James Bickers is editor of Retail Customer Experience magazine, which profiles technology and strategies to help retailers connect with their customers on physical, financial and emotional levels.
By one line of reasoning, radio should have died in the middle of the 20th century. After all, who would want to listen to mere sound when the dawn of television meant you could have sound plus pictures? But radio did not die – it lives and thrives to this day, and is still reinventing itself.
The same logic could be applied to the photo kiosk – who would want to stand or sit in a retail space, doing things they could likely be doing at home? Doesn't everybody have a computer and a photo printer at home now?
They don't, of course, and even those that do find themselves standing in front of a Kodak machine from time to time, cropping and color-correcting and taking aim at red-eye. The photo kiosk is one of the most successful self-service devices ever made, and it has truly found its niche.
Retailers that deploy photo kiosks should constantly work to improve the value they are getting from the machines. That involves watching traffic, watching usage, and making adjustments based on the things they see. A few things to keep in mind, in order to squeeze the most from a photo kiosk:
Consider a lounge. When used properly, a photo kiosk can be a powerful tool at getting people to stick around in your establishment – especially if you make it comfortable for them to do so. If you have the space, consider setting up multiple machines in a lounge-type setting, with comfortable chairs and work surfaces. Bonus points for ambition if you serve coffee and snacks. Who wouldn't want to hang around such a place, tweaking their photos of the kids?
Optimize traffic flow. If a lounge isn't an option, make sure the people who will be standing up to use your machine can do so in a comfortable fashion. In other words, don't position the machine so that the user is standing in the way of traffic, constantly getting bumped with shopping carts. Consider angling it so that the user is off the beaten path, but the screen is still largely visible from most angles. Again, a work surface next to the machine – a place to set down a purse, for instance – will encourage the user to get comfortable and spend more time.
Advertise the machine elsewhere in the store. Once a given piece of technology has been in place for more than a few weeks, it starts to become visual wallpaper – customers see it there, but they don't notice it anymore. Over time, that photo kiosk near the front of the store becomes a fixture in the customer's mind, and they need gentle encouragement to remember to use it. Try placing marketing messages in germane locations throughout the store (electronics, batteries, film, magazines). Offer a promotion to get people back to the kiosk – a free USB drive to every 1,000th user, for instance.
Pay attention to what your customers are buying. Any photo kiosk will provide management with detailed logs of what it being purchased, and when. Watch this data, and make marketing moves accordingly. Nobody buying photo CDs? Sounds like it may be time to advertise them a bit more throughout the store. Enlargements selling unusually well? Come up with a combo offer that gives X number of low-performing items for every Y enlargements purchased. Create customer habits where none currently exist, and reinforce the habits you want to maintain.
