Otter Garden Centres have been a fixture across the south west of England for the past six decades. The family-owned business was founded in Devon in 1964 and now has seven outlets across its home county, Somerset and as far east as Hampshire.
Priding itself on providing a warm, friendly, down-to-earth experience across all of its garden centres, Otter specialises in plants for the home and garden, and grows 80% of the plants it sells at its own dedicated nursery.
Customers can also shop for garden furniture, barbecues and accessories, garden buildings and even clothing and footwear. And when they’re finished with the retail therapy, there are coffee shops and restaurants at every site for shoppers to relax in and enjoy a drink, a snack or a meal.
AURES partner Open Retail Solutions has been supplying EPOS systems to Otter for the past 18 years. So, when the company decided it was time to explore self-service options, it naturally turned to its long-standing supplier. And Open Retail Solutions recommended AURES kiosks.
The Challenge
Otter was looking for a way to boost ordering efficiency at its restaurants. With the existing staffed POS at its flagship garden centre in Ottery St Mary, Devon, it could only process one order at a time, which led to queues building up during busy periods.
The client knew that offering more till points would improve the customer experience and at the same time increase sales throughput. But a lack of available space meant that adding further staffed POS terminals was not an option.
Self-service kiosks stood out as the obvious solution. With a smaller footprint than staffed tills, kiosks would make effective use of the available space. As well as reducing wait times, Otter’s management was also keen on giving customers a choice between staffed and self-service options.
Otter asked long-time partner Open Retail Solutions to lead an initial implementation. But as Russell Wilkins, owner and director of the EPOS specialist explains, kiosks were new territory for his business. “We are a traditional POS provider and to date have had little experience supplying self-service kiosks to our clients,” said Russell. “So, we decided to look for a software partner who could help us deliver exactly what Otter needed.”
The Solution
The project saw two double-sided AURES KOMET DUO kiosks installed at the Ottery St Mary restaurant to provide four self-service ordering and payment points.
KOMET kiosks provide flexible all-purpose self-service solutions suitable for a wide range of environments. The YUNO Kiosk 27” touchscreens can be wall-mounted or, as in this case, deployed freestanding on a dedicated stand. This also allows for two screens to be installed back-to-back to create a ‘DUO’ kiosk, creating further space efficiencies by offering two interfaces on the same footprint.
To assist with UX development for the new kiosks, Open Retail Solutions contacted QikServe. QikServe is a software developer for the hospitality industry that specialises in digital ordering systems, including kiosk platforms and applications.
Speaking about the partnerships involved in the project, Russell said: “We chose AURES hardware because we have a working relationship with them and have used their POS hardware before. Otter Garden Centres were keen on the double-sided kiosk idea and liked the look of the AURES units.
“We decided to partner with QikServe because of their knowledge of the industry, they seemed like the logical choice. One of the features of their kiosk software is an accessibility button which can be used by wheelchair users to bring the menu down to the bottom of the kiosks for ease of use. Touches like this demonstrate the knowledge QikServe brings to the table as a leading provider in the industry.
“We got a fully functional integration up and running within the agreed timescales. Other features include options to easily list menu items as “sold out” and the system lets you update price changes to in a timely manner. Another feature Otter is using is the ability to set times for different menus, so that the breakfast menu is only shown up until 11:30am and the main menu then shows between 12:00 and 3:00pm.”
Otter Garden Centres is using the initial deployment as a pilot with a view to rolling out kiosks at the restaurants and cafes across its other six locations.
If you would like to find out more about the AURES kiosk range, please contact us today!
📧: salesUK@aures.com
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