast self-checkout. This will not only improve customers’ experience but also earn you long-lasting customer loyalty.
Act as an In-Store Information Kiosk
Your interactive retail kiosk is not just to scan the product and make payments. You can use digital retail kiosks to offer information about products, run promotional deals and inform customers about upcoming sales, etc. This will promote customers’ engagement and may entice them into coming back.
Furthermore, instead of looking for store staff to get information on a specific product, your customers can head to the interactive kiosk machine and search for the information. This saves time for you and the customers and frees up your staff to work on other more productive operations.
Streamlines Your Order Processing
Interactive kiosk technology helps streamline the sales process for your customers. You can integrate this omnichannel approach to meet higher customer demands and make your customer feel that you value their time and business.
Improving Business Efficiencies
You can improve your retail store productivity and efficiency. For instance, you can now manage and optimize your staff requirement. The activities such as payment processing, helpdesk that once needed retail staff members, and interactive self-service kiosks have been taken care of all of them.
The kiosk will allow your customers to process payments and ask for any information. Therefore, you can optimize your labor cost and increase your profit margins.
Improving Real-Time Communication
A self-service kiosk can be a helpful tool for retail store managers and staff. As the kiosk shares a real-time link with your inventory system, you can get real-time notifications if a certain product stock is at a critical level. Plus, it can help you run and manage your store during out-of-the-ordinary busy hours.
Unparalleled Branding Ally
Adopting state-of-the-art interactive kiosk technology allows you to promote your retail business as a forward-thinking brand. Your customers will feel value as you provide them with aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-use interactive retail kiosks.
This may not mean much to you, but customers are going to love you for your efforts to make their lives easier. Hence you will be building a sense of loyalty amongst your consumer base.
The Benefits of Self-Checkout Systems Far Outweigh the Risks
While you can reap all the above-mentioned benefits, there are some temporary drawbacks. For instance, you should consider this an investment. Installation of interactive self-service retail kiosks will cost you before you can start reaping the benefits.
You will have to be extra vigilant with attempts of theft and fraud by the customers. However, many interactive kiosks come with anti-theft mechanisms such as built-in cameras and scanners.
In case of an unhappy customer, you will need to assign a certain staff member to deal with the customer in person. This may be an issue if you do not have an information helpdesk as not all store staff members may have the information or skills to tackle an irate customer.
Of course, your interactive kiosk machine is an electronic device; hence it is prone to equipment malfunction. There are several issues such as power shutdown, losing internet connection, or software issues.
All of this can cause delays in payment processing, and you may lose a customer and sales. Therefore, you must ensure that all your interactive self-service kiosks are in mint condition at all times.
By having no cashiers and an information desk, you run the risk of dehumanizing the store. Therefore, you will have to find the right balance, where the customers can walk into a store with some friendly faces ready to serve them rather than walking into a post-apocalyptic abandoned store. Leaving the store with minimum to no staff can also encourage certain customers to steal.
Laying off is another issue. As you optimize your sales process, you may not need as many staff members as you did when serving customers manually.
For example, you had ten cashiers serving at the checkout counters before the interactive retail kiosks. However, now you may only need half of them. If you cannot accommodate the remaining five staff members in other operations, you may have to let them go. This can cause your labor to react, and you may face a backlash.
The Business Benefits of Self-Service Technology Will Continue to Grow
Integrating interactive kiosk technology in your retail store allows you to sell more efficiently, serve more customers and generate higher revenue. Using interactive kiosks machines such as GRUBBRR Retail Kiosk Solutions can help bridge the gap between physical interaction and digital shopping for your customers. At the same time, offering a more personalized shopping experience.
