Tablet Kiosk solutions help retailers overcome hiring shortages & rising employee overhead while increasing sales, customer retention & satisfaction.
The pandemic caused a plethora of problems for retailers. From hiring shortages and staffing issues to rising overhead and bottom-line factors to a changing in-store customer dynamic, we have never faced so many challenges as retailers all at once. However, advancements in touch screen and tablet kiosk solutions are allowing savvy retailers to cut overhead, manage employee needs and provide creative solutions for their customers that increase ticket sales, repeat business and enhance customer satisfaction. What’s more, new web-based kiosk user interfaces provide extremely fast implementation of kiosks and flexible, adaptable rollout.
Improve Customer Service While Cutting Costs
Virtually every business we speak with shares their current frustrations with staffing and employee scheduling. With individuals still hesitant to return to brick-and-mortar workplaces, companies in every sector are trying to figure out how to thrive with fewer employees – and manage burnout and turnover in overworked employees. However, touch-screen self-service kiosks are becoming a fantastic way to manage staffing issues while simultaneously enhancing customer satisfaction.
A retail store with too few employees has numerous problems. Recently, we’ve all seen our some of favorite stores have to change their hours of operation because they are short-staffed. Too few employees impacts employee scheduling – which can then lead to longer shifts and overworked employees. Often, employers are forced to choose between reduced hours of operation or having fewer employees in the store than at times when such staffing issues did not exist. Both options have downsides that can impact bottom-line sales or customer service issues. Staff shortages lead to increased demand for employees to feel overworked in efforts to provide the same level of customer care and satisfaction when there are fewer coworkers to share the workload – which leads to even more on-the-job stress and factors into higher rates of employee turnover.
These factors, along with record-breaking inflation over the last 2 years are forcing employers to spend more in salary and hiring incentives to find and retain great help. Any one of these complications can be problematic for retail store owners. But combined, the current state of retail has many employers recognizing their need to adapt and fine innovative ways to not only survive – but to thrive as they overcome these new challenges.
Self-service kiosk solutions can DRASTICALLY ease both logistical and financial burdens for employers. By providing self-checkout, retail storefronts don’t need to have as many employees on the clock and in the store. Rather, kiosks enable storefront employees to attend to customers as needed and divert their duties into more specialized concierge services that enhance customer shopping experiences. That means lower employee overhead AND enhanced customer experience - wins on all fronts.
Your New Favorite Customer Service Representative
The art of the upsell has been a long favored tactic of effective sales staff. Tablet kiosks are able to upsell, inform about new products, suggest complementary products to add to an order or promote products that may not be able to be shelved in-store and a variety of creative new ways to enhance customer experience, drive repeat business and increase ticket sales. QSR Magazine.com recently reported that tablet kiosks can boost average ticket sales as much as 30% in various stores. People feel comfortable with touch screens. The screen doesn’t make you feel judged or foolish for having questions – and creative retailers can use this to their advantage as they implement new strategies that both help their customers and help their bottom line.
Tablet and touch screen kiosks provide innovative ways to help customers find products, get product information, see related products that they may not have even been aware of and eventually checkout. Integrating Table Kiosks into store environments can also offer ways to expand your inventory in a virtual environment with convenient shipping options to the customers’ homes or for in-store pickup – which brings customers in for a guaranteed future visit.
In the past, there was debate as to whether customers would like using tablet kiosks. However today, self-service kiosks are becoming the customer’s PREFERENCE as opposed to a concession. Covid has changed culture. Consequently, many customers still feel uneasy about face-to-face interactions – and studies show the majority of shoppers actually PREFER interacting with self-service kiosks over live interactions with employees. According to a recent survey by IoT, 73% of shoppers PREFER retail self-service technology over traditional face-to-face checkout and ordering. That means that nearly 3 out of 4 customers would rather do their shopping at a retail store that offers self-service options.
What’s more? Touch screen self-checkout and ordering is shown to reduce lines at checkout – which means no crowding – and in today’s self-distancing-conscious culture, long lines are an instant turnoff for customers. Historically, long lines and crowds discouraged impatient shoppers. Today, long lines and crowds make people feel both impatient and potentially unsafe. Self-service checkout and ordering is proven to reduce crowding and wait times up to 90% - all of which enhances customer satisfaction and brand loyalty to your store.
Develop Cheaper, Deploy Faster
Developing your app can be a challenge, requiring hard to find, high-cost iOS developers and submission to the Apple app store for approval. Lilitab’s Kiosk Management System (KMS) let's you skip this entire process, instead you can use your regular old web developer to build your app. KMS’ native iOS app takes care of the final mile of interaction between your web-app and the iPad and any connected accessories such as credit card readers, printers, barcode scanning, image capture etc (you know all the stuff you would normally have to write a native app to do).
Lilitab is a global leader in touch-screen and tablet kiosk solutions. In addition to traditional IOS development, we’ve now developed the ability to integrate web-based user interfacing solutions - the industry’s fastest, cost-effective, streamlined development system. This allows companies to create a custom interface or use an existing website as their touch screen user interface. The cost and development time advantages for web based UI allows retailers to quickly and affordably roll-out their in-store kiosk solutions, providing fast, reliable solutions that can adapt as quickly as the changing retail climate.
What’s more? Lilitab’s industry leading online kiosk management tools allow companies real-time access to all the tools they need to manage data and keep their systems running smoothly 24/7. Visit Lilitab.com to use our online kiosk designer to begin customizing a solution for your stores or request a free consultation using the form below to discuss how we can bring more than 25 years of kiosk management solutions experience to your company’s tablet kiosk needs.
Contact Lilitab today at 888.705.0190 for more information or to schedule a free consultation.
Use our online kiosk-builder/designer (click here) to configure a custom kiosk in minutes.
