When customers evaluate a self-service solution, the proverbial “tipping point” becomes price rather than value. The assumption used often is that ROI is highest with the lowest cost alternative. But self-service kiosk deployments aren’t simple one-criterion decisions. They are complex decisions of strategic importance. While evaluating value ask the tough questions:

• Is the solution scalable?
  At a deployment level of 10 units a vendor may look very good. What about 1000 units or more?

• How will reporting be handled when another service is added? Will the data remain integrated?
  For example, if you add a new service to the existing service mix, can that knowledge propagate to all the moving parts – from device, to application front-end to monitoring systems to operational systems like reporting, accounting, reconciliation etc., can you net balance and net settle?

• Does the application interface provide you an integrated view of the hardware data and the transaction data? For a few kiosks, it may not matter, but over time when data and number of kiosks increase, opening multiple applications to trouble shoot is timeconsuming.

• Does the self-service add to marketing clout? Through reduced costs, advanced analytics or engaged customers, the ultimate value of self-service is customer acceptance.

Rule 3
The least cost alternative will not provide the greatest long-term return.