Kiosks and ATMs seem to be the topics of the week and we’re adding to that. We found an interesting story about a Smart Service Kiosk being used by a car dealer, in this case a US Ford dealer in Michigan, that is using a kiosk-based car drop off and collection point. The system was developed in collaboration with Panasonic. There’s a video at the bottom of this article.
Separately, the custom sandwich store, Subway, has installed around 50 self-ordering kiosks for testing of the technology to improve the customer experience, according to Bloomberg. One of the advantages that has been highlighted is that the kiosks can handle language issues (QSRs tend to have a high usage by recent immigrants) and make orders more accurate. It also has the potential to boost sales of extras and add-ons. The kiosks come from Armodilo. Subway is reported to have dropped in sales for the last three years.
Analyst Comment
The language issue reminded me that some thirty years ago, I was in a QSR in California with some colleagues from my Japanese employer. One of them received a Strawberry Shake that he hadn’t ordered – it turned out that the employee misheard his request to use travellers’ cheques! (If you are a young reader and you don’t know what a traveller’s cheque is, ask your parents 🙂 )
I’m also reminded of an incident that highlights the different points of view of those that are ‘tech savvy’ and those that are not. Three of us arrived at Berlin’s Schonefeld airport after Easyjet had installed self-service check-ins. At the same instant that we saw the change, two of us said “Great”, while the other was terrified and went immediately to join the queue for the service desk and help with the process. The best businesses will develop systems that suit everyone.
