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More and more retailers are using self-serve kiosks to provide a better, more convenient and of course more efficient purchasing experience.  It's a little impersonal, but people are becoming more comfortable with the concept.  For example, I can't remember the last time I actually spoke to someone at the bank, or was home in time to see a bank actually open.   ATMs (bank machines) are now the defacto way of withdrawing money 24/7.  In fact, while at the bank a few weeks ago, I saw people standing in line and forgot that you can actually pay bills there.

While the banking industry lead the charge out of the gates, retailers have started pulling ahead, way ahead.  Would you believe that Hero Burger has interactive kiosks for you to play with while standing in line waiting to pay?  It was pretty neat, and for the 45 seconds I was standing in line, I actually wasn't bored to tears staring off into space waiting to pay for my burger - my eyes were drawn to the kiosk that exists between the order counter, and the cash register.  It displayed movie trailers and targeted advertising - and had a captive audience!

Home Depot, Loblaws and a few other big retailers have made a leaps into the kiosk business with mixed results.  While I always see people using the self-checkout machines, people seem to prefer a real cashier.  The self-service kiosk seems to make the purchase process slightly longer, as it barks orders at me to place the purchased item in the bag (but I just DID put it in the bag!).  I also struggle to understand the advantage of a kiosk in that type of environment - each machine offsets a single employee, and 4 machines seem to require 1 employee for support.  So it saves 3 front-line employee salaries, but adds capital costs plus technical support, and doesn't really benefit the customer at all - other than a shorter line because no one wants to use them.   hmm...

I think it makes sense (right now) to utilize kiosks to facilitate purchasing when the purchase process is simple and contained.  The movies is a perfect example - high volumes of people make purchases of an essentially electronic product at infrequent times.

Some businesses go half way...  I've recently heard that Tim Hortons will be introducing pay stations at their restaurants to allow for quick Mastercard PayPass transactions.  This makes sense.  Tim Hortons business is based on $2 purchases, so they must go through customers as fast as possible to be profitable.  Introducing a contactless pay station to accept credit cards is ideal - it probably takes less time to swipe/touch a card to a reader than it does to prepare change for a $2 sale.  I am interested in how this affects their profitability.

The message I am trying to send is that an improvement should not be made for the sake of making it, rather it should solve a (fairly) well understood problem.  In Tim Hortons case - it was to accept credit cards, or improve efficiency.  In the movie business, it was to increase overall transaction capacity.

A well understood problem generally starts with the big picture, then focuses in on the bottlenecks - so your bottlenecks or problem areas have context.  Focusing on the bottlenecks alone, i.e. Home Depot or Loblaws, might result in other problems.  Given 'Depots wide range of products, maybe self-checkouts would be better served with RF product tags - so you just cruise your cart up to the self-checkout, it calculates everything magically, including the nails in your pocket, and asks for your credit card.   If it worked, that would be an improvement to both the customer AND the business.

In a previous post about Usability Lessons Through a Cup of Coffee, a small change made a big difference to a much more complicated system.  In fact, my Second Cup around the corner just made the same change and I'm loving them for it.

Posted at 08:50 AM in General | Permalink