As much as a self service kiosk sounds like a promising integration into your business, use it incorrectly and it could leave you out of pocket.

Many people fail to identify that in this day and age technology has advanced rapidly and children are growing up knowing it as well as they do the english language.

Here is an outline of the most common mistakes people make when installing a self service kiosk and how you can prevent these problems from occuring.

1. Failing to present a truly compelling offer to the customer dwnload avatar movie

Many businesses rely on the idea that people use kiosks purely because they are a ”cool” and “quirky” new technology. In this instance, many businesses leave the kiosk to its own devices and offer the same standard services which the customer can receive elsewhere.

A self service kiosk adopted into a store is designed to make shopping easier for the consumer without directly affecting their shopping habits. The second it becomes a hindrance is when consumers will use other methods to pay or worst still shop somewhere else.

For example, when redbox rolled out their DVD rental kiosks, they believed that the convenience of renting a dvd in the supermarket was so compelling  to consumers they could charge a standard rental fee of $3.99 and succeed.

Eventually reality hit and they had to decrease the price to $1 per day for users to completely change their rental habits and use the kiosk as it was more convenient and cost effective.

2. Relying on intangibles for an attractive ROI

Many businesses who implement kiosks into their business rely on inconclusive figures to retrieve an attractive ROI.

For example, many people assume that if the kiosk helps build the brand, extend the company’s reach or improve the customer experience in turn it will translate to a bigger bottom line.

While all of these items are important when installing a kiosk, it is difficult to find the funding if kiosk installers don’t provide strong data driven evidence of these benefits and how they will help increase profit.

To avoid this, deployers should spend just as much time on the planning the front end of the kiosk as they do planning the actual kiosk system and what it includes.

It is all well if a business designs and implements a self service kiosk flawlessly but if it does not illustrate its advantages then it could lost its potential funding.

A good way to show how kiosks will increase ROI is to conduct a third party consumer survey firm to gather evidence of a possible kiosks success.

3. Failing to differentiate between the pilot stage and the scaling stage

The objective during the pilot stage should be simple and straight forward-deployers must determine whether they have received enough consumer interest to make worthwhile the additional time and resources the scaling stage will require. This means looking at the ongoing costs, staffing and operation of the kiosks following rollout.

4. Failing to realise that the first attempt will be flawed

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The first time you roll out a kiosk won’t be perfect as mistakes will only appear when customers have tried and tested the technology.

Some kiosk installers will spend too much time with market research and focus groups which don’t necessarily bring money to the business.

A good way is to get it out on the market at its earliest convenience and see what real consumers think of it and how it could improve as its their opinion that matters the most.

5. Building the Eiffel Tower then placing it next to the storage cupboard

Kiosks are a new and improved form of retail and the essentials to retail is location! location! location! It is completely pointless spending copious amounts of time developing a kiosk to have it sat in the corner of the store out of sight and out of mind.

Careless placement of a kiosk can leave businesses believing the kiosk was a failure and either changing the whole design and development or getting rid of it completely.

Placing it in areas that have high volumes of traffic and target your specific market will be the best solution in order for consumers to get the best out of your business.

For more information about self service kiosks and other kiosk news visit Protouch.