Checklist for a Successful Kiosk Deployment

The best bet is probably all of the above. In our view, Internet banking provides a good analog for how self-service banking on kiosks is likely to play out, and the strategies financial institutions will use in implementing them. Like Internet banking, kiosks are a technology that enables the customer as well as the banker. Our experience deploying these systems indicates that customers appreciate the additional control over their branch experience, and then demand that control when you try to take it away. Like early adopters of Internet banking, these customers are OK with a learning curve, as long as the technology works as advertised.

As with early Internet banking projects, Kiosks potentially cross over turf boundaries within the financial institution, creating tension and disagreement over objectives and ownership. Institutional inertia, poorly defined strategy, and lack of executive sponsorship can doom a project before it begins. We are also beginning to see a tendency to rush a project in order to "get something out there."

With these observations in mind, we suggest you consider the following key concepts as you develop your kiosk strategy:

1. Balance the customer-enabling capabilities of kiosks with your retail strategy. Don't offer gee-wiz features just because you can. Do you want to pull customers into the branch or push them away? Pull them toward the teller line? Send them somewhere else in the branch? Which customers? Which transactions?
2. Limited functionality is OK, just make sure it works. Remember, you are asking customers to break old habits. Having tellers back-stop the kiosks is not the answer; customers will bypass a buggy system after just a couple problems.
3. Manage internal expectations. Know what you are trying to accomplish and communicate it to everyone, especially branch staff and management.
4. Recognize that kiosks do not represent a banking channel, but rather just another technology. Think about how many websites you actually have today: A marketing site, eBanking site, merchant services site, and corporate intranet, each one serving a different channel or stakeholder group. Count on deploying kiosks the same way, with physical capabilities and software applications specific to a channel's requirements.
5. Kiosk hardware and software has evolved further than you think. Make sure vendor solutions are extensible- don't allow yourself to get locked in to a hardware or software platform that cannot quickly adapt to new applications, products, or services that you will want roll out.