Bruce Leach asked:


Interactive kiosks are an easy-to-use tool that should be incorporated into every retailer’s sales force. Acting as virtual salespeople, they help keep customers informed, entertained and happy.

Why Interactive Technology Is Needed

Use of the Internet has forced retailers to respond to two new realities. First, customers are extremely knowledgeable about the products on offer. Second, Web access to a store’s complete inventory has led customers to expect access to everything in the catalogue at the bricks and mortar store.

Interactive kiosks present a single solution that can both improve the customer experience and satisfy customer needs.

Expert Customers

Many customers research products online before ever setting foot in a store. They know many of the features of the products they are shopping for, and they expect the salespeople to know them too. If they have questions, they do not want to hear a salesperson say “I don’t know”, especially when they can look up the information on the Web themselves.

The retailer’s solution to the “expert customer” should be to provide well-informed and well-trained staff. But that is not realistic. Sales positions have notoriously high turnover rates. It is also unreasonable to expect an average store employee to have detailed knowledge of every product a store stocks. Further, with many chains concerned about the bottom line, a full complement of staff has become a bit of a luxury.

Given all of these considerations, it is easy to see how interactive kiosks can help a retailer. They stand in for salespeople when staffing levels are low or when a salesperson doesn’t know the product line well. They give a customer the freedom to look up answers to questions without feeling pressured by a salesperson. They provide an opportunity to educate customers about product features through entertaining short video or animated segments. And they allow the retailer to promote sales and higher-margin items.

Product Selection

We’ve probably all experienced the frustration of seeing the exact item we want on a store’s Website only to go to the store and find that it isn’t there. In an effort to remedy this situation, some stores provide online access to inventory information so customers know ahead of time if something is in stock. This option may help the customer, but by stopping the customer from coming to the store, the retailer loses a valuable opportunity to make a sale.

Using their Website to draw customers, retailers can rely on interactive kiosks located in-store to close the sale. With interactive kiosks, customers are given the convenience of ordering an alternate product (or a higher-margin item) even if it is not in stock at the time. Because it is available when the customer is motivated to buy, the kiosk allows for impulse ordering. Without the kiosk, that customer would leave the store, have time to rethink the purchase and, perhaps, decide against it.

Hybrid Digital Signs

A recent innovation combines the power of digital signage with the functionality of interactive kiosks. Sometimes referred to as “hybrid digital signs”, this technology uses large digital displays to draw a customer’s attention. It then switches content based on shopper input, either through a touch screen or as a reaction to the motion of a customer who is passing by. The blending of digital signage and interactive kiosks offers retailers the best of both worlds - maximum reach with a personal touch.

No matter what format it takes, the interactive kiosk is the solution retailers need to keep pace with their well-informed customers.



Carol