*Editor's note: This article is part of a series that profiles the winners of the Self Service Excellence Award winners at the Self Service Expo (formerly known as KioskCom). Awards were given April 26, 2007 in Las Vegas.
Finding self-service deployments that meet real-world needs is not the norm, so say industry experts and insiders. So when niche deployments come along that address market voids, self-service gurus get excited.
Such was the case during this spring's Self Service Expo awards, presented in Las Vegas during Self Service Expo.
This week Self Service World highlights deployments that stole the show in the government and financial categories. For additional awards coverage, click here.
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North Carolina-based self-service hardware and software developer Source Technologies Inc. captivated judges in both categories.
On the government side, through a deal with Swanson Services Corp., Source designed a kiosk that allows family members and friends of prison inmates to deposit funds that inmates can later access for the purchase of sundries and clothes.
Swanson provides commissaries and management software to correctional facilities, in addition to other types of institutions. For this particular deployment, Swanson wanted a self-service alternative — a solution that would free corrections officers and jailers from handling money and crediting inmate accounts.
With the Cobra Cashier Inmate Account Deposit Kiosk, Swanson resolved its dilemma. The company now offers its corrections customers a one-stop solution, said Bill Lynch, Source's vice president of self-service solutions.
"Swanson has accounting software to keep track of what is being spent in the jail, but the problem is, ‘How do I replenish the funds?'" Lynch said. "Fewer and fewer jails want to have access to the cash. Swanson's challenge was that it needed to figure out a way to free jailers of the day-to-day hassle of handling cash, while also providing a reliable service."
Starting with its 5-Series kiosk, which is primarily used for bill-payment deployments, Source incorporated Swanson's accounting software and a transaction fee to create the Cobra Cashier. The 5-Series note/cash-acceptance function met Swanson's need on the funds-deposit front. The kiosk also accepts debit and credit, but cash acceptance was the necessity.
Once funds are deposited, inmates can access the funds in their accounts to purchase goods from within the jail or prison.
"What's intriguing is that the jails love it," Lynch said. "Swanson and Source manage the entire process — the jail doesn't have to do anything."
The idea of bundling services was a plus from Swanson's perspective.
Chuck Swanson III, vice president of information systems for Swanson, said his company had already developed a kiosk solution when it met Source. But Source's ability to bundle services, so that the institution could be completely removed from the cycle, was something new.
Swanson also said that sites where the Cobra Cashier is deployed have realized a 40 to 50 percent reduction in the amount of cash they're handling.
"It's been quite a time-saver for them," Swanson said.
That's not only because of the reduction in cash handling but also because jailers and corrections officers no longer have to mess with counterfeit bills. The kiosk validates the currency before it's accepted, Swanson said.
Swanson and Source have to date deployed between 15 and 25 Cobra Cashier kiosks.
Francie Mendelsohn of Summit Research Associates, one of Self Service Expo's judges for the government category, said the Cobra Cashier kiosk was the most-memorable self-service deployment she tested during the expo.
"Of all stuff I judged, that one impressed me immensely, because there is a real need for it and they deployed it in a really effective way," she said.
Another judge, Bob Fincher of NetWorld Alliance, concurred, saying the kiosk stirred "a real strong social consciousness."
"I also thought it was extremely well done, from a hardware and software perspective," he said.
24-hour banking access
Another Source deployment that impressed judges was the self-service banking kiosk Source designed for Quorum Federal Credit Union. Quorum is a $560 million financial institution in Purchase, N.Y., that has been dabbling in branch automation and self-service for the last several years.
When Quorum began working with Source last spring, it came to the table with self-service knowledge. The credit union has been providing 24-hour banking access at kiosks and ATMs in commercial locations for numerous years. What it lacked, however, was a partner who could assure the reliability of its kiosk network.
"They were having issues with machines being down, etc.," Lynch said. "We had existing hardware and were able to leverage our Series-7 kiosk to essentially replicate what they already had."
At Quorum, 90 percent of the transactions handled by a teller in a traditional branch have been moved to the self-service channel. Using more than 25 financial kiosks developed by Source, Quorum has expanded its network with 23 percent fewer staff than would have normally been required.
What makes the deployment unique, Lynch said, is that the kiosks are not linked to Quorum's ATM network. By keeping ATMs and kiosks separate, Quorum is able to offer more transactions, and the separate networking has improved uptime.
Judges agreed, saying that 24-hour access to banking information is a necessity in today's economy.
"Source Technologies hit the bull's eye when they developed the application using their concourse Series-7 Kiosk," said judge Robert Porter of Euro Kiosks Networks. "This one was very straight forward. It identified the need of the customer and provides all the services that a person-to-person transaction does while reducing cost to the credit union. The Series-7 has a check reader, MICR/OCR with check retention, and is built like a safe with a digital-combination lock with an audit trail. It has everything that Quorum customers needed to complete transactions."
Rufus Connell of Frost & Sullivan also judged the financial kiosk, and he, too, was impressed with the deployment's peripherals.
"I was really focused on look and feel and hardware design," Connell said. "One of the things that stood out about this deployment was that it had a lot of peripherals that could be integrated with it. And it used lights to help guide users so they knew which peripherals to use for which transactions. It was very customer friendly."
