Engineers – especially retired ones – are always looking for projects to do. Ron took up a data management project to design Inspection Reminder Post Cards for Auto Dealers to send to their customers to remind them to get Annual Inspection completed or Auto Registration completed before it expired. After completing this project, Ron accepted the challenge to create a kiosk for Automobile Dealerships to manage and identify keys coming in for service and also to be able to return keys stored inside the dealership to customers 24 hours per day upon demand. Thus, the Kiwi Kiosk was born!

After completing a “Premium” Kiosk, the team discovered that this could be used by any service shop needing to return keys to customers 24 hours per day. We also discovered that the “Premium” Kiosk (expensive) was more than what most of the small shops needed. Therefore, we went back to an original working design we created to simply return keys to customers – a design that we used for initial proof of concept. We dusted it off and cleaned it up and the Kiwi Kiosk was born!

The Kiwi Kiosk is a fraction of the cost of the “Premium” Kiosk. Yet, it provides 100% of the functionality of the “Premium” Kiosk. Shops using the Kiwi Kiosk use their current drop slot and we have the customers dropping off keys either enter the identifier on the envelope that their keys are in OR take a photo of their keys before putting them in the drop slot. Therefore the service shop has easy identification of each key received. The Kiwi Kiosk is designed to drop out keys to customer on demand – 24/7. The Kiwi Kiosk can be placed on a countertop or pedestal inside the shop to allow people to simply come in and pick up their key after service without needing to wait for a service representative. The Kiwi Kiosk can be mounted on an exterior wall making it accessible 24 hours per day so that customers can get their key.

eppili is a secure cloud based application. It runs on any device with a modern browser. There is no software to install. Everyone gets the latest updates automatically. The customer uses their mobile phone to interact with the Kiwi Kiosks. All data is encrypted and all data is transmitted over secure connections. Most transactions use 2-Factor Authorization for increased security. Shops pay a fixed monthly subscription fee for the app. The customers set up their account under the service shop they do business with. There are no charges to the customer.

This is a custom App (built on eppili infrastructure) that is used to operate the Kiwi Kiosks. It was developed with both Shops and Customers in mind!

Customers can add and access information about their vehicle as well as their license and auto registration and insurance (text and/or photos). They can quickly order services from the shop on the app and sign the work order. This order is then printed by the shop as the service request and information can be transferred to the shop service system. If the customer enters dates of expiration for license, registration, insurance or registration, they can check a box to have a reminder sent to them 1 month prior to expiration. Customer information (registration and license photos, etc.) is instantly available to the customer, as long as they have internet connection.

Shops are given full control over the orders placed in the Kiwi App and keys dropped-off and keys returned to customer through the Kiwi Kiosk. The Shop has full control of the services in the “Quick Pick” section for their Shop.