Citing TIME Magazine’s March 2008 Article, 10 Ideas that are changing the world, “Companies love self-service for the money it saves, and with consumers finally playing along, the need to interact with human beings is quickly disappearing. Now that companies have gotten (consumers) used to the idea, they are poised to go all the way.”

While KIOSK doesn’t ever see complete elimination of personalized customer service, there is no doubt that there has been a profound shift in the willingness and enthusiasm of consumers to take control of their own transactions - most commonly in self-service check-in and line busting applications where added control is perceived as a positive thing. In fact, a 2009 independent analyst survey on consumer opinions of self service shows the following trends:

• 30% want more options
• 50% indicate their use of self-service options has increased in the past year
• 52% are comfortable using self-service technology
• 70% expect businesses to offer self-service options

These are all outstanding trends for deployers ready to implement self-service check-in, ordering, and flow management / line busting applications.