AMC Theatres enhances customer experience with all-in-one polytouch kiosks

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Second-largest cinema chain deploys new Omni-channel strategy to accelerate their business. Customers benefit from new features, quick check-out process and an improved service concept.

Freiburg, Germany, 23 March 2015 – AMC Theatres (NYSE:AMC), has rolled out Pyramid's polytouch all-in-one kiosk systems to enhance guest services and maximise sales revenues. During the deployment considerable effort was put into optimising check-out processes to avoid waiting times at the cash desks whilst integrating multiple sales channels including online, mobile and the theatre itself.

As part of its customer experience leadership programme and during its national remodelling programme AMC needed a more suitable kiosk with a more compelling design to better fit customer expectations and its theatre operations. The result is polytouch featuring "experience the difference".

The kiosks had an excellent response throughout the pilot phase at the first locations, as a result AMC has decided to extend the use of the polytouch self-service kiosks beyond its national multi-year remodelling programme to span the replacement of older generation kiosks in locations not being remodelled. Thus, AMC expects not only to keep increasing kiosk sales of tickets but also to offer a homogeneous experience to its guests across the country.

AMC Theatres is known for its customer service leadership and commitment to delivering a premium movie-watching experience with more comfort and convenience, inspiring greater customer loyalty. Lessons learned on older generation kiosks helped refine technical and business requirements for the next-generation kiosks, featuring advanced touch technology, flexibility of deployment and design, a future-proof upgrade path for payment technologies, etc.

Business objectives comprised of substantially speeding up the self-service ticket purchase process, enabling a greater percentage of ticket sales to be made through kiosks and contributing even more to customer satisfaction; whilst also providing the opportunity to increase customer engagement and develop sales.

Within only a few weeks Pyramid developed a fully customised polytouch kiosk to address AMC's needs: a portrait multi-touch screen tailored to AMC's corporate identity packaged with state-of-the-art Intel components and a series of peripherals including a thermal printer, a mag-card reader for payments and loyalty programme bonuses, and a barcode and QR-code scanner to encourage guest interaction.

"AMC needed the proposed solution to have several vital characteristics," said Alberto Perandones, VP Business Development at Pyramid Computer GmbH. "It had to be very high performance in order to optimise the customer experience, and rugged and reliable enough to withstand constant use. The ability to customise and upgrade was also important to enable AMC to take advantage of future new technologies. Modularity and integration were key requirements for facilitating easy deployment. An appealing design would enhance the movie-theatre environment. Finally, this all had to be backed by responsive, professional technical support. Our polytouch delivered on all counts."

"Pyramid's polytouch kiosk has been a real game changer for AMC," said Scott Winters, VP of Theatre Systems at AMC. "With its all-in-one design, placement within our theatres is highly flexible, giving AMC options previously not available. Its attractive look immediately catches our guests' eyes and entices them to give it a try. As a result, theatres deployed with polytouch experience a significantly higher usage rate and guest acceptance than our legacy kiosks. Pyramid has been with us every step of the way to help ensure the success of this exciting, new kiosk."

The Pyramid polytouch integrated kiosk chosen by AMC features capacitive multi-touch (processing up to 20 touches simultaneously with less than 10ms latency), IP54-rated screen with chemically hardened, non-reflective glass. Running at full HD resolution, it features an Intel Core processor and allows for customised expansion modules such as a QR/barcode scanner, digital I/O, programmable buttons and an emergency shut-off button.