How to set up a self-service kiosk for your business using Hexnode MDM?

Self-service kiosk, a new take on enhancing your customer experience.  Possibly the most high-tech way in the world to create your own burger, whether you like an old classic, maybe you’ve been a big mac guy mm-hmmm. Maybe it’s all about the quarter pounder or maybe you wanna get with that new stuff, the signature stuff. Maybe you like a little BBQ sauce. There’s nothing wrong with that.

The best part for you tech heads is that you get to do it all yourself on a giant touchscreen. What you end up choosing is between you and the touchscreen.

McDonalds has reinvented the way we look at fast food stores with stores getting faster than ever. Select what you want, get it served at your table or in a bag for you to take home and enjoy. All this with little to no human interaction. The introvert in me just lit up like a Christmas tree.

A faster checkout is not the only benefit of having a self-service kiosk. Employee management, not the most ideal case but you can let go of some of the weaker ones and send the others to work out back, further enhancing the support, speed, and quality of delivery. Ohh and it goes without saying, you can save a nice sum in employee wages. A faster setting will drive in more customers and will extend the production capabilities for your business.

Just fast food chains? No way, here is a list of possible use cases for such Self-Service kiosks:

1. Retail Self-Checkout Kiosks

Ideal for: Grocery Stores and Retail Store chains like Walmart

Beyond the faster checkouts and shorter queues, it results in reduced human labor as customers rarely need help from an associate. Technological advances in the field have seen retail chains coming up with new methods of kiosk integration in their business. Take the case of Sobey’s, a Canadian retail giant who has added kiosk to all their shopping carts. These machines can automatically bill the items as they are added to the cart and provides a payment option at the end. Literally, add what you want to your cart and when you are finished the total amount will be displayed on the screen. Pay the amount and you get to leave… no more waiting around.

2. Quick Service Restaurant Kiosks (QSR)

Ideal for: Restaurant and Fast food chains like McDonalds

A faster checkout, easy order customization, and payments. An experience that truly emphasizes the “fast” in fast food. Self-Service kiosks are a common trend seen now in restaurant chains all around the globe. The automation of the ordering process frees up staff to help with customers’ needs and faster delivery of services.

3. Check-in/Check-out Kiosks

Ideal for: Inns, Resorts, Airports, Hotels like Yotel.

A self-check-in, advertisement and data display method at your hotels. An investment that helps the owners focus their human talents on helping guests with tasks that cannot be easily automated. Forget those long waits at a hotel lobby waiting for the staff to come to your service or get you checked-in. With the assistance of kiosks for check-in and check-outs, this holiday season won’t be as hectic as the last one you can take my word for it.

4. Self-Service Banking Kiosks

Ideal for: Banks, Insurance Companies and other financial institutions like Barclays.

These kiosks can be used for counter-free banking, data input and data processing jobs like account openings and submitting applications, display information to the customers on-demand and more. Forget those dreadfully long waits and queues at the banks, a good and fast service providing bank will surely attract more customers than an old school setup. Kiosks help reduce the time you have to spend at a bank and can actually make the whole process more interesting.

5. Survey/Feedback Kiosks

Ideal for: Any and every business that believes the customer is king

Customers just love it when their voice is heard. Let your customers complete surveys, leave feedbacks and their suggestions via a kiosk. Not necessarily the first kiosk you would want at your business but it provides a richer customer experience and enhancement for the long term.

6. Public and Government Self-Service kiosks

Ideal for: Public info and data repositories, public service ticketing, ads and alerts

Common use cases of such devices include ticketing at public transportation services like Busses, Subways, Trains. They are also popular as information kiosks in Government offices, public spaces- providing maps, data on demand, alerts, network access, ads for the welfare of the community and revenue for the government. The potential use cases for kiosks in this area are truly limitless.

7. Health Care Self-Service Kiosks

Ideal for: Hospitals and primary health center, schools, offices

A great tool for self-care, self-diagnosing, booking appointments, paying hospital bills, these services can in turn help reduce the health care cost for such services for the customer. Shorter lines and more satisfied customers and faster check-ups will be the outcome for hospitals, not a bad deal at all. The registration/ data collection properties also have a lot of application in other fields like schools, offices as a `guest/member register. Forget your old registers and upgrade to a Hexnode MDM powered Self-service kiosk today!

Ok now that I have rambled on about the benefits. Let’s get into how you can enable such a self-service kiosk at your store, restaurant, or almost any business location.

What you will need to build your own self-service kiosk:

• A device, preferably a touch screen device with a bigger form factor like (Android or ipadOS tablets) refurbished devices are most common.
• A frame or a holder for mounting your device at an easily accessible and convenient location.
• An application or a website that houses your in store menu/catalog.
• A Hexnode MDM Pro license for the number of kiosks you plan to manage.

The Setup Process

Mount your devices on the frames at suitable locations and set up the charging and network connections. Enroll the devices in Hexnode MDM and activate kiosk mode on the devices. Hexnode supports websites in kiosk mode as web applications that are ideal for such use-cases.

Now you should buy a bigger wallet to store your earnings…yes, even though I can’t know what you are thinking right now I’m sure it goes something like “ Is that it ?” Yes indeed, that’s it. You are all set up and ready to go…. sit back and watch your customers be dumbstruck by the technological leap in your business, oh and watch your wallet fill up with something other than dust 😎 .