Introduction
Touchscreens, touchscreen everywhere. The fact that so many people are used to interacting with a touchscreen on a daily basis creates opportunities for organisations across all sectors. With great kiosk software running on a great kiosk, organisations can engage with customers, partners and employees in new, exciting ways.
Health Care
The health care sector has been one of the main sectors to take up self sign in to a great extent. Most doctors surgeries and many hospitals now operate a patient sign in system in their reception area.
The use of patient check in software run on a self service touchscreen kiosk provides a variety of benefits to the health care organisation. For most patients the sign in facility makes for shorter waiting times as they no longer have to queue at the reception desk to sign in. Paperwork is also reduced for the reception team as data capture and transfer is automated with the sign in system. The reduction in queues at the reception desk and the removal of certain admin tasks from the reception team allows the reception team to offer a higher level of customer service to patients. The combination of all these factors can result in cost savings too.
The benefits are true for most organisations but in health care, where public sector healthcare is well documented as being underfunded, these benefits are especially noticeable. This is likely what has led to the early adoption of such kiosk solutions within healthcare.
Corporate
Many businesses are starting to see the benefit of kiosks to run visitor sign in software / visitor management systems. Benefits realised by businesses that use visitor management systems with kiosks for visitor sign in are many fold.
Scrappy paper sign in books which are still found on a huge number of companies’ reception desks give a poor impression to visitors. Attractive visitor sign in software run on an attractive kiosk improves this first impression no end. With new data privacy concerns brought about through the introduction of GDPR, visitor management systems can be of a great help here too. Visitor data can be stored much more securely and, with systems such as Welcm, settings can be applied to ensure data handling mirrors a business’s data policies. Visitor management systems also allow reception teams to focus on the customer service aspects of their role.
Alongside visitor management systems, businesses can use kiosks for employee engagement, time and attendance tracking, meeting room management and more.
Banking
Of course the most common banking kiosk and arguably the most widely recognised kiosk is the ATM. However kiosks have become more and more common inside bank branches. Alongside more ATM’s and paying-in kiosks are sign in kiosks and information kiosks. The kiosks allow customers to be directed to the correct member of staff to assist them and they can collect initial data thus speeding up time spent in branch.
There are also examples of kiosks selling insurance and similar financial services to customers. This can make the process easier and quicker for the customer. All this ensures improvements in customer service which can result in increased customer loyalty.
Retail
Outside of self-service checkout facilities, one of the primary applications for kiosks in retail is providing digital catalogues. These kiosks will allow users to browse a retailer’s entire catalogue of products and enable the customer to buy products not stocked in the physical store they are in. Of course this benefits the retailer by making sales they otherwise would not have made and collecting valuable data.
The kiosks and the kiosk software will also often allow customers to sign up for store cards as part of the process. As with virtually all kiosk solutions the mutual benefit of having a kiosk is very significant for both the provider and the user.
Public Sector
In the public sector kiosks can be used for a wide variety of tasks. Kiosks and kiosk software will offer improved efficiency which in publicly funded settings is particularly important. In these settings kiosks can provide self-service facilities to speed up tasks for the public such as renewing documentation like licences and permits. They can also provide valuable information services which can help, amongst others, those without easy access to the web.
The removal of simple paperwork tasks and allowing easy access to information will free up staff to engage in more valuable tasks. In doing so the service provided by the public sector organisation becomes more efficient and provides the public with better value for money.
Conclusion
There are tonnes of benefits that can be realised through a kiosk solution regardless of your organisation’s industry sector. The return on the kiosk software and kiosk hardware investment is generally realised very quickly too.
If you are considering a kiosk solution for your organisation please get in touch to discuss your ideas. Whilst we are a software company we have an excellent knowledge of kiosk hardware and, as we are hardware agnostic, we are able to provide open, honest advice about kiosk hardware as well as create your kiosk software.
