Digital technology has been busy transforming the world we live in for the past 30 years and more. And right now, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is accelerating the pace of change like never before. In short, AI is empowering digital tech to be smarter, faster, more efficient, more reliable and more autonomous.
Everything we use digital tech for (and that’s pretty much everything!) is affected, including our business systems. We’ve written previously about the impact AI is having on retail POS. But what about self-service kiosks?
Here are three exciting ways we’re seeing AI usher in a new generation of self-service.
1. Conversational Interactions
Arguably the most visible way AI is changing kiosks is the introduction of voice-controlled or ‘conversational’ interfaces. Again, we’ve covered this topic in more depth recently. But in short, the integration of AI chatbots and voice assistants is transforming kiosks into more intuitive and accessible platforms. By providing an alternative to touchscreens, and therefore the need to see and touch to interact with them, voice interfaces increase accessibility.
As natural language processing (NLP) capabilities advance rapidly, they also promise more responsive, attentive and efficient service, enabling the machines to handle more complex queries and guide users through the self-service process in a helpful and satisfying way. This isn’t purely about voice interactions, either. AI’s reasoning powers are evolving hand-in-hand with its language processing abilities, allowing it to problem-solve independently and work out the best way to deliver the best outcomes to every customer.
2. Personalisation
This leads neatly on to AI’s ability to personalize the self-service experience. As covered above, an element of personalization is the ability of an AI-powered kiosk to ‘read the room’ in every service instance, and deliver the best experience possible in the moment. But much more broadly, personalization is about analyzing and using customer data to provide an experience that matches their preferences.
Some of that data comes from moment-to-moment interactions. But it also comes from data you hold in your CRM system, from loyalty and membership schemes, from analyzing general purchasing patterns to make predictions about who buys what, when, and what their characteristics and preferences are. By applying advanced machine learning algorithms to all of this data, kiosks can ‘learn’ such preferences to such a degree of accuracy that they can then recommend products or services tailored to individual users, or change the mode of interaction with each customer, thereby increasing engagement and satisfaction.
3. Enhanced Security
Particularly in the context of self-checkout systems in supermarkets, security is a big topic in self-service right now, with plenty of evidence showing correlation between rising rates of theft and more self-checkout lanes. In other settings, such as QSR restaurants, where ordering and payment are separated from the acquisition of goods, security isn’t such an issue. However, it remains a conundrum to be solved in self-service. And AI offers plenty of solutions.
AI-powered tools such as facial recognition and behavioural analytics are already transforming the impact of having cameras on kiosks. These technologies can verify identities and suspicious activity, raising the alarm is suspected theft is taking place, assisting with criminal investigations and helping businesses enforce bans on known offenders more effectively.
In summary, then, the integration of AI into kiosks promises to usher in a new era of self-service satisfaction. AI can make self-service more accessible and more responsive to what customers want, it can personalize the entire experience, and resolve some of the current pain points for both users and businesses.
To find out more about our Self Service range, contact the Oxhoo team today.