Holiday resorts:
Online ordering would be a great way to give holidaymakers an extra-special experience. It would also generate additional revenue streams by capturing the camper’s (or glamper’s) extra pound.
Hotels:
Why would you encourage guests to look for food externally when you can encourage them to order from the hotel restaurant and kitchen via your own app or website?
Theme parks:
If skipping the food line, in the same way as they skip the ride queue makes a family of thrill-seekers happy and leads to greater spending, surely being able to pre-order a post-ride milkshake is a no brainer?
The above are excerpts from our previous blogs. As you can see, in the past we’ve focused on the shortening of queues in order to grant a better customer experience, or to prevent a customer looking externally for food and drink. What we haven’t discussed is the use of ordering technology to tackle operational bottlenecks and pinch points.
Within the leisure industry, Friday evenings and Saturday mornings see a rapid rush of customers, turning up with the desire to check-in quickly or gain rapid admittance. Those that arrive on the Friday, in particular, can prove tough to please. Tired after a long day at work, or having negotiated rush-hour traffic, they (understandably) lack patience when queues move slowly or other customers dominate the attention of staff. Sadly, these are queues that can’t be cut down easily. Passport checks, room key distribution and the taking of credit card details will always take time.
What can be done is the release of staff from other areas of the business to the check-in line. With more people handling customers at check-in/entrance, queues can be processed faster. That might be easier said than done, especially when the checked-in guests are sure to be hungry and hitting the eateries as soon as they’ve settled in. That’s where the benefit of pre-ordering comes in.
If it’s clear orders are going to be higher than average than usual, and the type/quantity of dishes to be cooked are known, the kitchen can begin prep earlier than usual in order to cope with the rush later. This eases time strain and ensures customers receive their food promptly and to the food outlet’s standards.
Not only that, if the team knows when to expect a customer, then front-of-house management and serving can be streamlined – freeing up team members. With the restaurant machine well-oiled and running like clockwork, decisions can then be made to move staff around – perhaps sending some to help on the front desk/booths – admitting customers, checking-in guests and, ultimately, loosening the leisure industry bottleneck.
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