hospitality
your hotel or resort, human interactions
and ease of use have to come first,
technology has to come second.
According to data collected from
the IBM Survey and Kiosk Marketplace
Surveys, this is what your digital-first
guest looks like today; 88% expect digital
engagement, 61% are willing to use a
completely automated experience, 78%
say their experiences using an automated
service was positive, and 52% indicated
that they prefer self-service tech over
human interaction.
"The front desk is now a lobby
of beautiful interactivity with
hosts available to help"
So, where do you start? Identify the
moments that can drastically alter your
guest’s perception of the experience.
These moments might seem obvious,
but a Cornell Hospitality Study has
shown that you can have two identical
22 KIOSK solutions
hotels, equally beautiful, pleasant, and
comfortable, and one single thing can
affect your customer’s satisfaction by
up to 47%: check-in time. If the wait
time to check-in is over 5-minutes, your
customers don’t just dislike it, they hate it.
A frictionless experience
The first thing to focus on is making sure
that wait doesn’t happen – let guests
check-in themselves. Start with your most
valuable customers and make the first
check-in moments streamlined. Perhaps
make this visible to other customers to
encourage loyalty. Second, think about all
the moments after check-in where your
hotel policies/procedures might serve
as an inhibitor to your guest getting to
what they want to do. Perhaps it’s too
long waiting at the lift, it’s too complicated
to order room service, too complicated
to check-out, difficult to get the Internet
password or find the concierge.
Whatever the issue, identify those
friction points and start fixing them. By
the way, it doesn’t always have to be a