Review: Jack in the Box - Self-Service Kiosk

A nifty device at some Jack in the Box locations, is the Self-Service Kiosk which allows you to order and pay for your order via touchscreen. To encourage its use (and encourage buying in general), there's often a promotional free value item (I've seen free tacos and churros so far) with the purchase of a combo via the machine.

I tend to find that, while it's not necessarily faster, it is more consistent (and sometimes, sadly, friendlier) than dealing with a person. Plus it's a gadget, and gadgets are cool.

It takes cash, credit, and gift cards, so all your bases are covered unless you somehow get it in your mind to pay for fast food with a check (I don't think they even take checks).

It has a pretty nice visual presentation with pictures for every item, giving you a better idea of what you're ordering than the menu board.

It even promotes new items with "try me" icons. The window on the right is where you can keep track of what you've ordered (sure, beats having your order quickly read back to you).

Hm, what to do if I want more than 6 Chicken Sandwiches?

One of the things to be careful of, is the kiosk is pretty good at the upsell and apparently can track the restaurants inventory. You can see about adding a slice of cheese is 30 cents and that real Swiss cheese is sold out. With a person, you'd have to ask first if you could add cheese and second how much it would cost, which sometimes they may or may not know. Then again, I don't believe the machine allows you to hold the mayo or lettuce or whatnot.

Ah, bacon for 50 cents. Does bacon, like butter, make everything better? I think it does!

Before you think the kiosk is totally a promotional tool to get you to buy more, it also has substitutions that will decrease the cost of your meal such as subbing bottled water for soda or replacing your fries with something cheaper.

Once you have your order the way you like it, paying is as easy as selecting a payment type and swiping your card. A receipt prints out and you just wait for your order to be called.

The Self-Service Kiosk is not without a few drawbacks however. For one, it doesn't except coupons. Secondly, some people just aren't comfortable with technology and prefer dealing with a person. Also, as I mentioned, it can't completely customized your food the way you want.

While I don't think it will ever completely replace a live person taking your order, Jack in the Box's self-service kiosk is pretty convenient and gives you a degree of customization and substitution that you may not have known existed (or may not have ever really thought about). At the very least, you need to have a person there just in case patrons can't figure out to use the kiosk.

Still, I'm quite impressed by the amount of thought that seemed to have gone into creating the interface for Jack in the Box's Self-Service Kiosk. It really makes it fairly intuitive and easy to use. Plus, having pictures of every menu item makes it easier to decide what you want to get.