Digital receptionist

Two or three years ago I went skiing in Vail with one of my very good friends. While there he took us to a ski shop to rent snow boards. The shop had an interesting customer receiving system in place. I have not thought about it again until just last week when I went to the doctor’s office.

When I walked in someone directed me to a touch monitor where I had to fill in my name and a few relevant facts. I was then directed to be seated and that I would hear my name called in a few minutes. Less than five minutes later I was in front of an information/need identifier (not unlike a leasing consultant) who took the vital info. Less than five minutes later I was being seen by a doctor. I remember being WOW’d by the whole experience.

In the ski shop the system was very similar.

I have thought about this a few times since and I know there are systems out there (kiosks). The reason I am really starting to think about it more is the whole social media scene. Prospects, I assume, expect to see and interact with technology in every facet of their lives. Do you think there would be adverse reactions if they walked into an office and were directed to a kiosk?

One cool use I see with this is maybe, just maybe a more accurate traffic source identifier. If they were presented with a menu of just the sources we advertised with, would they get it right?

Or, maybe we do the whole bar code on every advertisement thing where when they come in the first thing they do is scan the ad or computer print out. The computer print outs would be very akin to concert tickets you get from ticket master.

I know I threw a couple things out there. I am very interested in the thoughts of the community.

0 Responses

  1. I’m not sure… It goes against the recent trend against making a prospect fill out a guest card, and although I’m the last person to follow a trend in our industry, I happen to like that one. I recently moved, and one community asked me to fill out a guest card, which really put me off.

    Overall, I think if I was a prospect and there was no other prospects in the office, I would not appreciate having to put my information in the kiosk. However, if I’m going to have to wait a few minutes, then I wouldn’t mind at all, especially if after I entered the information I could look at floorplans, check out videos, or other prospect-oriented items.

    Even better, I put my information in and enter a password, which I can use at all other communities with a kiosk. Then I use that account to access the status of my application online at a later time.

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