North America's dominance in the self-service market continues, according to the latest Summit Research Associates kiosk state-of-the-industry report.

"North America still eats everyone for lunch," said Francie Mendelsohn, president of Summit Research.

But Europe is starting to make headway, Mendelsohn said. In Summit's previous report released two years ago, the Asia-Pacific region had taken over Europe in terms of the number of kiosks installed. Europe has now regained its second place position and is primed to grow at a steady rate.

Those tidbits and more are found in Summit Research's seventh flagship report, Kiosks and Interactive Technology. The report examines recent trends, provides projections for the kiosk installed base, profiles, predictions and revenues from the present through 2010.

Overall, the kiosk industry has seen very impressive growth in projects across several market sectors. The number of currently-installed kiosks has truly exploded – from a world total of 734,000 in 2006 to 1,151,574 at the end of 2007.

"Usage is up, hardware and software downtime has been significantly reduced, and customer satisfaction is at an all-time high," the report says. "More than ever before, people are comfortable and confident in using kiosks."

While North America will maintain its lead over other world regions, Europe should increase its number of kiosks installed by 53 percent, Mendelsohn said.

Biggest surprise?

For the last two years, the quick serve restaurant industry has been poised to adopt, in large numbers, self-service technology. However, as of 2008, that has not happened, Mendelsohn said.

"This is definitely a surprise because the return on investment is there in terms of upselling," she said. "Yet (the QSR area) is not where companies are going just yet."

• Early adopters like McDonalds made the process too complicated. Customers still had to go to the counter to complete the transaction. Some kiosks accepted exact change, others were not up-to-date; products out of stock were not de-listed from the kiosks.
• When the units were operational, there were no greeters to show customers how quick and easy it was to order their food from the kiosk.
• There was no employee education. Restaurants did not prepare workers or even store managers for the upcoming technological change.
• Many units lacked an interface to the store‘s POS. This made it difficult to manage and make changes.
• There was a lack of remote monitoring. Many locations did not have Internet connections and the administrative programs were very limited.
• Early administration programs were very limited and/or complicated to manage.

The report gives two examples of convenience store chains that had successful QSR deployments. Sheetz and Wawa have had success by installing the kiosks at gas pump islands, Mendelsohn said.

At the c-store kiosks, customers receive a receipt for their order which they take inside the store to collect and pay for their food. They often purchase additional items such as soft drinks, candy and other snacks before they pay at the cashier, she said.

"The successful QSR and c-store food ordering kiosks gave customers no choice," the report says. "If they wanted to purchase food at that establishment, customers had to use the kiosk. Those projects where customers could either order at the kiosk or by transacting with an actual employee failed. People have a fear of the unknown; if they always placed their order with a human, they would continue to do so unless there was no alternative."

To get a copy of the report, click here.