Whether you operate a Quick Service Restaurant, hotel, or similar type of hospitality venue, customer satisfaction is always going to be an evergreen priority for you and your team. After all, it’s one of the key metrics that affects the overall public perception of your brand. It’s one of the many reasons why other factors like speed and efficiency are also really important - as well as being operational priorities, they also have a strong influence on customer satisfaction.
And with public expectations having undergone a notable shift in recent years, now rising numbers of UK businesses are introducing hospitality kiosks into their premises - not to replace staff, but to shift them into higher-value, guest-facing roles.
It’s a significant move, especially since the hospitality industry has historically been slow to adapt innovative technology. Even relatively recently, digital self-service kiosks were still seen as largely optional amenities - but they’re now much more deeply integrated into the entire hospitality ecosystem. Modern hospitality kiosks have a wide range of benefits to offer, from universal efficiency boosts to more sector-specific advantages. We’ll drill down to those in just a moment. First, let’s take a closer look at exactly how your customers’ expectations are changing.
Customer expectations are always evolving, but they’ve recently been accelerated by some key events over the past few years. The Covid-19 pandemic is one obvious example, as it forced a lot of traditionally human interactions to transition into a digital space, and lots of those transitions stuck. For example, customers are now used to managing bookings, payments and check-ins through their own devices, on their own schedule.
Even more recently, the rise of AI has further shaped those expectations - customers are now becoming used to instant responses to simple questions, and systems that adapt to their preferences in real time, whatever the time of day.
With those routine interactions taken care of, customers now instead rely on staff more for higher-value face-to-face interactions, and to provide a more personalised level of service than ever before. So, it’s worth thinking about whether or not your hotel or QSR establishment is currently meeting that bar. And if not, what can you do to address that? One of the easiest places to start is by looking at some of the most common sticking points for the customer experience - namely, queues.
It’s a decades-old joke that we love a good queue here in the UK - in fact, it’s something of an unofficial point of pride. Time-honoured humour aside though, the truth is that even British customers are losing their patience for long queues these days, and they can have a surprisingly big impact on the overall customer experience. Here are the four most influential ways that can happen.
Damaging brand perception
Checking in or ordering from your business is often one of the very first interactions that your customers will have with your brand, and if they find it to be a negative one, they’ll tend to remember it. You’ll want all of your customers to feel valued right from the word go, but if they end up waiting too long to get checked in or served, they won’t feel valuable at all. And that can take a lot of time to put right.
Lowering standard of service
When long queues form, staff are typically placed under an implicit time pressure to get them down. They’re forced to focus more on the essentials of the interaction - processing payments, printing tickets, checking redeemed promotions. That gives them less time to provide a more personalised standard of service, such as answering questions in detail, or offering the choice of optional extras.
Lowering repeat business
Put simply, if customers find themselves waiting in long queues, or don’t feel like they’re being valued by your business, they won’t come back. If you’re unlucky, they may use online reviews or publicly-available surveys to make it clear exactly why they won’t return - which can have an even more prolonged impact on customer loyalty.
Reducing revenue
Long queues can really dampen a customer’s enthusiasm to interact further with your business - for example, tired hotel guests will just want to get checked in quickly so they can go upstairs, while hungry customers in QSR locations will just want to get their food as soon as they can. In both instances, they’re less receptive to reviewing upgrades, add-ons or premium services - which is why long queues can have a direct measurable impact on average customer spend.
There’s a wide range of ways in which kiosks can potentially improve the overall guest experience. As you’d expect, a lot of these are centred around speed and efficiency - but it’s also about greater flexibility and customer control.
Kiosks cut down on long wait times
Quite simply, using self-service kiosks in hospitality can enable you to introduce additional service points, which can help you cut down on actual wait times by serving more customers simultaneously. This makes a particularly big difference at the points where delays most frequently happen, including check-in at hotels, and ordering counters in QSR settings.
They can also shorten perceived waiting times by allowing your customers to engage immediately, which is less frustrating than standing passively in a queue.
They give your customers greater control
One of the main reasons why customers often find queues so irritating is the lack of control (mostly over how fast it’s moving). Guest self-service technology can give them that control back - they can move through the options at their own pace, and understand how far through the process they are. They also have more time and freedom to choose extras and premium options that suit them, without the risk of feeling undue pressure from a long queue behind them.
Kiosks can make your guests more comfortable
By nature, hospitality settings can sometimes be high-stress environments, both for staff and customers alike. QSR and hotel kiosk solutions can ease that stress in a number of ways - they can provide an alternative option for customers who might want to avoid face-to-face interactions if they’re tired, frazzled or anxious, while language options can support international guests by reducing the risk of miscommunication. Accessibility is a core expectation of modern kiosks, especially since it’s now underpinned by legislation like the European Accessibility Act.
Your team can focus more on people
Kiosks primarily take care of the more repetitive tasks, including check-in, ordering, ticketing and basic information requests. The point is not to replace your staff, but give them more time for meaningful interactions - they can spend more time welcoming guests, answering any detailed queries, resolving issues and offering tailored recommendations, all of which enhances the customer experience.
We’ve been working with retail and hospitality brands for more than 20 years at Evoke, and with more than 1000 installations every year, our team knows exactly how to help you get the most out of your digital solution. Our expertise enables us to offer an in-depth consultative approach, so you can count on us to deliver a bespoke solution tailored specifically to your commercial goals.