Kiosks - Consumer Acceptance Key To Wider Deployment

CONSUMER ACCEPTANCE KEY TO WIDER DEPLOYMENT

Experts admit that kiosks often fail for a variety of reasons, ranging from poor in-store location to technical problems with blank screens and printers that don't work. Retailers must be able to articulate why they want kiosks in their stores and integrate them into their retail strategy. After Hallmark installed kiosks that allowed customers to create their own greeting cards, the company found that consumers preferred to purchase stock greeting cards rather than create their own. Other problems included poor management, apathetic staff, and technological snafus.

While there are kiosk solution providers, the kiosk industry was fragmented in the early 2000s. Retailers typically purchased kiosk enclosures from one source, software from another, and possibly required a third vendor to maintain the kiosks. While some retailers successfully installed kiosks and found a profitable use for them, many others needed to develop a marketing plan to take full advantage of the possible benefits of maintaining in-store kiosks, including improved customer service, marketing and promotion, branding, and sales. Retailers needed to carefully plan to maximize the benefits of in-store kiosks. However, the driving force for wider deployment of kiosks remained consumer acceptance, and consumers will be more likely to accept and use kiosks if they are an integral part of a customer-focused retail strategy.