Glossary
Kiosk mode
A self-service screen left on a stand where visitors enter their own details, and which resets after each person. In lead capture it means a tablet showing the exhibitor's form under the exhibitor's account, as opposed to the visitor's own phone or the salesperson's.
The word comes from the unattended terminals in airports and shops: a screen that does one thing, for whoever walks up to it, and starts over when they leave. On a trade show stand the one thing it does is take a contact.
What makes a screen a kiosk
Three properties, and a tablet with a form open is not yet a kiosk without them. It runs under the exhibitor's account, so nothing has to be installed or signed into on the visitor's side. It resets by itself after each entry and after a period of inactivity, so the next person never sees the previous one's details. And leaving it is deliberate, behind a code or a lock, so a visitor cannot wander from the form into the exhibitor's data.
What it is good for, and what it is not
A kiosk catches the visitor who is waiting: the counter is busy, the salesperson is with someone else, and a screen that asks for a name and an email turns that minute into a lead. It also suits the visitor who would rather type than hand over a card. It does not catch the visitor walking past, and it does not follow a salesperson into the aisle, which is why it sits alongside the card and the lead capture done by staff rather than replacing them.
A kiosk shares the stand's network, which is routinely poor. The useful ones keep each entry on the device and send it later, which is what offline capture describes.
In LeadShake the kiosk is called the visitor tablet: a page of the application opened on any tablet, locked with a four digit exit code, showing the campaign's form and its QR code for visitors who prefer their own phone.
Questions
For the visitors who stop at the stand it does more: they type their details and answer the exhibitor's questions, which a scanner cannot ask. It does not read the badges of people walking past, and it only works for visitors willing to spend twenty seconds. The two measure different things, contacts against conversations.
Related terms
- Lead capture
- Collecting the contact details of someone you met, with their agreement, so you can follow up. It is the reverse of a business card: instead of giving your details away, you record theirs.
- Offline capture
- Recording a lead on a phone or tablet that has no network at the time, keeping it on the device and sending it when the connection returns, without creating it twice. It is what makes lead capture usable in an exhibition hall, where the network fails for most of the day.
- QR fallback
- A QR code shown alongside an NFC card so phones that cannot tap, or have NFC switched off, reach the same page with their camera. Any card that relies on NFC alone loses those visitors.