Offering a seamless and satisfactory customer experience at all touch points is crucial for any business’s success. With the rise of technology, social media and deep penetration of internet the customer behavior have been changed. Now a day’s customers admire and prefer digital experience over conventional interaction with the business. This gave rise to self-service technologies and compel businesses to adopt to modern practices, technologies and automation. The self-service payment kiosk is a combination of automated systems and tools which enable a customer to perform a task such as avail a service, make a payment, update information, etc. without any help or assistance from the staff. The customers also prefer self-service because it offers them more freedom and control over their experience. The businesses operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi or any other emirate of UAE, are eagerly seeking ways to gain competitive advantage, the customers don’t hesitate to switch if they are unhappy or have a bad experience with a business. That is why the customer experience and satisfactory service is absolutely essential for the success in UAE.
What is a Self-Service Payment Kiosk?
The self-service kiosk is a computer terminal equipped with specialized software and hardware that lets your customer interact with the system using intuitive touch-screen UIs and user-friendly peripherals. A self-service payment kiosk is just a type of interactive self-service kiosk which allow your customers to make payments directly through the kiosk. This payment can be for acquiring new services, buying goods, or paying subscription charges, etc. The customers can perform various tasks at interactive self-service payment kiosk such as accessing information, signing in to their customer portal/account, making payments, receiving payments, vending cards & goods, scanning documents, updating information, filling in forms, and much more. The interactive self-service payment kiosks are designed to offer simplified operations with intuitive multi-lingual user interfaces, on-screen instructions and various other features which make customer experience better. The simply user interfaces and guidance facilitate customer experience and enable them to perform various tasks with utmost privacy, accuracy and without any fear of disclosing their information with another human.
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What are the Benefits of Using Self-Service Payment Kiosks?
According to several market studies the self-service interactive kiosk market was valued at around 12 Billion by 2020 and is expected to double by the 2030. According to customer surveys and market research almost 40 to 70 percent of the customers prefer a self-service kiosk instead of going to a customer service counters. Different industries would have different amount of customers preferring interactive self-service kiosks but one this is certain that all industries are witnessing more demand of self-service kiosks. Here are some of the key benefits of using interactive self-service payment kiosks for your business:
Better Customer Experience
According to studies the customers prefer to use an interactive self-service payment kiosks just to save time and to access services more quickly and conveniently. The self-service payment kiosks also offer customers more freedom and control over their transaction and interaction. Furthermore the interactive self-service payment kiosks comes with a powerful software which can recall and analyze past interactions and help businesses offering more personalized experience to each customer. Personalized experience help businesses increase customer satisfaction. When you cater customers with the relevant information, products, services and offers, your sales increase. Furthermore they waiting time is also very less comparing to traditional queues. Usually the customers can get access to service and information instantly without any waiting. That is why customers also prefer interactive self-service kiosks.
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Higher Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI)
When a customer is having an interaction with a service agent, there are several factors that can effect customer experience. For example, the customers might feel pressure of waiting customers, and avoid asking too many questions or they have already waited long enough that now they want to go which could be the reason customers don’t ask much to service agents. The interactive self-service payment kiosks not only offer freedom and control over customer experience but also allow them to independently navigate through different features and information which help them look up for other products/services or add-ons which is also beneficial for the business and help increasing the per-sale volume. Furthermore the customers can access interactive self-service payment kiosks any time they want, the kiosks can operate 24/7. Easy access and availability help maximizing customer engagements and customer satisfaction.
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Operational Cost Reduction
The interactive self-service payment kiosks help businesses minimize their operational cost. Businesses can save a lot of human resource by implementing interactive self-service payment kiosks. It will not only help them reduce the labor cost but it will also help them improving resource management. Businesses don’t have to hire new staff, instead they can compensate their service centers’ workload by implementing the interactive self-service payment kiosks. The interactive self-service payment kiosks can operate 24/7, they require very less maintenance and can last for years, which greatly increase their ROI. Furthermore businesses doesn’t have to pay salary or other expense which help them optimizing the operational cost and also decrease per-service cost. The initial cost of implementing a self-service payment kiosks is also less, which makes them ideal solution for reducing operational cost.
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Improve Service Quality
The interactive self-service payment kiosks comes with a very powerful software which can be integrated with the third-party tools and central information center. This help businesses digitalize several internal processes. Digitalization and automation drives efficiency and improve performance. The biggest advantage of self-service payment kiosks is that it prevent common problems such as accuracy and help eliminating the human-error form the system by allowing customers to input their information and data by themselves. The service delivery is instant, there is no human involves so all processes are automated which help improving the service quality and customer experience. Furthermore the interactive self-service payment kiosks can offer personalized customer experience and provide them targeted information and content which also improve their experience and service quality.
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Data Collection and Analytics
The interactive self-service payment kiosks can provide a wealth of business intelligence data which help management improve their strategies and processes for enhanced customer experience. The backend software engine can collect insight and business intelligence data from each and every touch point during the customer journey and help management understand the customer behavior, their needs, demands and trends. The data collection and insight is also very helpful in identifying the areas of improvement and help businesses keep improving their processes and service delivery mechanisms. Furthermore businesses can also use the in-built data analytics and reporting tools to understand their audience which is essential for targeted campaigns and help businesses generate more leads and sales. The management can also make more informed decisions based on the business intelligence data collected from payment kiosks.
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What are the Different Types of Self-Service Payment Kiosks?
We can categorize interactive self-service payment kiosks on the bases of their design or application.
By design there are three types:
- Indoor Payment Kiosks: The indoor are designed to be used in indoors
- Outdoor Payment Kiosks: The outdoor self-service payment kiosks are designed to be used in outdoors, exposed to weather, temperature and dust.
- Customized Payment Kiosks: The customized interactive self-service payment kiosks are tailor-made solutions and exclusively designed as per the business needs, can be both indoors and outdoors.
When it comes to application there are so many different types of interactive self-service payment kiosks. Here are a few most commonly used self-service payment kiosks by industry and application:
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- Bill Payment Kiosks: The bill payment kiosks are the most common type of interactive self-service payment kiosks. These are used to pay utility bills, mobile top-ups and options to pay for various other services.
- Food Ordering Kiosks: The food ordering kiosks are used by fast-food restaurants all around the UAE. These kiosks allow users to choose their meal from interactive menus, customize their order and also use reward points along with various other features.
- Corporate Kiosks: Businesses and corporate sector use different kind of interactive self-service payment kiosks to offer quick services for their customers and even for the employees.
- Government Services: Different government departments and offices provide interactive self-service payment kiosk to allow customers and visitors to pay for government services, for registration processes and to acquire information.
- Banking Kiosks: The banking sector pioneered the interactive self-service kiosk industry. The ATMs, CDMs and other banking kiosks are the examples of interactive self-service payment kiosks at banks. Banks also use customized payment kiosks for improved customer experience.
- Registration Kiosk: The interactive self-service payment kiosks are also used for registration when registration fee is required. This types of payment kiosks are used for exhibitions, events, and other such applications.
- Self-Check In Kiosks: The self-check in kiosks are equipped with additional features such as EID reader, passport scanner, etc. The customers can make payments and input information to complete the check-in process. These are used by hotels, airports and various other industries.
- Vending Machines: The small goods vending machines which dispense food, cold drinks, small goods, and stuff are also a type of interactive self-service payment kiosks. User can simply pay via cash or card to get the items they want.
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Above are some of the most commonly used interactive self-service payment kiosks. There are several other applications and above all businesses can customize these payment kiosks as per their needs. Which is why adaptation of interactive self-service payment kiosks is rapidly increasing.
Conclusion
Businesses are continuously seeking ways and technologies which can help them optimize their productivity, performance, and operational cost. The customer experience and customer satisfaction are some of the most crucial factors for a business’s success. Happy and satisfied customers mean more business and such customers tend to promote their favorite brands as well which help building a good brand image. The self-service technologies have completely revolutionized the way business and customers interact. With every passing day more and more customers are interested in having digital and self-service experience and preferring self-service over customer service counters. That is why businesses in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and other parts of UAE have started implementing interactive self-service payment kiosks. The self-service payment kiosks are intuitive, offer more freedom, improve customer experience, minimize errors and also reduce per-service cost. That is why both businesses and customers love to use interactive self-service payment kiosks. In this blog we tried to cover all important details about payment kiosks. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design a customized interactive self-service payment kiosk for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.
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