Part 2 of our series on Technology Enabled Hospitality covers how technology can impact the delivery of a great hospitality experience in the venue.
Let's dive in.
Arrival: Guest Recognition
Danny Meyer says that guest recognition is the number reason guests cite for returning to his restaurants. But, how many faces can a single human remember? Unfortunately, there are limits to these things. Not so with technology.
Upon the guest’s arrival, with no action required from anyone, Wisely sends a push notification to the designated staff members: managers, hosts, bartenders, and so on. When a staff member swipes the notification, they can access relevant information about the guest: a picture, name, visit history, preferences, prior feedback, and more. From there, any staff member can deliver hospitality with the relevant information on a guest. Notifications occur for any guest that has joined a restaurant's appreciation program through the Wisely app: walk-ins, guests with reservations, and guests who are party to a larger reservation made under a different name.
During: Information Collection
During a guest's visit, the staff will collect information - every interaction is an opportunity to learn more: what the guest says, where they sit, how many people are in their party, how much they spend, or what they order. This is the raw material for an enhanced guest experience.
Historically, this information was sometimes keyed into a system (OpenTable or POS), potentially remembered by the staff, but often it slipped through a restaurant’s fingers.
With deep integration, Wisely is built to automatically capture anything that touches a restaurant's systems: transaction amounts, dates, items purchased, number of people in a party, server, table number, etc. To capture information that never touches a computer, staff can easily take notes via a smartphone, tablet, or smartwatch.
Across multi-unit restaurant groups, information captured at one is captured for all. Institutional knowledge of a guest increases with each visit, and is extended to all repeat customers, not just the top guests that the staff can remember.
The Farewell
The end to a perfect night is the staff ensuring that everything was delivered to the guest's liking. Unfortunately, it's not always possible during a fast-paced service.
To aid your staff, Wisely closes the visit with a push notification to the guest asking for feedback. If the guest quickly submits sub-par feedback, Wisely will alert the staff, so that they have a chance to communicate with the guest before they leave the restaurant, addressing the issue while it is still fresh in their minds.
If the feedback is submitted after the fact, restaurants receive the feedback directly and have an opportunity to communicate privately with the guest through the Wisely app. So that the staff doesn’t lose sight of previous issues, each guest’s feedback gets added to the restaurant’s guest profile. The next time the guest arrives, the staff will see what the guest has experienced before.
Most importantly, all the guest needs to do is put an app on their phone, and their phone in their pocket. The rest is magic.
Next in the Technology Enabled Hospitality series: After the Visit.
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Wisely empowers restaurant groups to grow and sustain profitability by acquiring valuable new guests, converting them into regulars, and keeping them happy for life. Our software is easy-to-use and enhances productivity, so staff can focus on what really matters. For more information or media inquiries, please contact us at hello@getwisely.com.
