Drive-thru Government Kiosk for Shrjah Khorfakkan Municipality

By Panashi Trends and Technologies

Recently, Panashi FZCO had an exciting opportunity to work with the Khorfakkan Municipality based in Sharjah, UAE. Khorfakkan Municipality is a local government body that takes care of the public service administration and policy implementation of a local region in Sharjah. The municipality offers a plethora of services to the citizens and therefore information dissemination was crucial.

The Municipality entrusted Panashi to design and implement a drive-thru kiosk machine that could easily provide essential service-related information through the kiosk touchscreen.

After several client-meetings and discussions, our team designed and implemented a fully-functional and efficient “Smart Inquiry Kiosk” for Khorfakkan Municipality.

And the result was – utmost convenience for the users and improved efficiency for the municipality! Our team at Panashi, appreciates the municipality’s decision to serve their customers better through the deployment of a highly capable drive-thru government kiosk at the municipality premises.

Now let’s dig into the kiosk features and benefits.

What is a Drive-thru Kiosk?

A drive-thru kiosk is a self-service kiosk terminal meant for travelling or commuting customers. The drive-thru kiosks implemented in restaurant settings are common. These drive-thru food-ordering kiosk terminals serve those busy, travelling customers order their meals without leaving their car.

Drive-thru terminals are well-known and appreciated for their added convenience.

It’s not just for restaurants that you could implement a drive-thru kiosk. You could deploy drive-thru kiosk machines for a wide range of industries and businesses like governments, hospitality sector, transport sector, retail and many other businesses too.

Problems faced by the Municipality

Of course, the Municipality had to attend a surplus of service enquiries and it was practically difficult to process them in time. The pain points are listed below.

Increased wait time – People come in large numbers to perform a number of transactions at government local bodies. From a mere service enquiry to complex transactions, meeting the officials, the purpose of the visit varies. Therefore, people have to wait for considerable time in the municipality premises.
Disability consideration – it was practically difficult for citizens with disability to navigate the entire building for service-related inquiries. The Municipality prioritized inclusivity.
Large number of service inquiries – It was practically difficult to process the large number of service-related inquiries.
Reduced customer experience – Service delays, inefficient information dissemination and increased waiting times affected the overall customer experience.

Our Solution - Panashi Drive-thru government kiosk

For ease of access, the drive-thru kiosk was deployed along the pavement, just in front of the Municipality building. In fact, the kiosk terminal welcomed the citizens!

After several consultations, site visits, and considering the inclusivity aspect, we suggested the most feasible solution to the problems faced by the client. The solution was none other than a drive-thru kiosk for government.

REMEMBER – the drive-thru kiosk should be easily accessible to the users. Or else, the purpose is never met!

The drive-thru kiosk was designed to provide the necessary service-related information to the general public via video chat.

This drive-thru kiosk is equipped with an outdoor-rated screen, an inbuilt sensor, camera, and a mic that ensure seamless drive-thru experience for the users.

After the kiosk deployment, the citizens could easily conduct service-inquiries from the comfort of their cars, without entering the building premises.

And the process just takes few minutes. Here is how.

The user needs to drive the car towards the kiosk terminal.
Wait for a few seconds, so that the inbuilt kiosk sensor and camera spot the vehicle.
Once the vehicle is spotted, the kiosk turns on, and displays the necessary prompt to initiate user-interaction.
The user can now access the kiosk touchscreen and conduct the desired service-related inquiry.
The user may simply leave after accessing the information.

Isn’t it highly convenient for the citizens?

Benefits of the Drive-thru Kiosk

The benefits help both the Municipality officials as well as the general public.

Improved efficiency – the Municipality is able to reduce the number of counter-visits and interactions by diverting a good number of users to the drive-thru kiosk terminal. When service-enquiry became automated, it helped officials put in more time and effort to attend more productive and tedious tasks. This improved the overall efficiency.
Enhanced Convenience – The Smart Inquiry Kiosk offers a high degree of convenience for the users. The users needn’t have to invest their precious time in the Municipality building just for the sake of service-inquiry.
Inclusivity – the drive-thru kiosk helps people with disability easily access the information, hence promotes inclusivity.
Improved CX – Now, the users may easily access the services via the touchscreen interface avoiding human intervention and wait-time, which in turn, improves CX.
The users get to know the availability of Municipality officials via the kiosk terminal without visiting the building, which reduces congestion inside the building.

Other use-case scenarios

1. Drive-thru kiosk for restaurants – I know, most of you are familiar with the drive-thru kiosk terminals of fast-food giants like McDonalds and Subway. Many of you might have spotted a Starbucks Coffee drive-thru terminal during your journey. Studies indicate that the major chunk of QSR transactions happen to be via drive-thru kiosk terminals, and that amounts to 70%. The benefits of self-service technology coupled with drive-thru facility presents a highly convenient, on-the-go dining experience.
2. Payment processing – Retailers and telecom service providers may deploy drive-thru kiosks as an additional service outlet or a standalone service point to reduce customer wait time. Moreover, they can also use them as an effective branding platform. Customers may easily access all the relevant information related to available stocks, product-info, and make payments for services like mobile recharges, sim dispensing, service-termination etc. Your customers would thank you wholeheartedly, if they could access all the relevant information and perform the basic transactions without having to wait at the counter!
3. Information access – You may deploy a drive-thru kiosk as an Information Access portal for a wide range of industries and institutions ranging from cultural institutions like museums to transportation hubs, entertainment houses, parks, malls, recreation centres etc. Providing easy access to information is vital to the success of any service-based institution or establishment.
4. Ticketing and booking - Both the transport and hospitality sectors provide ticketing and booking services for their customers. Bus depots, railway stations, hotels and resorts, movie houses etc. are constantly on the lookout for creating convenient ticketing experiences for their customers.
5. Drive-thru kiosk for banks – Mainstream banks may deploy drive-thru kiosks that offer banking services like withdrawals, transfers, cash deposits etc. to facilitate easy and convenient banking for the customers. The tellers would express their deep appreciation and gratitude, if you could route some of the customers to the drive-thru terminals. Yes, it gives them some time to breathe!

The final takeaway

I wouldn't prefer to enter a brick-and-mortar office or stand in a queue at a counter to make any service-related inquiries, if I could do the same through a drive-thru kiosk terminal. Why should I waste my precious time driving to the parking lot, leaving my car, and then taking a brisk walk to the counter? If it were during busy peak hours, I might even have to stand in the queue for several minutes or hours! Such a time-consuming affair, isn’t it?

Drive-thru government kiosks offer a feasible and convenient solution to provide relevant information and updates to the citizens on-the-go.

Well informed and duty-bound citizens are always an asset to any nation. The government bodies, departments and other agencies should take all the necessary measures to make the process of information dissemination smooth and hassle-free.

The hardware components that are listed above perform most of the present-day kiosk tasks. But the market demands are constantly growing. And technology innovation is happening by leaps and bounds. Kiosk hardware has evolved over time to satisfy the shifting demands of both customers and service providers. Self-service kiosks have been in the scene for several decades, improving the operational efficiency of the service provider and improving customer experiences. We can expect further advancements in kiosk hardware as technology develops, which will pave the way for even more remarkable trends and advancements in the kiosk industry!

Khorfakkan Municipality – Drive-thru Government Kiosk