In today’s digital signage market, self-service and interactive kiosks seem to have become standard in restaurants, retail spaces, and corporate offices the world over. The emergence of wayfinding, self check-out/line-busting initiatives, and quick service restaurants have made kiosks the gold standard for the best interactive method of communication and service.
But have these interactive kiosks remained relevant over the last year when people became wary of engaging with public-facing touchpoints? What is the future of kiosk sanitation? What is the next big innovation that will solidify the interactive kiosk’s future? In this article, we’ll explore the future of interactive kiosks and how Skykit is empowering companies to best implement these applications.
The Uncertain Future of Interactive Displays
Understanding a kiosk’s true value is incredibly important when deciding on an interactive solution. On the surface level, customers typically see the high overhead that is involved with a kiosk solution – but the actual ROI, as with other signage solutions, provides all of the value a customer needs. Yes, a kiosk is going to be a more robust and expensive solution, mainly driven by the touch display and kiosk enclosure, but the resulting company efficiency and communication is invaluable.
Benefits of Self-Service Kiosks
Implementing a kiosk solution provides considerable ROI on several different levels. For businesses utilizing digital signage and interactive kiosks for better internal communication, company efficiency is hard to put a price tag on. Streamlining communication through digital signage improves a company’s general day-to-day operations, but the addition of an interactive or touch-enabled kiosk allows you to take things to the next level.
Access to more company tools in the employee’s, or visiting partner’s, hands can make things run much more smoothly. From a revenue generating standpoint, for businesses in the QSR or retail market, adding a self-ordering kiosk typically improves the customer experience and drives more sales. From implementing a better solution for ease of ordering to upselling more products, businesses have seen an average revenue increase of 7% with self-ordering kiosks.
Though the kiosk solution has solidified itself as a necessity for multiple industries, the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the narrative. As people remain wary of public touchpoints, how have kiosks been adapted in order to keep audiences engaged?
New Touchless Approaches to Interactive Kiosks
As nearly all businesses had to adjust to new safety restrictions and regulations over the course of the pandemic, the kiosk industry had to rethink its approach. A recent study found that a whopping 80% of people believe public touch screens are unhygienic. So while there are multiple options for personal and product sanitation, avoiding physical touchpoints altogether has been one of the main focuses as of late.
Hardware and software providers have been very creative in the ways they’ve changed the interactive portion of kiosks. Some people are using simple QR codes to activate the kiosk experience on the user’s personal device, and others have gone as far as voice activated solutions. There’s even new display technology that activates the touch points just by waving your hand over the panel. Needless to say, the market has certainly found ways of adapting to the current environment to keep kiosks in play.
Increased Revenue Demands that Kiosks Remain in the Marketplace
One of the main reasons companies adopted the kiosk model was ROI. From improved company productivity to increased customer engagement and ease of ordering, the revenue generated from implementing a kiosk solution has been a big driver in the market. As businesses have started to reopen, grabbing onto whatever revenue streams they can has been essential to staying in business. By utilizing self check-in applications and new operational methods for order management, kiosks have become a saving grace for businesses struggling to stay afloat.
Sanitation Innovations
When discussing the evolution of kiosks (particularly during a pandemic), you can’t ignore the different sanitation methods and innovations. Again, many users are avoiding touch points, but there’s still a need to improve the sanitation of kiosks. Some methods have been as simple as adding a hand sanitizing station onto or near the kiosk. Other companies have taken it a step further by implementing UV light onto the screens to kill bacteria. Regardless of the method, people have continued to adapt the build-outs of their kiosks for the times.
Utilizing Skykit for Interactive Kiosk Applications
As businesses have evolved in order to keep operations flowing during the pandemic, Skykit has continued to push forward with new and innovative solutions to adjust to the market. With Skykit Beam Pro or Enterprise, customers can utilize our Code Bundle feature to embed fully functional kiosk applications. This allows the customer to have the full functionality of the application exist natively within Skykit; therefore, having a truly locked-down kiosk application. Skykit has already developed a product that supports any type of kiosk application – but we’re not stopping there.
Skykit is a software development company. Our incredibly strong U.S.-based development team can work with you and your clients to develop new innovations for your kiosk applications and also integrate existing company systems.
These innovations have allowed businesses to integrate their point of sale systems to pull real-time price and availability data, which is key to generating more revenue at the kiosk level. This is just a simple example of how Skykit is empowering their customers by continuing to push forward with new innovations.
Thinking of Implementing Kiosks?
Given the rapid evolution of the market during the pandemic, it’s safe to say that the interactive kiosk solution is not going anywhere. Kiosks solidified themselves as a great revenue generator well before the pandemic, and vendors and customers alike have already reimagined their purpose. Kiosks are not only beneficial during a stable economy – they’ve become a true necessity to keep businesses open during an unstable one.
Are you thinking about implementing an interactive kiosk solution into your business practices? Reach out to the Skykit team to discuss your project needs and schedule a demo!
