More and more establishments are embracing the convenience of self-service kiosks, giving their customers more control of their purchases and generating additional revenue via suggested upsells. Many restaurants report that orders placed on a self-service kiosk often cause people to spend significantly more when compared to a traditional ordering process, simply because they select more add-ons when not faced with someone waiting for their decision. A recent addition to the hospitality market is hotel self-service kiosks, making the end-to-end digital guest experience an industry standard. However, the kiosk market can be difficult to navigate and it’s not always clear how they bring value to a specific business. Below are three different ways operators are using kiosks today, and how they can help the business stand out among the competition.
Reducing the Strain at The Hotel Lobby
Today’s guest service levels are heavily affected by convenience and ease-of-access to the things they want most. Waiting in a long line at the front desk can leave guests with a less-than-stellar first impression of the hotel. Enabling guests to completely bypass the front desk and go directly to their room after a long trip can be a welcome surprise upon arrival. With a self-service kiosk in the lobby, guests can help themselves to check in, encode a room key, check out and email a folio, allowing them to bypass human interaction and lines if desired, while allowing hotel staff to increase productivity.
Bringing a Busy Cafeteria to Excellence
Cafeterias are notoriously busy spaces, often with 90% of a day’s customers arriving for lunch simultaneously. Places with buffets and other limited staff can tend to have bottlenecks forming at the POS. Adding Grab N Go kiosks can relieve the pressure on staff and add flexibility by enabling customers to enter any item they want and pay directly at the kiosk with the confidence of secure, PCI-validated payments.
Offering the Flexibility of 24/7 Service
Locations with a need for late night or early morning service, when staff levels are generally low, can quickly become an expensive operation to operate around the clock. An example of such locations are workplaces where employees work at odd hours and don’t want to have to look too far for nourishment, coffee or something to help keep them going. Adding a cloud-based self-service kiosk can help reduce staffing costs while enabling employees to get what they need, when they need it.
As more dining and other hospitality businesses deploy guest-facing kiosks, the competitive balance will shift. Guests find self-service an efficient alternative to get quicker access whether in food-service venues, or hotels and resorts.