By: Bruce Rasmussen, Director of Sales, Strategic Verticals at Ingenico Group, North America
In today’s purchasing environment, business strategies need to be more customer-centric to successfully capture consumer demand and capitalize on spending habits. Unattended payment solutions support this strategy by addressing consumer wants and needs as they relate to speed, security, convenience, and overall purchase experience.
Apart from being easy and convenient to use, today’s unattended payment solutions—including digital kiosks and vending machines—also accept EMV chip cards and mobile wallets, such as Apple Pay and Android Pay. These additions make transactions more secure. Being able to use mobile wallets also enhances a customer’s overall purchase experience.
The benefits seem clear, but some people might believe that unattended payment acceptance would never work for their business. However, these solutions are increasingly becoming the norm across a variety of industries with many use cases. Let’s take a look at six key use cases that can help you grow your business:
Parking Kiosks
Parking lots and garages can benefit from the convenience of kiosks. In a typical garage or parking lot, a cashier must manually process each driver’s entry and exit, which leads to long lines. Customer service suffers, and garages and parking lots experience low turnover rates. With smart, unattended payment solutions in place, customers can pay for parking on their own terms. They enter the parking lot or garage, receive a ticket and rate information, pay using their credit card or mobile wallet, and benefit from a seamless parking experience that doesn’t interfere with their schedules.
Ticketing Kiosks
For many years now, unattended solutions have helped consumers avoid lines at movie theaters and ticketing counters at subway/ railway stations. In most cases, buying tickets to a movie or a transportation service rarely requires a consultative experience, and this is where unattended solutions can add to the convenience and efficiency for customers as well as the business owner. Ticketing kiosks don’t require a lot of space, and businesses can use multiple terminals to service many customers at once.
Retail Kiosks
Today, many shoppers go into a retail store knowing a lot about the product they want to purchase, and they aren’t looking for a consultative experience. Kiosks allow shoppers to browse through the product catalog, and once they decide on the product, they can simply pay securely at the kiosk and meet a sales associate at the front to pick up their merchandise. Consumers also appreciate the ability to learn more about products by interacting with a digital kiosk and without feeling that a sales rep is trying to upsell them.
Restaurant Drive-Thrus
Unattended solutions are being implemented in many drive-thru environments. By allowing customers to select and customize their order on an unattended solution, quick serve restaurants enhance the overall consumer experience. The payment process is also more secure for consumers since they pay at the kiosk rather than hand their card to the cashier while they collect their food.
Vending
Consumers don’t carry cash like they used to 5–10 years ago. Today’s vending solutions have evolved and now accept magstripe, EMV, and contactless payments to enhance the customer’s payment experience. With these solutions in place, a customer can walk up to the vending machine, order a product, pay securely using a credit card or mobile wallet, and walk away with the merchandise in hand. Vending solutions are useful for small to medium-sized ticket items that don’t require a consultative experience with store representatives.
Retail Pharmacy Dispensers
Retail pharmacies have limited hours, which can make it difficult for customers to pick up their prescriptions within the allotted time period. Unattended solutions are being widely adopted by pharmacies all over the country and provide customers with the convenience of picking up their medication at any time. In addition to prescription drugs, these unattended solutions provide consumers with after-hours access to essential over-the-counter medications such as asprin, bandages, and ointments. These products usually don’t require an interaction with the pharmacist, so offering self-service access can help them increase revenue and improve efficiency.
Speed, simplicity, control, convenience, and security—these are the qualities of a seamless purchasing experience that your customers really want. Whether your customers are at the airport, parking their car, or in a retail environment, you can extend your omni-channel strategy and reach them wherever they are with unattended payment solutions.
This article was originally published on Ingenico Group’s blog.
Bruce Rasmussen is the Director of Sales, Strategic Verticals at Ingenico Group, North America