Kiosks, whether you notice it or not, are becoming more and more popular in day to day life. We tend to think of a kiosk as a small hut like retail outlet selling newspapers and magazines, but modern day kiosks, take a computerised electronic form. Wherever we go there are kiosks that you probably walk past everyday including ATM machines, photo printing machines, self-service checkouts at the supermarkets; all of these machines are kiosks that perform a simple service, fast and efficiently.

Why Have Kiosks become so popular?

As with most things, it has taken a long time for Kiosks to become common place. Think back to the first time you used an ATM machine? Many years, even a couple of decades ago right? Those old machines used small CRT monitors with simple green displays. With the advent of high-brightness colour LCD screens ATM's were able to provide more services with graphics to make for a really pleasant user interface. It has taken all this time for the general public to build trust of kiosks to serve them. However as public confidence has grown and the production costs have reduced, the floodgates have opened up for kiosk usage in other 'customer service' roles.

How Kiosks Benefit General Public

For a customer, the great thing about kiosks is that they are predictable - when we have used one a couple of times we know how it works and what happens next.

They are never rude. All customer have experienced poor customer service from a sales person at one time or another, kiosks are always polite and carry out the service they provide.

Self service kiosks in the supermarkets are often called the 'Quick Checkouts'; this is because the kiosks work quickly and efficiently. It doesn't deviate from its 'service script' and it doesn't slow down towards the end of a busy working shift.

Information point kiosks allow the general public to access information in a impartial and confidential way. Users may seek information from a kiosk that they wouldn't want to ask in person to a member of staff. Access to the internet can be provided in a secure and safe way with access limited to suitable websites only and service providers can make a charge for usage.

Why business owners are seeing Kiosks as an essential tool

Kiosks can be built with kiosk software for any sort of application you can think of, which means a kiosk is able to fill the gap in the workforce that take pressure off the rest of the team. This leaves staff free to deal with more complex customer service tasks to re-deploy in a sales role.

This means that more work can be completed in a day.

Additionally having a kiosk is cost effective, there is an initial outlay for the machine to be set up and installed, however this is considerably less then employing another member of staff and it reaps the same rewards.

What Happens when a Kiosks isn't being Used?

When a Kiosk isn't being used, it doesn't mean that it has to be standing idle, it can default to an advertising mode sowing images and information about the service it can perform and inviting customers to come along and try it. This encourages people who may not have tried the kiosk to come over and interact. In this way the kiosks can help to in increase the customer base and cut down on customers waiting time to be served.