With customer convenience ruling supreme and with the current pandemic hitting the world hard, it is time to go “contactless”.
Even before the pandemic hit us, restaurants, take away joints, airports, and retail outlets started installing self-service kiosks. But now with the global pandemic changing the entire scenario, self-check-in kiosks will start appearing increasingly everywhere.
Today, more and more hotels are also switching to self check in kiosk, something that was not quite common earlier. This is because there are various ways in which self-service kiosks are advantageous for hotels.
What are the benefits?
- Facilitates social distancing to ensure customer safety – Kiosks help in maintaining social distance because the guests will not come in contact with hotel staff. A Kiosk is easy to clean with alcohol. Basically, a kiosk is “contactless” and “cashless”; a guest can make the payments right at the terminal without handling cash physically. Furthermore, the hotels can keep wipes in front of the kiosk so that after using it patrons can wipe it. This way they can be satisfied and feel safe.
- No more waiting in queues – Standing in a queue is a hell of a job and nobody likes it. Unlike the traditional check-in procedure where a guest needs to stand in a line, a kiosk will help them to perform self-check-in by simply looking at the name and booking details such as name, booking number, email id, and so on. This way it serves more guests at a time. Furthermore, the guests will have the liberty to choose their rooms according to their will. This ensures a smooth experience for a weary traveler.
- Optimizes resources – Self-service kiosks facilitate to save staff time, papers, and other important resources. For instance, a self-service visitor management kiosk allows visitors, staff, and contractors to sign in. The process is so easy that a receptionist is not needed to assist the guests and so on. This way hotel staff can invest their time in performing other important jobs.
- More profitable in the long run – The initial cost of installing a kiosk is a little high but it starts to yield high returns on the investment. As mentioned earlier people nowadays love the convenience and a kiosk is way more convenient than any other check-in procedure. This will ensure growth in the number of customers.
- Connectivity – Self-service kiosks can be handled and accessed remotely because they are networked using cloud-based software. Anybody can access it from anywhere. This is beneficial for the hotel staff because they can feed new content, software, fixes, and more to the kiosks from any location.
- Meaningful and efficient interaction with guests – The fully automated kiosks will help the hotel staff to concentrate on client satisfaction for example; they can attend to emergency service issues or they can provide valuable information about the neighborhood or the sightseeing areas to the guests or engage with the guests while having hearty conversations. This way by enhancing the overall experience, the hotel will earn goodwill, in turn, gaining word-of-mouth publicity.
Laila Azzahra is a professional writer and blogger that loves to write about technology, business, entertainment, science, and health.