What to Consider Before You Build a Self-Ordering Kiosk

According to several articles, there is an unprecedented impact from implementing self ordering kiosks. It was shown that adopting an automated self-checkout process increases sales, service quality, customer satisfaction and retention. We will explore all the factors to consider when you are ready to benefit from self checkouts in your business.

Design and User Experience

You want to provide a personalized design to your customer with your own logo, tagline, and color palette that is unique to your store. You also have a specific workflow that allows you to maximize your profit and the user satisfaction. This is a critical step toward building a winning self-ordering kiosk and failing to create a coherent and self-explanatory workflow will make it really hard for your customers to use the system.

Hardware

Consumers will interact better with a heavy duty and robust solution, otherwise it will be hard for them to engage with your automated process. Sometimes a customized tablet kiosk is required and you have to build a specific model for your store and use case.

Accessibility is another factor that you need to consider. Everyone should be able to use your kiosks and to back that up, the designs have to meet the height and reach standards set in the Americans with Disabilities Act. “The ADA was revised in 2012 to help create buildings and facilities that are accessible to more than 54 million Americans with disabilities.” as mentioned by the iPadKiosk firm we are partnered with.

Strong Software Solution and Best Support

Remember back in the 90's when everyone built a website and a few years later their websites looked very old? Well… it looks like there are still some ancient abandoned websites that work. What about all the websites that were built with Adobe Flash and stopped working overnight? Yes, you don’t want your self checkout to look ancient a year after you build it and you want a strong platform and company to support it.

Deploying a solution that is compatible with your hardware (e.g. printers, payment processing devices) is another task that you need to consider. You will need to make sure that the updates are applied to all of your stations at once. This requires a strong and flexible deployment solution.

Integrated Extensible Solution

Like your website, a self-checkout is a “live” system that requires integrations to third party solutions like marketing platforms to support discounts and coupons. Payments providers such as Square, Card Connect and Worldpay change their service from time to time and require apps to update their code base. You don’t want to chase after technology.

Another good example of an integrated solution is mobile ordering that allows you to engage with your customer after using your self-checkout system. In many cases, chains ask to create a mobile ordering workflow that has the same look and feel of their self-checkout system.

The solution is to pick a strong platform and company that is dedicated to a self-service development that is always innovating and working around improving the eco-system of their platform.

If you are ready to build your self-checkout, create a digital kitchen with Bump KDS for Square.