Here is a rundown of the answer to: ‘What is a kiosk?’
ki.osk
/’ke, ask/
noun
a small open-fronted hut or cubicle from which newspapers, refreshments, tickets, etc., are sold.
Types of Kiosks
- food vendor
- British telephone booth
- news stand
- counter (with a person standing there, arguably staring into your soul)
Digital Kiosks (with a computer)
Some of the kiosks you may recognize on a daily basis.
- ATM Machines: The one that spits money at you
- E-Kiosks: bill pay, kiosk software, financial, etc.
- POS (Point of Sale) Terminals: contact info, loyalty cards, mostly seen in retail sectors.
- Food order kiosk: Like all those McDonald’s articles you saw on Facebook
- Gaming kiosk: Kind of like arcade games, typically gambling related.
- Parking kiosk: you give it money and it gives you a slip to show that you paid to park
- Check-in kiosk: checking into the doctor’s office, a hotel, the deli line
- Information kiosk: can be used for specific or general knowledge i.e an office lobby
- Gift Registry kiosk: potentially found at Baby’s R Us to look at the gift registry for the baby shower you’re going to so you don’t get the wrong thing
- Coin kiosk: Like the coinstar you used to clean out your car/ make it rain in pennies
- Prison kiosk: (I don’t know you) but they’re used for video visitations
- Photo kiosk: The photo booths at the mall or the arcade by the beach
- Survey kiosk: used to improve response rate and also restrict you from writing in “you stink” on our surveys
What are the benefits of digital kiosks?
- Higher buy and return rate
- Time-efficient
- Economic
- Environmentally Sustainable
- Convenient
- Organized
- Self-Service based
The truth is, kiosks will probably never be quite as good as good old face-to-face interaction for some activities. The whole point is to show people you care about them and their time, by using tools like a digital kiosk to make the tedious things easier and faster to do. Digital kiosks are all around a pretty awesome source of service that is both money saving and planet saving.
For a brief video overview, see our New to Kiosks page.
