Increasingly, kiosks are being embraced in a wide variety of industries, yielding many benefits to businesses and consumers alike. Today we share a few hospitality market trends driven by self-service kiosks.
Quicker Service. F&B venues, such as cafeterias or fast-casual establishments with traditional counter service, are implementing POS kiosks for line-busting purposes. Cafeterias are notoriously busy spaces, often with 90% of a day’s customers arriving at once. Places with buffets quickly have bottlenecks forming at the POS. Adding kiosks can relieve the pressure on staff and add flexibility by enabling consumers to enter any items they want. They can even pay directly at the kiosk with the confidence and security of EMV-capable and PCI-validated payments. Guests use them to transmit orders directly to the kitchen, giving staff the ability to serve more guests in a single meal period. Guests place orders and pay at a kiosk rather than waiting in line at the counter. This faster service leads to happier guests.
Increased Revenue. Self-service food kiosks are affecting a consumer’s buying habits. Restaurants benefit by giving customers the ability to order an additional drink or appetizer any time they’re ready, increasing the size of their orders and boosting revenue. Reports indicate that consumers typically spend an average of 20% more when ordering through self-service kiosks over those placed at traditional cashiers. With figures like that, it’s no wonder that there has been a steady growth in the demand for self-order kiosks across industries.
Flexible 24/7 Service. Locations with a need for late night or early morning service, when staff levels are generally low, can be costly to staff around the clock. Wherever workers work second and third shifts, for example, kiosks keep employees from having to wander too far for nourishment, coffee or something else to keep them going. Adding a cloud-based self-service kiosk can help keep costs under control while enabling employees to get what they need 24×7.
The advantages of guest- and staff-facing kiosks aren’t limited to these examples. Kiosks can reduce the burden on staff in many other applications that make the experiences more convenient for guests as well.