USPS show benefits of digital signage
The US Postal Services has released results that show the effectiveness of digital signage in redirecting customers to in-store self-service options. With over 32,000 busy retail locations, encouraging customers to change their behaviour and help themselves to information and services is a central part of the USPS’s strategy.
In a recent test the Post Office installed 30-inch “Stop and Turn” screens in the main entrances, showing short, direct and simple 3-5 second messages such as “Get out line. Buy stamps at vending” or “Jump the line, Ship pacages at the APC”.
The USPS has 2,500 APC’s (Automated Postal Center), interactive kiosks that sell stamps and provide a mail service point for packages. The “Stop and Turn” digital signage screen had the effect of making customers more likely to use both the stamp vending (8.7% against 6.5%) and the APC service (7.4% against 3.4%).
The digital screens were also used to promote the availability of postal services in the 70,000 other non-post office locations (such as supermarkets). Again the digital signage tests showed a 22% jump in awareness – and to prove the point, revenues from stamp sales declined in the test sites, only to rise in the local alternative locations.
AKA COMMENT
It is easy to see why the Post Office is innovating in self-service. A reduction in human interaction of 2.2% and 4% across 32,000 locations would result in a vast saving of staff time. This not only opens up the opportunity to cut costs in-store, but as the banks have found, it frees-up valuable employee time for selling higher margin and more complex products.
Customers are proving themselves ever more comfortable with the concept of self-service, what started with the ATM has spread through the internet to cover a whole range of different product categories. The difficulty has always been persuading customers to use the silent ‘box in the corner’.
From this research it would seem that combining the kiosk with dynamic digital signage may hold the key.
The US Postal Services has released results that show the effectiveness of digital signage in redirecting customers to in-store self-service options. With over 32,000 busy retail locations, encouraging customers to change their behaviour and help themselves to information and services is a central part of the USPS’s strategy.
In a recent test the Post Office installed 30-inch “Stop and Turn” screens in the main entrances, showing short, direct and simple 3-5 second messages such as “Get out line. Buy stamps at vending” or “Jump the line, Ship pacages at the APC”.
The USPS has 2,500 APC’s (Automated Postal Center), interactive kiosks that sell stamps and provide a mail service point for packages. The “Stop and Turn” digital signage screen had the effect of making customers more likely to use both the stamp vending (8.7% against 6.5%) and the APC service (7.4% against 3.4%).
The digital screens were also used to promote the availability of postal services in the 70,000 other non-post office locations (such as supermarkets). Again the digital signage tests showed a 22% jump in awareness – and to prove the point, revenues from stamp sales declined in the test sites, only to rise in the local alternative locations.
AKA COMMENT
It is easy to see why the Post Office is innovating in self-service. A reduction in human interaction of 2.2% and 4% across 32,000 locations would result in a vast saving of staff time. This not only opens up the opportunity to cut costs in-store, but as the banks have found, it frees-up valuable employee time for selling higher margin and more complex products.
Customers are proving themselves ever more comfortable with the concept of self-service, what started with the ATM has spread through the internet to cover a whole range of different product categories. The difficulty has always been persuading customers to use the silent ‘box in the corner’.
From this research it would seem that combining the kiosk with dynamic digital signage may hold the key.
