Waiting room kiosks are interactive touch screen self-service kiosks with waiting room and virtual reception software. The waiting room kiosk can be used in any waiting area, and the applications can be changed to suit the needs of an individual waiting room. With a Kiosk operating your waiting area, you will find that the visitors will experience less time in the waiting room due to more efficient management. Not only can the kiosk manage the waiting room, but it is also multifunctional being able to also provide information to the visitors and when not in use it behaves as a digital sign.
Managing the waiting room
When a visitor arrives they go to the kiosk to notify their arrival. The kiosks might then ask them to take a seat, or let them know where to hang their coat, or direct them to where they can get themselves a drink.
However the kiosk can also print out a survey or questionnaire and ask the visitor to fill it in whilst they wait. This is particularly helpful if you need to make sure you have up to date information about your client, or you are looking for marketing feedback, or if you want to gain information that might help you to help them further or cross sell. The survey could also be done online using the touch screen.
Once the visitor has ‘checked in’ the kiosks can add the visitor to a waiting list to be seen on a next person basis. Or the kiosks can mark them as ‘Arrived’ on a diary. The kiosks can then alert the visitor’s host of their arrival so that they can come and receive them. Alternatively the kiosks send in the visitor when it is their turn, the visitors host alerts that kiosk of when they are ready for the visitor to be sent to them. The kiosks makes an audio sound to draw your attention to it, and then it displays a message on the screen or on a scrolling LED sign to say who’s to be served next.
Waiting room information point
Having a kiosk in the waiting room means that you can have lots of information on the kiosk available to the visitors. The information could tell your visitors about your company or business, or offer them free advice. In the case of Doctors waiting rooms the kiosks could offer health advice for example. Offering information turns what would be wasted time for your visitor into informative and productive time with lots of useful information.
If your waiting room has children visiting frequently the kiosks can print out interesting and educational puzzles and games to keep the children occupied so that they don’t disturb other visitor that are waiting.
The kiosk could also collect information by way of an interactive survey.
If visitors need to fill in a form, or submit information the waiting room kiosk can also take care of this. Visitors can submit forms via the touch screen.
Additionally the kiosk can analyse usage and user satisfaction, and highlight the frequency that materials are accessed from the kiosk. In hospitals the kiosk could be used to do a patient satisfaction survey for example.
Waiting room digital signage
When the kiosk is not being accessed by a visitor, it rolls a series of advertisements and videos that are designed to not only entertain and engage your visitors, but to also make the visitors aware of other services that you offer, and why they might want to enquire further.
Moving adverts are more stimulating to watch than a notice board that might contain identical information. The signs can be further enhanced by showing news feeds or other useful information.
Multi-Faced waiting room Kiosk
If you have a busy waiting room, and you feel that one kiosk would not be able to accommodate the volume of traffic, there is an option to have a multi-faced kiosk. This is either a dual or triple faced kiosks. Having more that one touch screen means that more that one person can access the kiosk at any one time.
Additional benefits of a multi-faced kiosk are that they can be positioned in the middle of the room, and potentially offer more digital advertising space than a single screen kiosk. You could have one side with an information kiosk, another with a digital sign and a third side offering leaflets or product brochures.
All in all it seems inevitable that touch screen kiosks will become a part of waiting rooms in the future offering us all enhanced service levels.