On most Sunday evenings, you’ll find me finishing up laundry, wrapping up the weekend cleaning and preparing for the long week ahead. But last night, everything was miraculously done and I was parked in front of the TV by 9 p.m. A rare occurrence, I assure you. Flipping through the channels, I stopped on one of my faves, Sweet Home Alabama, with the charming Reese Witherspoon and dashing Josh Lucas.
Reese’s character returns to her roots to strong-arm her one-time love into a divorce so she can once and for all shake the small-town dust off her Pradas. When she walks into a bank and asks the teller, a high school chum, the location of the bank’s ATM, the teller matter-of-factly informs her the bank owner believes ATMs take away the personal interaction with customers—so they don’t have one.
When an interesting tidbit about kiosks landed in my e-mail last week, I couldn’t help but make a comparison between ATM machines and kiosks.
According to the news release from OpenTech Alliance Inc., self-storage customers across the nation used the company’s INSOMINIAC kiosks to rent 3,925 storage units, make 31,984 payments and purchase 1,456 locks. The total sum: a whopping $3.7 million in self-service transactions.
Whether you’re pro-kiosk or prefer face-to-face customer interaction, you can’t argue with these numbers. There’s no doubt technology is permeating through every aspect of the self-storage industry, even in small towns.
Having grown up and still live in the suburbs of Phoenix, which has always topped fastest-growing city lists, I don’t have much experience with small towns. But you gotta admit that sometimes it’s nice to visit a place where not everyone knows your name. Drug dealers, terrorists and just plain baddies aside, I imagine there are quite a few people who find the convenience and anonymity of kiosks wonderful.
Case in point: An 80-year-old customer of Kentucky Avenue Self-Storage in Indianapolis, Ind. According to an article in the ISS May issue, the woman paid her bill in the office with a check for years. After the kiosk was installed, the manager showed her how to use it. Now she’s a kiosk regular.
Even if a kiosk wouldn’t suit your property, it’s important to learn about the different types of automation available in the industry. Whether it’s pay-at-the-pump gas stations, self-serve checkouts at grocery stores or self-storage kiosks, there’s no doubt self-service automation is here to stay. Here are a few more articles about kiosks from the ISS archives:
Remodeling Your Facility with Kiosks
The 5 Ps of Self-Service Kiosks
The Modern Storage Employee
If you’re already using kiosks, please tell us about your experiences. Simply click on the leave comment button or e-mail me directly at [email protected].