Kudos to Rimi Baltic

This is the first post in a blog series that discusses good and bad self-service solutions. If you have noticed an interesting self-service solution—whether neutral, good, or bad—feel free to leave a comment below or contact us. We would like to evaluate and discuss it here.  

In this post, we talk about the leading Baltic retailer—Rimi Baltic. It was the first in the Baltic states to introduce self-service scanners at its stores. This means that customers scan all products themselves as they shop instead of checking out through cashiers.

How does it work?

You can watch the video below for details, but here are the basic steps:

  1. Activate a scanner by tapping a loyalty card at the sensor shelf
  2. Scan each product while shopping
  3. Leave the scanner near the exit
  4. Tap the loyalty card again in the self-checkout area
  5. Pay with a credit card

Why does this deserve Tapbox kudos?

Kudos #1 – Though most industries claim they are going mobile or contactless, adding self-service, or otherwise modernizing, for large companies, these are often just buzzwords. Rimi was the first to launch this service in the Baltics, so kudos for its bravery!

Kudos #2 – Self-service scanners will boost Rimi’s brand value and customer loyalty (read more about such benefits in this blog post). Why? This innovation saves a lot of time, and time is a valuable resource nowadays. Shoppers save time because products go right into their bags (no need to move them from shelves to basket to belt/scanner to shopping bag)—that’s it! The next time shoppers touch their products is when they return home. 

Kudos #3 – It is faster and more efficient than self-checkout alone because shoppers can scan barcodes right at the shelf, simply entering the number of items taken. We all know how hard it can be to find barcodes on packaging. With self-service scanners, these are no longer needed because barcodes can be scanned from the tags on the shelf. 

Kudos #4 – There are no checkout lines! Why? Because paying takes 15 seconds. Shoppers checking out are not searching for barcodes on packages or moving products from baskets to bags (this is done while shopping).

Conclusion

The self-service scanner innovation is not rocket science, nor is it especially new. But one need not reinvent the wheel to make major improvements. So, kudos to Rimi for making our lives easier! Psst—if you own a store and want to provide better service to your customers, we can help.

More about Rimi

Rimi Baltic is one of the leading retailers in Baltic States and is represented in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.  They are part of ICA Gruppen – leading retail organization in the Nordic region with more than 270 stores and 12 000 employees. In Baltics they operate with five food retail store formats – Rimi Hypermarkets, Rimi Supermarkets, Mini Rimi, Express Rimi and E-commerce.

– Rimi Eesti Food with more than 80 stores (https://www.rimi.ee/) 
– Rimi Latvia with more than 125 stores (https://www.rimi.lv/)
– Rimi Lietuva with more than 60 stores (https://www.rimi.lt/)

Rimi Baltic Group Headquarter office is located in Riga, Latvia

To discuss self-service solution possibilities for your business, please get in touch with us today, and one of team members will be more than happy to advise you!

June 25, 2020 Bussiness, General No comments yet

Can we just open our web page on the kiosk?

This is a question we receive often enough to warrant an in-depth analysis of the topic to clarify if and when reusing your existing web application for a self-service solution is workable. The question arises because of two common misconceptions:

  1. This is how self-service solutions work in general.
  2. The web application does “most of what’s needed;” we just need to add payments to it.

Evolution of self-service

As soon as self-service became technically feasible, organizations realized that introducing it might dramatically improve efficiency and user satisfaction in almost any line of business. The general solutions provided can roughly be divided into two sets:

  1.  Systems developed to integrate with a specific range of peripheral devices and remote systems to provide a particular service. An example is public transportation ticketing solutions. These need to accept cash and card payments, print tickets on a specific type of paper, read and update information on electronic cards, and retrieve up-to-date ticketing information from other systems.

When using these systems, it becomes evident that they don’t reuse web applications for their user interfaces—not least because the user interfaces are often clunky, hard to use, and not very modern looking. However, the reason why this is the case is sound. An application that resides on the machine and has access to system devices directly is best when developing such peripheral-heavy user workflows.

  1. The other set of solutions comprises systems initially developed as information kiosks. These were intended to open an existing company website in a browser suitable for use in public locations. And do nothing else, initially at least.

Eventually, information kiosk vendors caught on and realized that some interaction with peripheral devices is a must for almost any self-service system, be it accepting payments, printing out a slip, or scanning a bar code. To solve the technological conundrum that interaction with such devices must happen on the operating system level, vendors developed specific extensions for their locked-down browsers that would respond to specific hooks invoked by the opened website and provide a predefined overlay for interacting with a given peripheral device.

While this technical solution is very admirable, given the constraints, self-service systems built on such platforms do not align well with users’ expectations of modern user interface design.

Does it really do what’s needed?

Even in situations when a website in principle could be reused for a self-service solution, it is almost never suitable, as self-service solutions typically have requirements that diverge from requirements of a web solution in major ways;

  1. First is the user interface itself. Modern self-service solutions feature large, vertically oriented screens. No matter how responsive the web application design is, it is almost never suitable for such screen sizes and orientation.
  2. Second, self-service devices are mostly located near or at the target premises. This allows for location-specific configuration, including differing product sets, adjusted user workflows, or even completely separate user interfaces and branding. Even if at first glance this is not a concern, the flexibility to accommodate such desires in the future is invaluable.
  3. Third, good self-service systems feature administration areas where real-time device monitoring, configuration, and over-the-air software updates can be performed. Additionally, usage statistics may be gathered. To fully leverage the potential of such systems, a dedicated user interface application is required.
  4. Last, but not least, depending on your industry and self-service use, additional regulatory requirements may apply to on-premise applications.

However, these requirements don’t necessarily mean that any digital asset or system reuse is impossible. If the web application is built in a way such that it relies for most of its business logic on a back-end application programming interface or uses an in-house or procured electronic resource management system, such APIs can often be re-used for a self-service solution along with some digital assets from the company brand book. The point is that striving to reuse the user interface application itself is rarely a good, workable, or even a cheaper solution.

Self service as a distinct platform

For best results, self-service solutions must be developed with all the above kept in mind. By necessity, self-service is a distinct platform of its own, with requirements and required technological solutions different from those of other platforms, be they web, mobile, or desktop.

A self-service solution is often a significant investment based on the hardware costs alone. Neglecting to treat the associated development effort with due diligence will result in low user satisfaction, underwhelming system performance , high maintenance, and ultimately—sunk costs.

To discuss what platform would be best for your kiosk, please get in touch with us today, and one of our technical experts will be more than happy to advise you!

May 25, 2020 Bussiness, General, IT 1 comment

More money is spent using self service kiosks

McDonald’s was one of the first to massively switch to self service oriented customer service and shows no sign of stopping.

McDonald’s has reported a 6% increase in sales after introducing self-service order. Business Insider, 2017

At the moment using the benefits of technology has reported a 6% increase in sales but McDonalds isn’t the only fast food chain to consider giving customers more control over their orders using technology – “Burgers & Ribs” joint called Chili’s introduced self-service tablet ordering and increased dessert orders. Cinema industry example from Cinemark “had concession spending per person climb for 32 straight quarters” thanks to self service concession kiosk introduction in the US. And this is not only happening in kiosks, also online food orders can do magic as Taco Bell’s new food ordering app generates a 20% increase in average order. This is easily achieved with additional purchases and suggested up-sells – the device never forgets to offer a drink for your meal, additional source or dessert.

Why do people prefer self service over human interaction?

Touchscreen has the luxury to show images of the order with detailed info about what is included. Also the client has no friction of requesting this info with a simple tap, while asking a lot of questions while there is a queue behind you might not be the case because of social pressure. Since customers can see their own orders it significantly cut down mistakes.

Research done at the Rotman School of Management, Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, and the National University of Singapore did a research where they found that people buy less goods that have hard-to-pronounce titles because they do not want to sound silly. Using self-service in this situation helped to enjoy a 8.4% increase in sales. The researchers concluded that consumers might fear being misunderstood or appearing unsophisticated in front of the clerks. Self-service helps to remove the social friction.

New Tillster research reveals that in the past three months 25% of restaurant customers have used a self-ordered kiosk at a restaurant — up 7% year-over-year. Moreover, more than 65% of customers said they would visit a restaurant more often if they provided self-service kiosks, and 30% of customers prefer to order from a kiosk over a cashier if the lines were of the same length.

To sum up

There are multiple reasons why self service kiosks are loved by clients and why it is a valuable investment by companies.

Key takeaways:

  1. Self service will increased revenue and average order size
  2. Because kiosk will never forget to upsell or cross-sell
  3. It cuts costs for business
  4. It has no training costs
  5. It will not require a salary increase or leave to work for a competitor 🙂
  6. No fraud possibility 
  7. Current staff members can be moved to more crucial areas of the venue or used for custom (specific) orders
  8. Enhanced order accuracy
  9. Less queues and faster user experience

To discuss the benefits for your self service kiosk, please get in touch with us today, and one of our friendly experts will be more than happy to advise you!

March 31, 2020 Bussiness, Future 2 comments

9 tips how to design perfect UX for self service kiosk

Each self service project is unique – it can be affected by environment around the kiosk, also the product or service one is trying to sell, the client expectations matters but here are the most important user experience designing tips and tricks we have learned from analysing our and other projects:

  1. Make it dead simple. Because I said so and simplicity sells 🙂  Don’t add features unless they’re genuinely needed. Revise and make it more simple.
  2. Bigger is better 🙂 Make buttons large, forms large, everything large. You do not want to annoy clients in public when they cannot press the button or field. Consider increasing the clickable areas also around the objects for a few pixels as well.
  3. Minimise hand movement. Make sure that users do not need to touch the top/bottom/left/right of the screen after each step. Minimal hand movement is key to success when we speak about screens larger than 20’’ (remember that this is very different from mobile UX where almost any user can reach any corner of the screen with a thumb).
  4. Consider the average height of the user (Pro tip – kids tend to be shorter than adults for example and cannot reach the products on top) and do not forget about accessibility features. This should be considered at the beginning.
  5. Avoid typing. Typing on a kiosk is annoying. Autocomplete or suggestions could be a solution to make it more comfortable if unavoidable
  6. There is no hover. Objects that are clickable should look clickable because there is no pointer or hover effect. Also non-clickable objects should not look like one 🙂 
  7. Consider the environment. Light places can be fixed with a higher brightness screen but it should come together with more contrast as well. While sound can be of great assistance to users but it can annoy some users or be missed in loud places.
  8. No search. If you think you need a search most probably the UX is bad. Users usually give up than use search because of reason #5.
  9. Auto log-out. Users do not close their sessions at kiosks but simply go away. To avoid the next user a bad experience, integrate auto log-off or sensor that detects when to start a new session.

To discuss the various UX options for your digital kiosk, please get in touch with us today, and one of our friendly experts will be more than happy to advise you!

March 25, 2020 Bussiness, General 5 comments