Consumers actively seek convenience in retail to make their experience smoother and more efficient. Saving time at the airport, refueling cars, or ordering a meal means more time to do the things they enjoy. By prioritizing convenience, they can focus on the things that truly matter to them, whether spending time with loved ones, pursuing hobbies, or simply relaxing.
Fortunately, we live in an age where retail technology can facilitate consumer efficiency. Automation and self-serve kiosks deliver convenience in retail, banking, hospitality, transportation, healthcare, or customer service. They allow us to self-serve, engage, interact, and search for information effortlessly and at our own pace.
From a business perspective, kiosk solutions contribute to customer satisfaction and provide an alternative means of brand interaction. Additionally, these devices prove convenient for business owners by reducing human error, providing more opportunities for upselling, better use of staff time and potentially increasing sales by serving more customers simultaneously.
According to Forrester, in 2023, we will see retailers and brands taking advantage of new opportunities for incremental revenue, transforming their business models to capture additional market share, and implementing cost-saving innovations for operational survival. Forrester predicts that automation will be the savior for continued retail labor shortages in corporate arenas and in-store.
This combination of evolving consumer habits, the desire to self-serve and seek out convenience, business objectives, and wider scale adoption is seeing automation and kiosk technologies evolve with market demands.
The ongoing evolution of hardware and software means that today’s kiosks come in various sizes and formats with everything from motion, touch screen, touch-free, and voice-controlled interfaces available, giving organizations more flexibility when implementing solutions to suit their specific business needs and audience habits.
While kiosk technology facilitates consumer purchasing experiences and supports sales, there is a realm of technical, environmental, and compliance complexity behind their development. System integrators and OEMs often find kiosk projects overwhelming. They traditionally approach these projects by involving numerous stakeholders to create a single solution, making the integration process cumbersome and challenging.
Depending on the installation environment and implementation scale, they must address design, operational, component, manufacturing, and installation considerations. The challenge continues beyond there as units in the field will require servicing, which is critical to handle during the design phase.
Arrow works with system integrators and hardware and software providers, including Intel® and Systium, to provide complete self-service kiosk ecosystems. We provide full support from design and components to manufacturing, delivery, and servicing. Our combination of experience, knowledge, and access to the latest technology means that we can help you develop the right solution for the right environment and in the right time frame.
In our webcast, Mastering Self-service Kiosk Creation: Innovations, Insights, and Ecosystem Approach, with Intel and Systium, we address:
- Ways to overcome the complexities of creating self-service kiosks
- The benefits of a partner approach
- Deploying and servicing kiosks at scale
- Accelerating time to market
