Cleveron tests robotic self-service kiosk
Estonian parcel lockers company Cleveron will pilot its first self-service screen and parcel robot integration together with telecom company Telia as an alternative to branch offices in small locations.
Telia will set up a “self-service pod” in a small Estonian town, where the company’s clients can connect with customer service through a Cleveron self-service screen, pay for their goods on-site and receive the items from the connected Cleveron parcel robot.
The pilot aims to bring Telia’s services closer to its customers in areas, where having traditional service offices is not viable anymore due to the small population and increasing costs.
According to Katre Liiberg, Telia Estonia’s Head of Sales and Customer Service, the company has searched for a sustainable way to ensure the availability of its services in Estonia’s small towns and villages for quite some time.
“Regional representation is important for both us as a company and for the community, but the traditional solutions for providing services locally are not reasonable from a business perspective. As an Estonian company, we are always looking for ways to contribute to regional development.
“We see that Cleveron’s solution would help us take our services and support even closer to our customers and also enhance the digital competencies of the public. The “self-service” pod is our way of solving structural problems innovatively and sustainably. In the future we are planning to automate this solution even further so that Telia’s services would be available in the “self-service pod” 24/7,” said Liiberg.
The transformational solution will have an outer structure, created by Telia, which will ensure the customer’s privacy. Once in the pod, the customer can contact customer service through a video call via Cleveron’s self-service screen. The customer can pay for goods or services using the payment terminal added to the screen.
The pod also contains a small Cleveron parcel robot, which is pre-filled with the most popular products. The customer will receive the purchased item after completing the payment. If the desired item is not available, the courier will deliver it to the parcel robot and the customer can collect the purchase the next day.
Cleveron’s innovative self-service screen and parcel robot solution is a flexible and convenient opportunity for businesses to expand their footprint affordably. “It is time to think beyond the idea that a parcel robot is just for online orders,” said Cleveron’s Project Manager Arti Kütt.
“A parcel robot is an automated solution to hand over all kinds of items, and they can easily be pre-filled. We created a self-service screen as an additional feature that helps to expand possibilities – the screen and robot combo can be a service station or a complete store, almost like a high-tech vending machine.”
Kütt brings out that this kind of automatic store’s upkeep will be several times lower than for a regular store; it can also operate 24/7. The unit helps to provide services without direct human-to-human contact, which in today’s world is very important for the safety of the staff and customers.
