Self-service solutions seem to be available everywhere these days. You can find eye exam kiosks in convenient locations such as chemists, some parts of town are using kiosks to enable bike sharing, and even some bars and nightclubs are using kiosks to determine if late-night revellers have had one to many to drive home.

One of the fastest growing verticals for self-service screens has been libraries. Many are installing kiosks to help streamline a variety of processes – in the hopes of reducing costs and improving the customer experience. Customers may use the kiosks to place holds on books, to pay fines, and to check out books. Some locations are even closing smaller libraries and replacing them with vending kiosks that actually dispense books. The face of the traditional library is changing, and its long-term viability may be at stake.

For those who continue to utilize the library, there’s great news! Thanks to technology investments, it’s becoming much easier – the self-service kiosks make the trip more convenient than ever. And, thanks to the kiosks enabling less complex tasks, librarians will have more time to spend with customers who need specialized services.

South Africa’s Southern Sun Hotels’ Sandton City is launching what it bills as “Africa’s very first hotel self check-in and check-out kiosks,” according to the chain’s Facebook page – nicely timed for the 2010 World Cup that begins in June.

The touchscreeen-enabled kiosk allows guests to check-in and out and to perform certain in-house hotel functions within the hotel environment. Guests can check in by identifying themselves by reservation number or credit card, and then the kiosk integrates with the hotel’s operational system, allocates a room, authorizes a debit or credit and dispenses a room key card. Check-out follows a similar identification process.

“Our guests already use self check-in facilities at airports and the movies, and at economy, economy plus and brand hotels overseas. Generally, they welcome technology that enables them to ‘do it themselves’ – not to mention quickly,” said Southern Sun managing director Graham Wood.

For those seeking a human interaction, Garden Court Sandton City hostesses will continue to provide check-in services at reception, and will also be available to assist customers with the self check-in terminals if needed.

More than 80 percent of wine and spirits shoppers would use a self-service kiosk for product information such as tasting notes, food pairing recommendations and cellaring guidelines, according to early results in an ongoing survey being conducted by RetailCustomerExperience.com.

The survey found that while 74 percent of shoppers have asked for assistance and more than 70 percent rated the service as “excellent” or “good,” the majority of shoppers (82 percent) would “absolutely” or “probably” use such a kiosk for information and that more than 53 percent would “absolutely” or “probably” purchase a greeting card from the kiosk with this information on it.

“With over 98 percent of respondents saying they have shopped for wine or spirits to give as a gift or take to a dinner party, a self-serve kiosk supports the need for accessible product information with the convenience of providing a greeting card all at once,” said David Weinberg, president of the survey’s sponsor, Curiosk Marketing Solutions Inc.

Respondents made their wine or spirits purchases in various store types, with the top four being privately owned or government-run specialty wine and spirits shops (95 percent), grocery stores (68 percent), winery tasting rooms (65 percent) and mass merchants (44 percent).

So you’ve got your kiosk and now it’s all up to you. How can you truly maximise the investment you’ve put in? Kiosk deployment can be quite a complicated affair, and a successful rollout is never a guarantee.

To help you minimise deployment difficulties, here are five key issues that normally hamper a kiosk’s potential so be aware:

- A failure to present a truly compelling offer to the customer

- Relying on intangibles for an attractive return on investment

- A failure to differentiate between the pilot stage and the scaling stage

- Forgetting that the first roll-out will never be perfect

- A failure to effectively locate kiosks

For advice on kiosks and their deployment, contact Protouch; market leaders in self-service technology.

Love them or hate them, you’ll be seeing even more self-service checkouts in 2010 after NCR, the American technology company behind 80% of the UK’s self-service checkouts, predicted a 50% increase in UK sales of the self-service scanning machines that have become a feature of stores nationwide.

Customers have been fairly torn on the issue; some get sick of the ‘unexpected item in bagging area’ message and prefer communicating with people, whereas a growing number are getting self-service-savvy, whizzing through the kiosk lanes and are waving goodbye to busy staffed checkouts. In total, 7,000 machines have been installed in supermarkets since their introduction in 2002, expected to more than double to 15,000 in the next three years, according to Retail Banking Knowledge.

According to Elton Birden, the managing director of NCR in Britain: “Self-service checkouts will revolutionise retail in the same way that self-service supermarkets did 60 years ago. It’s going to be a combination of existing customers rolling out and new users. It’s still a small percentage of the overall checkout.”

Not many industries can count 2009 as even a decent year, considering the gloomy economic downturn that struck fear into suits all over the world, but the kiosk business is one of them.

It’s natural that deployments have been put on hold because of tight credit and companies have been forced to “trim the fat” as they struggled through the global recession, but kiosk developers with compelling value propositions have reaped the benefits of cost-conscious deployers and consumers alike.

Two of the obvious self-service superstars of 2009 are Coinstar and redbox, who have never had a better year, all because they made consumers an offer they cannot refuse, especially when times are tight. Coinstar, in particular, is of course directly tuned into those who are looking to save money by converting their copper shrapnel pennies into pounds.

Whereas Redbox have recently posted impressive statistics for their DVD rentals throughout 2009, renting out over 450 million DVD’s.  Many believe the economic climate has resulted in an increase of customers; this seems likely considering their $1 a night rental service.

More importantly, however, more deployers are becoming convinced of self-service’s lasting positive impact on their bottom lines. Self-checkout deployments continue to grow because retailers simply cannot ignore the rise in customer satisfaction and the dip in labour costs that follow deployment.

The same can be said for airline self-check-in, photo kiosks and patient self-service, to name a few. It’s not often that an innovation that benefits a retailer so dramatically also pleases consumers and improves their experiences at retail. Thanks in part to a financial landscape that has forced some tough decisions, more and more retailers continue to realize that self-service does just that.

Movie-rental giant Blockbuster has rolled out its plans for next year, which will see them go touch-screen kiosk crazy!

They’ll be throwing money at their new Blockbuster Express campaign with an increased amount of automated kiosks as well as maxing out their Blockbuster on-demand digital streaming offering.

At present, their physical points’ presence stands at 2,500 Blockbuster Express branded kiosks and by early 2010, they’ll be unleashing their first 24-hour automated retail store.

James Keyes, CEO of Blockbuster, says: “We are working hard to take the multi-channel approach to the next level by providing the customer with flexibility, control, and ease-of-use. Through our planned integration of stores by mail, vending, kiosks, digital services, we intend to utilise a centralised customer database to realise supply chain efficiencies and ultimately to deliver a superior customer experience.”

Cardiff Airport is the latest in a long line of British airports to introduce self-service passport gates and they finally came into operation today.

Passengers travelling through the Welsh capital airport took on the role of guinea pigs as they approached gates fitted with face-recognition software, designed to fast-track people who possess the new biometric passports.

Like something out of US TV series 24, the new digital scanners electronically examine a traveller’s face and dip into data held on an electronic chip fitted in the new-style passports since 2006. The info is then run past international security watch-lists before the passenger is allowed through – all without the need for one-to-one checks and searches.

The technology has already been used by more than 860,000 passengers in nine airports across the UK. In light of terrorism attacks in recent years, and the ongoing threat, the new scanners will make one of tightest security borders in the world even more protectec by using the latest technology.

Whitbread, the leisure group which includes Costa Coffee shops, Premier Inn hotels and the Beefeater restaurants, has recently announced that they are to focus on improving self service enquiries and bookings as the hotel chain faces a financial struggle.

Premier Inn is the largest division of Whitbread in number of sales and saw a 10 per cent drop in the first half of 2009 and a drop in like-for-like sales.

“We have widened our online booking distribution channels, bringing in new revenue streams and introducing new leisure customers to the brand,” Whitbread said in its first half results.

And long-standing Whitbread CIO Ben Wishart has been focussing on improving productivity and processes across the group including self service kiosks and increasing web services.

Now this story is nothing new in the world of business as many companies are cutting back costs in order to keep expenditure low.

However, the budget hotel chain has picked up increased business traveller custom as all companies rein in costs, but has seen overall business decline.

Now it may be a long shot but earlier this year the hotel chain launched a trial of self check-in at five hotels across the UK. The innovative technology reduced waiting time for guests to under a minute and was a great asset to business travellers who wanted a quick and easy check-in.

Paul Canavan, Project Manager for Premier Inn commented earlier this year, “Premier Inn checks in over 23,000 guests every day across the UK, and as the UK’s leading hotel brand we continually innovate to meet the changing needs of our guests.

“Feedback has shown that business travellers like the time saving benefits that the kiosks provide, whilst leisure guests benefit not only from this but also from the increased accessibility, interaction and level of good service they have with team members at the guest workstation.”

Bob Cotton, Chief Executive of the British Hospitality Association commented, “It’s great to see Premier Inn investing in innovative technology. These kiosks will undoubtedly increase the level of service offered by Premier Inn – delivering a fast, efficient and speedier experience at check-in.”

Now with business traveller custom picking up and kiosks proving a success for business guests then it doesn’t take a genius to put them both together.

We can’t completely say that this is the whole reason why the company has received profit in business traveller sales, but it must of made an impact if they keep coming back and using the hotel services again.