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Four questions to ask before you choose your preferred kiosk software provider
When choosing an interactive kiosks software provider you need to take into account your needs today and in the future.
Too often the future is neglected and this can lead to all sorts of technical and commercial problems.
If you have a deal with a provider and they can’t go in the direction you want your business to go in, your business shape is being dictated to or restricted by the provider. But it is a responsibility of the buyer to ensure they understand their needs properly. Some questions to ask yourself are:
- How many kiosks will you be deploying and over what period of time?
- What does your roadmap look like in terms of content and usage?
- Do you want a toolkit or a platform
- What support infrastructure do you have in-house and what do you need from your provider?
Often kiosks are deployed over a period of time which inevitably means that a lot of effort is exerted at the beginning of the project and deployment is ramped-up once the wrinkles have been ironed out and the installation process has been refined.
Business Intelligence Defined
“Business intelligence”. It’s a term that can have many meanings – and is largely dependent on a company’s size and which sector it operates in. However there are some guiding principles which GWD media has adopted for the Genkiosk platform. Here we make it easy to access the data that guides business intelligence – and best practice – in the world of interactive kiosks.
What does it mean?
At a macro level it relates to business strategy and the approach that is taken by the organisation.
At a micro level it refers to a single, quite narrowly defined task.
Genkiosk is able to provide businesses with different information dependent on need. For example a retailer will be keen to see sales receipts on a daily basis, whereas a car showroom may want to know how many unique visitors have looked at their new model of car and requested a test drive.
How to decide what is right for your business
Identify tangible benefits such as:
- Eliminating the cost of producing reports.
- Reducing site visits.
Wherever possible, make information accessible to the entire organization. This will ensure that even a small advantage, such as a few minutes saved, will make a big difference across an entire organization, once multiplied by the number of employees.
- Look for your project to be driven by other business initiatives that have produced results.
Biz rules – in the pursuit of business intelligence
James Oladujoye co-founder and CEO of GWD Media – the creators of Genkiosk. Why business rules can radically change the way organisations interact with their kiosks – or any other remotely managed machines.
We are at the outset of the Information Age where seemingly everything is in the now.
On stock markets, fortunes are lost and won in fractions of a second. News is made available instantly and globally. With communications accelerating at speed and booming in scale, we take it for granted that we can keep in touch with others wherever and whenever we choose. Now.
It’s all well and good having email, Facebook, mobile phones, SKYPE etc – great for communication with people.
Fact based decision making
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are the best way to keep an eye on business activity over time. Trends in sales and costs gauge where the operation is doing well, and where there is room for improvement.
With Genkiosk, those KPI’s are always available online – to specified individuals, or for sharing amongst colleagues.
Compare performance week on week, year to date or against this time last year: for targeted control.
Now:
- Gut feelings can be backed up by hard fact – straight from the field
- Live commercial information can be shared and actioned to maximum effect.
- Efforts can be focused on high priority areas, where payback is greatest.
With Genkiosk, the facts are on hand. The decisions are yours..
Visibility and control
Running interactive kiosks without an effective management system is like driving a car blindfolded. Not a good idea. Once you are connected, you soon risk getting overloaded with too much data or confused by inconsistent information. Genkiosk sees you through that data smog, with clever business rules to give the right information to the right people at the right time:
- Monitor what is going on right now – and set automatic alerts via email, text or smart phone apps
- Standardize your estate in terms of look and feel, and behaviour and performance: consistency feeds profitability
- Prioritize: you can’t do everything at once, so tackle the most important things first.
Putting all this at your fingertips underpins confidence that your kiosk business is heading in the right direction..
Increasing productivity and profitability
The challenge for every company is making the most of what you have. While still meeting clients’ expectations. Who wouldn’t want to increase sales? Or cut costs? Or even better do both – at the same time as improving customer satisfaction. And that is the commitment Genkiosk makes for businesses running networks of interactive kiosks.
Genkiosk makes sure you know what is going on. Putting you in touch with the kit in the field means you can:
- Improve uptime and performance
- Maximise the efficiency of maintenance
- Actively manage your operation to improve sales.
With the results feeding straight to the bottom line, you will soon be banking the benefits..
Alerts & Business rules allow business automation
Get notified when there is a problem, or see if the system can fix itself.
Genkiosk alert rules allow you automatically take action on certain events, actions include sending an email or SMS, adding a note to the kiosk page , or even rebooting a unit. You can use the alerts rules to escalate issues based on the time since the issue occurred.
Automatically Rank issues with Severity from 0 (everything’s fine) to 10 (critical)
GK Remote Enhanced Security
Taking control of a kiosk in Genkiosk anywhere in the world is as simple as a right click. Remote control is part of our kiosk software product.
Genkiosk Remote is built on open source VNC. We added extra features to further enhance the already world class security of the renowned remote control favourite.
Each time a kiosk is rebooted a new strong unique password is generated and sent to the server, this prevents any user getting a password for the whole network, and ensures users remote kiosks via the Genkiosk system any actions appear in the audit trial.
Other features that include the ability to block the remote screen, send keys or reboot. and even record the screen if required.
Generally there is no router or firewall configuration required..
Telemetry – is it real?
Despite the European Vending Association urging the 10,000 vending operators currently servicing the €26 Billion European vending industry to improve efficiencies, through reducing transportation costs, lost sales and wasted time and energy, the uptake of telemetry management solutions has been disappointing.
James Oladujoye CEO of GWD Media stated that “vending and kiosks are to all intents and purposes the same in as much as they allow consumers to acquire goods and services from a machine. Operators need access to back office tools such as revenue tracking and stock and usage information to compete in this ever more competitive marketplace. That is why GenKiosk and VeoVend are mentioned in tandem”.
What time is it in Dubai?
Do you know what the time is in Dubai?
Here at the Sheffield offices of Genkiosk, everyone knows the current time in a variety of places around the world. When we get a customer in a new time zone we add a clock to the wall in the office. We have clocks for Abu Dhabi, Seattle, Vancouver, Dubai, Paris and as far off as Fiji!
The Genkiosk Platform is in use in a variety of applications around the world. Here’s a few examples of every day things you (or your customers) could have been doing and used the Genkiosk Platform.