Modern businesses are leveraging various technology and applications to drive productivity and sales. For customer-facing industries, one of the best ways to garner more interest and help in providing instant access to purchase decisions is by deploying kiosks. Configuring digital devices into kiosk mode to benefit enterprises is the key task to drive the anticipated growth in sales and traction.

With Scalefusion, transforming Android and iOS devices into kiosks is simplified. Businesses can effectively turn Android tablets and iPads into kiosks and configure them into an interactive kiosk running business-specific applications and websites. Scalefusion simplifies managing kiosks effectively to optimize performance and securing them against misuse and unauthorized access. 

In this blog, we shall be covering some crucial queries related to kiosk such as what is a kiosk, what are the different types of kiosks, what is kiosk mode, what are the various types of kiosk mode and what are kiosk mode management types offered by Scalefusion. 

What is a Kiosk?

Kiosks are stand-alone, mounted digital devices that help users to accomplish tasks at their own pace with an interactive digital experience. Kiosks are used to accelerate processes and transactions without the need of human assistance and are found almost across all industries. These are essentially self-service machines that run on minimalistic hardware configuration. 

Kiosks are mostly used at public spaces as way-finders, digital signage or self-operated mPOS systems. These devices are accessed by multiple stakeholders and are not physically managed by any employee.  Kiosks are generally found in retail stores, airports, hospitals, school campuses, company cafeterias, conferences, and other places. According to the requirement, kiosks are also interactive, for e.g. self-service access to products or services, automated check-in systems, surveys and other are for displaying information like showcasing catalogs.

What is a Kiosk Used for ?

• For self check-in kiosks at airports
• For food ordering at self-service restaurants
• For way-finding in hotels, museums, shopping malls
• For online shopping and product finding within retail stores

What are Types of Kiosk

Depending on the use-case and the nature of the business, there are several deployment types of kiosks.

1. Information Kiosks

These kiosks are mostly used to educate the user and provide specific static information. Most commonly, the information kiosks are deployed at shopping malls, theme parks and museums as way finders. They are locked to run a single application and can also be interactive kiosks where users can touch and pinch elements within the app, on the screen. Information kiosks are also used at hospitals to display patient information. In retail stores, information kiosks can help to provide information related to products and availability. In transport hubs, kiosks are used to display timetables and schedules.

2. Internet Kiosks

These kiosks can be computers, laptops, tablets or iPads that run a browser with an active internet connection. These kiosks are used to facilitate browsing access in public places. Most commonly, you can find internet kiosks at airports, transport hubs and hotel waiting areas.

3. Self-service Kiosks

These are interactive kiosks used to complete tasks such as ordering food in self-service or takeaway restaurants, paying bills, taking appointments, paying bills and filling forms. While the most commonly used self-service kiosks are ATM machines. Other common kiosks are used for self check-in at airports, purchasing parking tickets

4. Digital Signage Kiosks

These kiosks are used for advertising in public spaces, hotel and hospital lobbies, common areas in office as well as events, expos and trade shows. These kiosks are configured to play videos, audios, presentations and images. 

What are the Benefits of Kiosk for Enterprises:

• Kiosks can be customized to specific business needs such as advertising, providing information or accomplishing tasks
• Kiosks enable attractive presentation of the complete product line or service range
• Kiosks garner user attention and enhance customer experience
• Deploying kiosks helps in reducing labor costs, getting more things done in lesser time

What is Kiosk Mode?

While it is easy to understand kiosk types since they are widely observed all around us, knowing what is kiosk mode is imperative. In this section, we’ve shed some light on the common query of what is kiosk mode. Kiosk mode in essentially implies to a device being locked to single or multiple applications to act as a kiosk. These applications can be configured by the enterprise IT admins. In a kiosk mode, users can only access applications and websites allowed by the company’s IT teams, preventing the kiosks from any other use except for business. 

Running devices into kiosk mode gives the total control of the device to the IT admin who can configure the content displayed on the device, ensure that the device is used only for business and curb excess data costs by restricting access to non-business websites.

How Does Kiosk Mode Work?

In Kiosk mode, the default device launcher is controlled using an MDM solution. The device’s launcher is completely replaced by a new launcher customized by the IT admin. The apps, app drawers, allowed websites, hardware and software keys, display settings and notification center is configured by the IT via the MDM server.

A kiosk mode can be enabled with the help of an MDM software. Scalefusion empowers IT admins to enroll their kiosk devices and configure them into single or multi-app kiosks mode. Using Scalefusion, administrators can also configure kiosks to run into one browser mode with restricted access to whitelisted websites.

What are the Types of Scalefusion Kiosk Mode?.....